Group of volunteers busily sorted organic vegetables during the evening of Sept. 17 at the Bethany Community Gardens on the Southside. This is the eighth year for growing crops to help fight food insecurity.
(SOUTHSIDER VOICE PHOTO BY AL STILLEY)
(SOUTHSIDER VOICE PHOTO BY AL STILLEY)
| By Al Stilley Editor This is harvesting time throughout Hoosierland and a little plot of 10,000 square feet on the Southside is no exception. Volunteers are busy hand-picking organic fresh vegetables at Bethany Community Gardens in the 4700 block of South East Street. Just last week, volunteers from Roncalli High School, Hope for Tomorrow, and 50 students from Purdue University who were in a field production of horticultural crops class were among volunteers. Saturday (Sept. 27) a communications class from the University of Indianapolis will help with harvesting some of the vegetable beds by hand and prepping other beds for the winter. This year’s activity is a continuation of a program that began in 2018 with members of Bethany Church to address one of the major problems of food insecurity on the Southside that was identified in a survey two years earlier. Once the need was identified, church members reached into the community for volunteers. The growth and impact of the gardens is phenomenal. In the first eight years of the program, Bethany Community Gardens produced and given away 20 tons of fresh organic vegetables. In 2024, the gardens produced 6,430 pounds of fresh organic vegetables given to Hunger, Inc., Servants Heart, and Mt. Pleasant Christian Church in northern Johnson County. “The holy spirit has been with us since the beginning,” Bethany Community Gardens co-founder Bruce Bye said last week. “When people were asked to volunteer, they responded.” Bye and many of the volunteers contend that “divine intervention” led to the community-wide success of the gardens Once members of Bethany Lutheran Church agreed in 2017 that they would try to develop a 5,000-square foot plot adjacent to the church into a vegetable garden, several miraculous events bolstered the effort. After agreeing to community need, the very next night a meeting had already been scheduled for a community garden presentation by agent Ginny Roberts of the Marion County Purdue Cooperative Extension Service on the Southside. She is retired but continues to volunteer at the gardens and conducts gardening classes. Within 24 hours, they had some of the knowledge needed to develop the gardens instantly. Volunteers came. They opened with 26 garden beds in spring of 2018 with a $2,500 “Growing Together” grant coordinated by Linda Adams and provided by the Marion County Purdue Cooperative Extension Service. The gardens produced 800 pounds of fresh organic vegetables in the first year. Volunteers believe that the second intervention came shortly after the size of the gardens was doubled from 5,000-square feet to 10,000-square feet but the new mostly clay soil had to be made productive. The answer came from the nearby Beech Grove Public Works that dumped 34 truck loads of compost, five-year-old decomposed leaves, at no cost; otherwise, the compost would have gone wasted. As Bye explained, the heavy amount of compost provided covering that would transform the heavy clay into good soil. Production jumped to 4,900 pounds because of the compost mixed into the garden beds and the sowing of a cover crop of clover, rye, and hairy vetch in the fall for winter covering. In the spring, black plastic covering is used to kill the cover crop before the soil is tilled for spring planting. In 2020, organizers of the gardens had to find a way to continue working the gardens during the Covid-19 epidemic. Limited to only five volunteers per evening, gardens leaders decided to place one individual as a team leader in charge of bed(s) that produced specific vegetable(s). Today that same program of 13 team leaders oversees specific production beds of 34 vegetables, including six types of vegetables specifically for Mt. Pleasant Christian Church and its Burmese congregation. Shortly after Covid-19 restrictions were lifted, Pacers Sports and Entertainment provided heavy canvas that had been used to cover Gainbridge Fieldhouse seats during the pandemic year when games were played with no fans in attendance. “The Pacers organization is environmentally conscious,” Bye explained. “They did not want to take the canvas to the landfill. We repurposed the canvas for weed suppression.” Laid out throughout the gardens, the heavy canvas with Pacers and Fever logos also provides convenient walking pathways to various vegetable beds and reminders of each team’s playoff successes this year. “Producing vegetables to provide for families in need is one of our objectives,” Bye stated. “Two other objectives are important – providing garden education classes so individuals can learn how to grow fresh healthy vegetables for themselves and building community.” Each year, Bethany Community Gardens has more than 50 different volunteers who donate more than 2,000 volunteer hours, including many volunteers from the Southdale Neighborhood Community. “We are focused on the community,” Bethel Lutheran Church’s new pastor Nancy Nyland emphasized. “Building relationships with people is as important as providing food for families.” The church also is cultivating its new neighbors, residents of the newly constructed “ City Heights “affordable housing” apartments. Meanwhile, the harvest at the Bethel Community Gardens continues outside the doors of Bethel Lutheran Church. Info: Bethany Community Gardens Facebook page |  Hand-painted signage identifies gardens as Bethany Community Gardens.  Bethany Community Gardens began in 2017 with these 26 beds across from the parking lot at Bethany Lutheran Church.  This is a view of many of today’s 52 beds of organic grown vegetables that produced more than 30 varieties and 6,430 pounds of vegetables for three food pantries in 2024. |
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