January of 2020 was the first holistic divine innovation blog https://www.holisticdivineinnovations.org/blog and addressed mental health: anxiety and depression. The blog continued into COVID conditions and ended with helping the community assess how they could relieve self-isolation tension with these 5 strategies: Unplug and head outside, plug in (together), enlist outside help, start new routines, and learn a new hobby. The blogs in between those timeframes pointed out the benefits of gardening, how gardening can impact mental and physical health and how children and adolescents benefit from gardening and meditation. Tyrone Ledford, founding member of Holistic Divine Innovations, along with his family, saw the need for a community garden and selected a location to see their vision unfold.
This month we are celebrating three years as a community garden in Ridgecrest, CA. Let’s take a look back at the progress and milestones of our efforts.
Setting a vision…The purpose of the Ridgecrest Community Garden (RCG) as envisioned is to encourage positive community engagement, restore hope, and improve the health and well-being of the community by providing fresh organic produce, education, and a space for healing and positive social engagement.
With the help of volunteers, friends, and family, the kickoff to physically establish the RCG occurred in 2020, with a kickoff of September of 2020. COVID kept us home, but the garden brought us together to celebrate what we began to see as really important; self-sufficiency, social engagement, and healthy eating.
Initial beds were established for the community after clearing the land (Numbered 1-12). The subscriber beds were planned A-Z, but initially were established as beds A-O. The subscriber program allowed community members interested in growing their own food to have a raised bed set aside for them to grow the food they craved. The price point was set up to recover the cost of plants, soil, and water. Volunteers supported the garden through planting, watering, and donating/funding the different infrastructure requirements of the garden.
In 2022, subscriber beds were added through bed Y and community beds increased through 21.
Bed Z was added in 2023 and provides potted plants available upon demand allowing four-six additional plants for subscribers and community beds.
Planting days, volunteer days and plant swap events, along with workshops occurred throughout the growing season, depending on community interest and demand. Community interest extended to schools and daycare tours through the garden.
A grant came through in 2021 that provided funding to begin the Herbal Zen Garden in the lot next to the RCG. A meandering sidewalk was added, along with two gazebos, benches and herbs, flowering trees and roses. The infrastructure of the Herbal Zen Garden was completed and presented at our second-year anniversary event (September of 2022).
Another grant received this year allowed us to purchase a grow-house needed for increasing our independence for seed starting, protection from elements and additional training space. We sacrificed a few of our raised beds to make room.
Today, our community garden consists of the following
- Stations for composting continue to provide rich soil and allow us to offset soil costs.
- Shed for storage
- 4’x8’ table for workshops
- Beehive for encouraging pollination and producing local honey
- A berry patch (mulberry, raspberry, blackberry, pineapple guava, strawberry, and elderberry vines)
- Grape vines, lining our fence
- Community garden beds for community harvest
- Subscriber garden beds for individual subscriber harvest
- Benches with built in Umbrellas for shade
- Path for enjoying the walk through the Herbal Zen Garden
- Fruit, flowering, and shade trees
- Rose garden
- Woodchips for protecting soil and weed suppression
- Grow-house
- Port-a-potty (a must😊)
These were all accomplished in the last three years. We’ll be celebrating all this on September 23rd, 2023.
Our Saturday open hours begin 9/2 from 9AM-11AM for the foreseeable future.
If you would like to partner with us, offsetting bills for our non-profit organization and/or sponsoring additional events and infrastructure as the needs arise, please scan the QR code below to donate.
We hope to see you soon.
Zen out, Ridgecrest 😊