Samish Island Acres Community Garden
Our mission is to enhance the quality of community life by creating and sustaining a garden space that will foster community bonds, provide fresh produce to organizations that serve those in need, and occasionally, for member families. In addition, we support agricultural education, environmental land, and water stewardship, health, recreation, and local bird habitat.
Samish Island Acres is a non-profit corporation, IRS Fed ID #44-0552038. The Garden is on property donated for this community effort by the Community of Christ church.
Read a brief history of the Garden here.
The primary purpose of the community garden, located on Blue Heron Road, is to provide food that is distributed to Skagit Community Action’s Food Distribution Center, which provides food to 14 area food banks. It is not a pea-patch or a public garden. Those who join share the work responsibilities and occasionally benefit from extra produce. We invite others to support our efforts by providing financial donations and/or sharing the excess produce from private gardens and orchards, which we will deliver to the Food Distribution Center for you.
Our garden includes:
- Fenced garden bed area and fruit orchard (to keep out deer & bunnies)
- 28 mounded beds
- One larger mounded bed
- Two adaptive, wheelchair-accessible raised garden beds
- Eight fruit trees
- Compost areas outside the fenced garden area
- A shed for stoarge of equipment and supplies
Meetings
Pre-Covid, we met monthly (most months) at the Social Hall at the Community of Christ church, at 11507 Scott Road, usually on Monday evenings, at 5:30 pm. A potluck dinner often includes fresh produce from the garden and is followed by a planning meeting. Dates are published in the ShoreLines and on the Samish Island Event Calendar on the homepage. If you are a Garden member you will receive email updates. Since 2020, we have relied on e-mail information sharing and occasional Zoom meetings. We also have a late-summer potluck, as conditions allow.
- January & February – determine seeds to order and exchange seeds, plan for garden layout
- Late March – prep beds for planting
- April – prep beds for planting; plant early crops
- May-September – continue to prep beds and plant crops, maintain beds, harvest
- October – winterize garden, mulch beds, drain water lines and hoses, tally hours for the year (grant purposes), review expenses and total food bank donations (poundage of donations), review the year (what worked, which crops to plant more of or discontinue)
How to Join Us
Samish Island Acres invites all Islanders, neighbors, friends, and businesses to support the community garden. We need gardeners, friends of the garden, supporters, and donors. If our mission appeals to you, please join us. Individual: $25 /Family: $50. Mail dues or contributions to this address:
Samish Island Acres – A Community Garden
P.O. Box 334
Bow, WA 98232-9334
Attn: Jane Worlund
Garden Contacts:
Glen Fishel, 360-757-4559, glen.mar@comcast.net
Charlene Day, 360-420-0243, charday99@gmail.com
Linda Larson, 360-766-6600, lindaclarson@msn.com
Email Group:
All dues-paying members are eligible for the e-group. The e-group is primarily for task-related groups to communicate about work in the garden. Members, sponsors, and donors are invited to join this group. Contact Linda Larson (lindaclarson@msn.com) if you would like to join this e-group.