CEDAR KEY COMMUNITY GARDEN CELEBRATES ITS THIRD BIRTHDAY   
February 20, 2019

Champagne, chocolate, and many dishes conjured from the fruits of the Garden made Saturday, February 16, 2019, a wonderful day for a birthday party. Initiated in November  2015, the Cedar Key Community Garden has been flowering, growing vegetables, and cheering many souls since.  Amid lush vegetable growth, blossoming landscaping, and wonderful company, the gardeners feasted and celebrated their past three years and the start of thier fourth.

In November 2015, the Cedar Key Community Garden began as the dream of a Cedar Key resident with years of experience in organic farming. He shared the idea with another. Captured by the dream, by luck, she had land in the center of town where the Garden might take root. In its Cedar Key way, word spread and the community embraced the possibility. The first Work Day happened within a month. Three months, 800 volunteer hours, and almost $8,000 in donations later, the Grand Opening occurred in February 2016. What a whirlwind!

Since then, the Garden has been living its mission.  As stated on the website, http://www.cedarkeycommunitygarden.org/, the Cedar Key Community Garde's mission is "to build a sense of community, that is supported by the community, and is productive, esthetically pleasing, and welcoming; the Garden further seeks to educate and inspire people to replicate our efforts in their backyards and in established community gardens, and to start new community gardens.”  By the looks of leafy garden beds and by the Garden's overall success, the gardeners have certainly lived their mission.

2019 JANUARY 1 NEW YEAR'S DAY

​The 1880 legend, according to Sue Colson, is that if one eats black-eyed pea soup at the new year’s start, one will become healthy and wealthy.   Greens, the kale and onion tops, represent paper money; the peas represent coins. 
 
So, to insure their health and prosperity, Colson and husband Russ cooked vegetarian and non-vegetarian black-eyed pea soups for the gardeners at the Cedar Key Community Garden for the Tuesday, January 1, 2:30 pm gathering.  The Colsons rounded out the meal with cornbread, rice, and two blueberry pies, complete with ice cream, even in the 75-degree weather.  Gardeners, some thirty of them,  brought more cornbread, spicy and not, cookies of all sorts, and more.