Henderson Settlement, Frakes Ky ~ Jackie Waldroop

Reflection's of Mountain Gardens

 April, May and June 2011

Through out the month of April we all sang, “Rain rain go away come again another day”. But the rain kept coming down in sheets and buckets, the gardens were to wet to plow or plant.

 In May the rain slowly stopped and the gardeners began to choose their plants and seeds. By the end of May almost everyone had their gardens started, although some had to wait until their garden dried out before they could start planting.

 Then came June, June brought drastic changes in the weather, we went from rain to heat with no breaks in between weather systems.

In June we hired Matthew and Tyler, both of whom worked for us last summer, to work with the Grow Appalachia Project, which came at a really good time.  The weather was beginning to clear up and the ground was drying up and it was time to plant.  We were running around from garden to garden, tilling as fast as we could!

This is Matthew working  hard!

Then came the rains of June. On Sunday night June 19th, we received almost 6 inches of rain. Monday morning about 7am the creeks, streams and lakes of the area had all the water that they could hold, they began to overflow their banks which resulted in massive flooding throughout the area. On Tuesday I called the gardeners whom I knew lived in areas prone to flooding, fortunately none of the gardeners gardens were severely damaged. The pictures  below are of our community garden, which has been divided into three plots for three of our gardeners who don't have any land suitable for gardening.

This is the community garden after the massive amounts of rain.

Ruts from the rain

SHARON'S STORY

As we walked through Sharon’s garden her dog “Killer” walked with us. He seemed as interested in the gardens as we were. Sharon showed me all three of her gardens. All three seemed to be doing really well! She told me that she had already been getting potatoes and onions out of her garden and it looks as if it won’t be long before she has squash to pick. Sharon was one of the lucky ones who got an early start with her garden.

Digging potatoes!

Killer showing us the garden!

Almost ready to eat!