Donation Garden's 30th Anniversary

December 20, 2019 | Raised beds at garden

Braes Interfaith Ministries is celebrating the 30th anniversary of the founding of their donation garden. In 1989, Renilda Hilkemeyer negotiated with Houston Lighting and Power for the use of their right-of-way for a garden. Ground was broken in December 1989. Since then, the garden has provided fresh seasonal produce three times a week for the Braes Interfaith Ministries food pantry. An affiliate of Urban Harvest, the garden is located at 4300 West Bellfort adjacent to Willow Meadows Baptist Church..

Nutgrass Award

Every year Urban Harvest identifies and honors those individuals who have made significant contributions in the garden community. This year Larry from the BIM Donation Garden was the recipient of the Nutgrass Award. Larry, through his leadership, mentoring skills, stewardship, knowledge base, and just plain hard work, is instrumental in sustaining the BIM Donation Garden.

Ongoing Project

There is always plenty of work at the garden. The photo here shows the recent replacement of the timber framing for one of the raised beds with concrete blocks. This is part of an ongoing project to replace all of the old and rotting wooden raised bed structures with concrete block. We are making slow but steady progress with about 20% of the beds transitioned.

Volunteer

We work the garden - harvesting, weeding, planting - Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from about 8:00 to 10:00 am except for the last two weeks of the year. Volunteers are always welcome, whether expert gardeners or brown thumbs. For more information, contact the head gardener Larry by email at BraesGardeners@gmail.com. [check spelling of email]