Renton’s St. Luke’s digging in to grow food for members, food bank

May 14, 2009 5:41 pm
Kevin Pearson stands in a bed at the entrance to the community garden under development at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in downtown Renton. Pearson is the rector of St. Luke’s. The church is holding a planting party this Sunday.
Kevin Pearson stands in a bed at the entrance to the community garden under development at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in downtown Renton. Pearson is the rector of St. Luke’s. The church is holding a planting party this Sunday.

It started with a 1,000-pound pumpkin. After Tom Bakan saw that massive orange gourd displayed at McLendon Hardware last year, he knew he wanted to produce his own giant Halloween prop in the soil near his downtown Renton church.

But plans for the unused lawn beside St. Luke’s Episcopal Church soon grew beyond giant pumpkins.

“We thought we should grow something more than pumpkins,” says Kevin Pearson, rector of St. Luke’s.

Something like real food, Pearson says, to feed members of the church and shoppers at Salvation Army Renton Rotary Food Bank.

The idea quickly took root and St. Luke’s parishioners started transforming their yard into a community garden.

A jazz concert and craft sale helped bring in some of the $1,500 it will take to build the garden.

Several wood-framed triangular beds now dot the church’s grass. Organic dirt is all that fills those beds now, but that will change Sunday, during the Parish Pea Patch Planting Potluck Picnic.

Those attending the free barbecue will bring food for lunch and vegetables to fill those empty beds.

Bakan is bringing a cucumber plant, and, of course, a pumpkin plant.

Other vegetables planned for the garden include beets, bok choy, broccoli, carrots, chard, cucumbers, kale, radishes, tomatoes and urugula.

All grown organically, using recycled compost and water from rain barrels. Birds and maybe ladybugs and marigolds will destroy any pests.

All these ingredients will make the church property a “model organic, sustainable garden with composting,” Rector Pearson says. That’s important, he says, because the garden is not just about food. It’s about the community. And being kinder to the Earth.

“Clearly the biggest moral crisis of our times is how we’re treating the Earth,” Pearson says.

The garden will star in a program for the church’s middle and high school members. And, down the road, the garden may also be used to teach community members how to cook meals from its bounty.

But most immediately, the garden will simply provide food to the hungry.

Five hundred pounds is the goal for the first year. That goal will likely increase next year, when the garden’s size goes from 700 to 1,400 square feet.

Five hundred pounds of vegetables would go a long way at the food bank, where produce has shriveled since Thriftway and Greenfresh Market recently closed. Both stores were major vegetable suppliers to the food bank. Meanwhile, the number of people receiving food at the food bank has doubled since last spring.

“We’d like to thank St. Luke’s for doing this. We certainly need the help,” says Renton Salvation Army Capt. Terry Masango.

PARISH PEA PATCH

St. Luke’s Episcopal Church is holding a Parish Pea Patch Planting Potluck Picnic Sunday at 11:30 a.m. The barbecue potluck is open to the public. Attendees are asked to bring food for lunch and a vegetable plant for the church’s garden. St. Luke’s is at 99 Wells Avenue S. For more information, call the church at 425-255-3323.