From Playground to Produce: September Membership Meeting at Bearden United Methodist Church Community Garden
Alliance members gathered this month at the Bearden United Methodist Church Community Garden, where Leigh Cheek led the group through a space that was a church playground less than two years ago.
In April, Leigh met with Knox County Extension agent Rylan Thompson, who oversaw the Knox County Master Gardener program. He suggested she join the Alliance so her master gardener hours could count toward an Alliance project. Leigh became a master gardener in May 2025 and started a blog, bumccg.blogspot.com, to keep church members and friends updated.
The first big job was clearing out the old “magic mulch,” shredded tires that took from May until August to give away through Facebook Marketplace.
In mid-August 2025, Leigh brought her garden plan to the Alliance for review, and the lasagna-style conversion began with cardboard donated by church members, two chip drops for pathways, grass clippings, mulched leaves, 2.5 yards of manure from Shangri La Horse Farm and 10 yards of compost from L&M Landscape Material, with the Alliance covering the cost of the compost and manure. Cover crops, kale, collards, turnips and mustard greens went in first, with perennial flowers at the end of each row. The garden’s first harvest came that November, when two pounds of greens went into the church’s Thanksgiving giveaway boxes, followed by a pound for Christmas boxes in December.
This year, the numbers took off. After planting carrots and onions in February and potatoes in March, the garden harvested 23 pounds in April, 100 in May, 100 in June, 128 in July and 305 in August, and more than 135 pounds so far in September. That’s close to 800 pounds of potatoes, greens, green beans, peppers, tomatoes, garlic, carrots, cucumbers, tromboncino squash, okra and herbs. In August, the garden hung gleaning baskets on its fence so neighbors can take fresh produce for free. Members also saw two new deep raised beds, built to address excess zinc left in the soil where the tire mulch once sat.
They’re netted and ready for winter vegetables, and the harvest isn’t slowing down. We are proud of the work that BUMC Garden is doing!
