Kingsport Harvest of Hope Community Garden

We extended our storage building to provide secure storage for our lawn mower. Previously, a volunteer had to store it at their home and haul it back and forth to the garden. We also launched a major maintenance project to lay down landscape fabric and crushed stone in the aisles between our raised beds to keep weeds under control and keep aisles accessible to those with mobility issues. We have now reached 94.5% "occupancy"
with 86 of our 91 raised beds in use by gardeners, including many first timers and those with mobility issues

What challenges did or does your project face?

With the maintenance project being heavy work, we have had a need for additional volunteers who can handle heavy lifting. We also have run through, or made commitments to run through, the money we had donated through the Seed Money grant to pay for compost, building materials, and crushed stone.

How are you working to overcome them?

We had a group of high school young men work about five hours hauling and spreading the crushed stone. We have solicited for more help, including with the United Way Week of Caring. We hope to apply for another grant when Seed Money opens the process again.

What did you or your project learn this season that might be useful to others as well?

It pays to let the public know what you are doing and seek their help with funding.