July 2025 MFM News – A Sampling

Mowing and Gardening

By Carol

The first spring in our meetinghouse (2009) we grappled not only with how to organize our rooms but also how to manage our yards. Mowing was a challenge because we have three — front, side, and back. We soon realized the front yard was mainly for show, the side yard for gardening, and the back yard for First Day School. We are most familiar with the side yard since we park on Prescott and walk through it to the kitchen door. That first spring we planted a maple tree and forsythia out front and shrubs and flowers in the fenced side yard. Since then, we’ve experimented quite a bit.

Asking Friends to mow resulted in burn-out for the few who volunteered even after we bought a battery-run mower to keep on site. Finally, we realized we had to hire someone to mow and edge at least every other week. That has been successful although over the ensuing years we have had four different men do the mowing.

Friends tend to be more enthusiastic about gardening than mowing. We built 3 raised beds in the side yard and began to grow flowers and vegetables. Flowers predominated in our first decade attracting numerous butterflies. Now the raised beds are also used to grow vegetables, we have a flourishing fig tree, and this year we are trying our luck with a strawberry bed. Last Spring we joined a city-wide garden tour which brought nearly 50 visitors to view our “Three Sisters” garden – the native American staples corn, beans, and squash which grow best when planted together.

You might wonder who in the meeting is doing all this work. For the most part it is the members of the House & Grounds committee augmented by interested volunteers. For most of us, visits to the meetinghouse occur only on Sunday mornings and many of the tasks required for gardening and maintenance need to happen during the week. Several years ago, we hired a landscaping company to help us with drainage and new plants, but we weren’t on site often enough to keep them watered.

Successful gardens require a lot of attention and follow through, but we all enjoy the results. When the weather is fine, Friends linger in the side yard to see what is thriving and pick and eat figs as they ripen. The garden draws us in like butterflies.