Getting the garden ready for winter

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Preparations for winter were undertaken at the Benson Street Garden, on Saturday morning, Oct. 12, with volunteers from different corners of the borough coming together to pull stubborn tendrils and harvest vegetables.

The workers included confirmation candidates at Sacred Heart Church, the Glen Ridge High School Girls’ Club and the Glen Ridge Environmental Board.

Councilwoman Anne Marie Morrow said, while digging for potatoes, that the 21 raised garden beds last year grew over a half-ton of produce destined for the Human Needs Food Bank, in Montclair.

So far this year, she said 600 pounds of vegetables have been weighed and donated with the bounty being moved out each Tuesday during the growing season.

The enclosed garden was established in 2011, Morrow said, and is owned by the borough. But right beside it is a state-owned strip of land for a proposed
recreational Greenway which will connect nine contiguous Essex and Hudson county communities, from Montclair to Jersey City.

For their various community service efforts, members of the GRHS Girls Club tally the hours and reaching 25, sophomore, junior and senior year girls become eligible to attend the annual Candy Cane Dance, scheduled for Dec. 14.

Other community service activities for the girls include the Linden Avenue School Pumpkin Walk and a cancer benefit called the Blue Bash.

Nancy Plate brought four confirmation candidates to the garden for their required community service. Confirmation studies take two years, she said, and begin
when the candidate is a seventh-grader, as were all the children she brought.

Ana Davidson and Alison Grande, both members of the Glen Ridge Environmental Advisory Board, said the garden was just one sponsored board effort. Others include the Eco-Fair, the upcoming Toney Brook Ocean Action Clean-up and the Repair Cafe.

  Benson Street Garden, Glen Ridge