Giving Garden plants roots for third growing season

Spring has sprung and soon the Eudora’s Giving Garden will, too, after the garden’s Volunteer Kick-Off Day Tuesday.

Volunteers began their third growing season preparing three gardening spaces: a cut flower garden flush with native Kansan species, a vegetable garden that donates free, organic food and a greenhouse with flowers and vegetables.

Volunteers are also tending to a garden around the perimeter of the cut flower garden, where they hope to attract bees and monarch butterflies.

The Giving Garden produces organic plants without the use of pesticides. The garden is managed by volunteers of all ages, which the co-coordinator of the cut flower garden Karen Lane said creates a sense of community.

“You know, we come out, we work hard. It’s manual labor,” she said. “It gets hot and cold, but it’s fun.”

For others, like volunteer Craig Corpstein, the Giving Garden is an opportunity to share a love for gardening with his 5-year-old daughter, Mariah.

“I’m really interested in gardening, and I’m trying to kind of get her into it, too,” Corpstein said.

The garden will remain tended to and open to any volunteers until it gets too cold for plants to grow in the fall. Until then, volunteers will continue to raise peas, potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, blackberries, onions, flowers and a variety of other plants.

Volunteer coordinator Amy Gordon Ames said any and all help is appreciated. 

“It doesn’t matter what age you are, what ability you are or if you know about gardening or not,” Gordon Ames said. “We would love to have everybody.”

Reach reporter Jenna Barackman at [email protected]