The St. Francis Sustainable Garden Project supports the hungry, at-risk children and their families in our area. We use a garden plot in front of the St. Francis rectory where we grow and harvest herbs, vegetables and flowers. In past years each harvest has produced over 180 lbs. of produce- all delivered to the pantry at Foundations Preschool of Ann Arbor, - child care center for at-risk, low-income families.

The St. Francis Grounds & Botanical Gardens: Several gardens surround the St Francis of Assisi campus of buildings, including, but not limited to, the church, school, rectory and/or parish offices. These gardens need to be a beautiful expression of hospitality, in particular, the entrances, to our fellow parishioners and visitors as well as reflect a statement of our appreciation for God's creation and nature.

Questions? Contact: Scott Wright (734-821-2121)

Fwd: St Francis Garden Cleanup: Saturday, Oct 17 10 am (and Friday Oct 16)

Dear All,

The St Francis Sustainable Gardens have been put to bed for the winter.  While Rose Sherry soloed on Friday with the entire bean pole tear down (Wow), Frank Fazekas and Barbara Campbell joined Erich and Ann Marie Jensen this morning for:
  • Removal of remaining annuals in Francis
  • Cleanup (mostly) of the church's front steps planters 
  • Planting of 2 rows of garlic bulbs on the north end of Matthew
  • Inventory, cleanup and repacking of the entire storage bin
  • Detaching and collecting hoses and hose extensions (e.g., rain barrels)
  • Planting remaining daffodils around the St Francis statue outside the parish office entrance (Note: ~80 bulbs were planted earlier in the Francis garden)
  • Transporting some equipment for storage at Jensens and Sherrys 

Here is the clean bed look, so the gardens are officially closed (fairly ready for spring planting) and we look forward to meeting up with you in Spring 2016.  Thank you again for your help and God bless you.

Regards,
Erich Jensen (and Rose Sherry)


On Oct 16, 2015, at 10:42 AM, Erich <erichjensen@msn.com> wrote:

Hi Everyone,

I have lost track on who can come/not come, so please forgive for this reminder to the "not comes."

There will be frost tonight, so dress warm for tomorrow.  The chores will not be much, but will include, inventory of the the equipment bin and removal of frost bitten plants from Francis bed and front planters.  (Rose, please add other activities, as needed).  Transport of some equipment to the Jensen house also needs to be done.

Thank you for a great productive and well maintained season, and finally, Go Blue, for the big game tomorrow here in Ann Arbor for those of you with the good excuse for not coming.

Best regards and blessings,
Erich

P.S.  Many thanks to those who cleaned up beds to ease up tomorrow's chore list!



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Garden Update

Hi Erich,

We joined Katy and Sharon to clear out Paul and other things.

We did the following:

Emptied both rain barrels.  I took the hoses off and put them in the bench and turned the barrels upside down so that they don't fill with rain/snow and freeze.

Removed the netting from Paul, folded and rolled the two sections up, they are now snuggly encased in two brown paper grocery bags in the bench so that they won't snag on everything.  There should also be a box of landscape pins and twist ties from Paul.  Please check, the box may have been put away opened.

Harvested: tomatillos, peppers, tomatoes, basil, carrots.

We emptied all but the grow box. Katy says that she empties hers and then cleans all the parts and then puts it away.  We ran out of time to do that today. We did empty the other pepper pots and put them on the stack of pots in the main garden.

We removed and put into the city compost bin the following:  tomatillo plants, tomato plants, pepper plants and marigolds.

The green watering cans that were by the flowery rain barrel were put back in the main garden as well as the tomato cages from Paul.  I left the tomatillo cages in Luke.
Also the posts for Paul were left in Paul (no reason to keep taking them out as you mentioned).

We harvested a little over 7 lbs of tomatoes, many are green so I have made copies of a couple of recipes for green tomatoes as well as a tip for how to get them to ripen at home.  We will drop this off with the tomatoes tomorrow morning. I'll be sure to let Cheryl, Sandy or someone from the office know they are there incase they want to make more copies.

We also harvested 15 lbs of carrots. Their size ranged from very small to 2-3 times the size of a "baby carrot". I believe that we planted a kind of smaller carrot to begin with.

I have left over brown paper lunch bags from the potato harvest, so I'll be bagging up the carrots tonight to make it easier for the parents to grab and go.

Now that we have the complete harvest Patrick will be tabulating the results soon.

We did not have time to take down the bean structure from Luke and are hoping to get to that next week.

Rose

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St Francis Sustainable Garden: Potato Dig and Harvest with Foundations Preschool: September 26

On the beautiful, sunny, and comfortable morning of Saturday September 26, 2015, families and staff from the Foundations Preschool joined the St Francis  Sustainable Garden team for its annual potato dig.  About 6-7 families (~ 20 people) with a friendly and enthusiastic bunch of kids helped harvest potatoes, peppers, tomatoes, onions and more primarily from the main Sustainable Garden beds of Matthew and Paul.  The children learned how to pick, weigh and package produce and took containers and bags of vegetables home.  Some of the garden volunteers who maintain the beds were present, too, including Erich and Ann Marie Jensen, Rose and Patrick Sherry, Katy Derezinski, Frank Fazekas, and Julie Lavender.  A hearty thank you to all who attended this fun social and learning event of partnership.  Even Father James joined us briefly to say hello.


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