Sign up for the community garden

For those interested in helping with growing vegetables and fruits for our community at Grace and beyond, we need people with knowledge, working hands and open hearts. Are you excited about growing tomatoes and cucumbers? The Vestry at Grace has addressed a possible community garden. We need a group of willing minds to come together and discuss and work on such a projects. Please leave a comment if you are interested. This is a wonderful and exciting opportunity!

Good Composting Info (click here)

I have lived, composted, and gardened in several states and these Ag Extension websites are the best place for state specific info on what really works (who cares what the TV show says works in Florida or Ca for example). Missouri's website has really good info.

Laclede gas customer rebates

Get great financing by paying off your new energy efficient water heater or gas furnace through your monthly gas bill.
Laclede will give you rebates and help install the new appliances.

Rebates for home and commercial customers using natural gas by Ameren

Ameren has funds for anyone who wants to reduce their gas utilities by obtaining energy efficient furnaces, water heaters or thermostats.
Please see the link for more details.
You have to be an Ameren Natural Gas customer though.

Diving deeper into a topic

Dear Colleagues,
I find your enthusiasm for the community garden wonderful!
We will have a lot to talk about at our next meeting this Sunday.
Let me suggest to you a thought that I have seen in other churches with green teams.
Different people have different agendas and some are more into one green topic than another. Therefore some congregations have divided up their green team ministry in multiple genres. For example, the most common topics in green congregations are:
-Community Garden
-Recycling and composting
-Faith and sustainability (educating the parish to reduce their carbon footprint with movies, books, Eco events, other resources)
-Energy conservation (mostly building related)
-Green purchase policy (buying energy efficient products like CFL, LED or recycled paper for our bulletins, fair trade products for coffee hour and events)
-Genesis covenant (remember the Episcopal convention signed the legislation to reduce all church related carbon emissions by 50% within 10 years)
and whatever else is important to us.
So please pray and think about where you would like see yourself. Of course multiple seats are an option!

Community garden coming to Grace? Why not!

Please see Jim Davis' comment on a possible community garden at Grace. This is a wonderful opportunity to do so much more with our lot than just parking. I know that many of you were interested in this, so keep the comments coming.

"Jim Davis: This is green-related... I asked (at Tuesday's Vestry meeting) if anyone was interested in working along with me & Denise Miller to get started on a 'Community Garden' on our property. I'm just beginning to do some research on what all is involved. Really could use an energetic semi-retired person (with time) to help implement this idea. The thought is: we'd grow vegetables and donate that produce to needy places around St. Louis. Interested?"

Have blog, will use it.

This can be a very useful tool to share ideas and post links quickly and efficiently without sending around a bunch of e-mails. Please post at least one comment to check if this works for you. Thank you!