Volunteers relocate Giving Garden from St. Pius X to Immaculate Heart of Mary

RODGERS FORGE – On Halloween morning, the sound of shovels hitting the dirt rang through the Giving Garden at St. Pius X in Rodgers Forge as three volunteers worked to remove 20 blueberry bushes from the ground. Once the bushes’ root balls were watered and bagged, they were put in buckets to await transportation on Nov. 2 to their new home at Immaculate Heart of Mary in Baynesville.

“All this is fraught with anxiety. It has been so dry,” admitted Elizabeth Wagner, head of the Giving Garden, of her concern for the bushes’ health during the transplant. “I’m holding my breath.”

For the volunteers, it has been an emotional time, as the bushes, along with 18 garden beds, were being moved to IHM because St. Pius X is slated to come together with St. Mary of the Assumption in Govans, St. Thomas Aquinas in Hampden, Shrine of the Sacred Heart in Mount Washington and Cathedral of Mary Our Queen in Homeland to form a united parish seated at the cathedral. It’s part of the Archdiocese of Baltimore’s Seek the City to Come pastoral plan.

“We’re closing up one place and preparing another,” Wagner said. “There’s a lot to do.”

Wagner knows first-hand all that is needed to start a garden, as she was at the helm of the Giving Garden’s start seven years ago. With the purpose to feed those in need, the garden has provided at least 1,000 pounds of fresh produce, including herbs, tomatoes, peppers, squash and more for two local food pantries every year. Last year, it provided 1,300 pounds of fresh produce.

“The need is there,” Wagner said. “I didn’t see us just stopping and not doing this.”

When she received word of changes coming to her parish, she immediately started looking for a new location and found IHM, which had “a ton of space” with room to grow. It also had its own food pantry on the property. Her main concern was that she knew no one at the parish. At St. Pius X, she had a solid group of 25 volunteers covering three mornings a week at the garden.

“I’m 70. It would be nice to have another gardener learn the ropes and figure it all out,” Wagner said. “A garden takes more than one person.”

Father Jeffrey S. Dauses, IHM pastor, said everyone he approached at IHM, including at Immaculate Heart of Mary School, was supportive about the garden’s arrival.

“Up until now, our food pantry offered dry goods only,” Father Dauses said. “Now it will have fresh produce. It will be an opportunity for some of our middle schoolers to be involved and to support it. An eighth-grade teacher is exploring ways to work it into her curriculum.”

After getting approval from Father Dauses, Wagner got to work. She outlined where the beds would go in the garden. She met with local Boy Scouts working toward their Eagle Scout awards to put up fencing. She arranged to have a flatbed truck available on moving day and had various groups, from Scout troops to youth groups and school teams lined up to help move soil into the beds Nov. 9.

“I would like to take the soil, but it is too labor intensive,” Wagner said. “I have 13 yards of soil ready to go and everything mapped out.”

A new irrigation system that was put in last year at St. Pius X, will be reinstalled at IHM.

“It killed me to have to cut all those lines,” Wagner said, but on a positive note, the garden’s new location is closer to a water source and should offer better water pressure.

“This garden is blessed,” said Cherie Weinert, a parishioner of St. Pius X who is a faithful garden volunteer. “The food and the vegetables we grew here were so perfect and so bountiful.”

Weinert plans to continue to help with the garden at its new location.

“It is fun to do a project where a lot of people come together for a purpose, for the good,” Weinert said. “Once you start doing it, you can’t not do it anymore. I’m really glad this is going to be able to continue.”

Though she is not a parishioner of St. Pius X, Molly Glassman became a regular volunteer at the garden after she donated some black-eyed and brown-eyed Susans to it.

“That’s how I got started here. Her (Wagner’s) excitement is infectious,” Glassman said. “Now, I’m digging up these dormant blueberry bushes.”

Wagner was happy to report that all 18 beds were successfully moved by 40 volunteers to IHM Nov. 2 and was busy getting ready to move the soil on Nov. 9.

“All of this helped me personally,” Wagner said, of the planning and planting. “This will be great. This will be good. It’s a new opportunity to do things.”

Email Katie V. Jones at kjones@CatholicReview.org

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