The following post was written by veteran counselor Ned Yonkers, who has spear-headed the gardening movement at Camp Voyageur this summer. He writes...
Phase one of the project involved setting the posts for a fence and planting the garden.
"Being at camp invokes the feeling that we are living in a community independent from the outside world. It is a place where no matter what is happening everywhere else, we’ll all be fine here. To enhance this feeling of independence, this year’s staff have worked on expanding camp’s garden, bringing in more herbs and vegetables than ever before. Nothing says independence like growing your own food.
The garden brings some much needed green to the front of the Mess Hall.
A few years ago, our camp chef Nina Haaverson started a small herb garden in front of the mess hall. The garden provided camp with a few essential herbs like rosemary and chives. As long as Nina was taking care of our little garden, we all enjoyed a fresh, crisp zing in our food from our own homegrown herbs.
This year, Nina was unable to join camp for the summer, and her garden was in need of some serious TLC (tender loving care). Weeds were growing in the pots and raised bed and none of them were the annuals that had originally been planted. To make matters worse, there was nothing protecting the garden from the notorious deer and rabbit locals.
In the first few days of pre-camp, the garden underwent a weeding triage. After tilling the soil, I then planted this year’s crop of herbs and tomatoes. Once this was done, it was time to invest in some security. All staff hopped on board, and after just a day our little garden was completed, fence and all.
For many of the staff, this was the first time building a garden, and we encountered several challenges along the way. The ground was thick with years of gravel, making posthole digging quite the chore. We tried to use only camp’s scrap wood for the posts, so we struggled with not having the right size pieces of wood in several places. But in the end, we’re all very satisfied with the finished project. Of course, there’s still plenty of room for improvement down the road, but for now, we’re all eagerly awaiting our cherry tomatoes to be ready for snacking!"
Behold, the finished garden!
