Garden tour to benefit Christ’s Kids Sunday

Folks with or without green thumbs are invited to join the Donley County Garden Club’s first annual Tour of Gardens this Sunday, June 28, from 3 to 5 p.m. to benefit the Christ’s Kids Ministry.

A total of six family gardens are on the tour for this inaugural event, and Judy Thomas says she and her fellow club members have two main goals with the benefit tour.

“First, we want to help support the Christ’s Kids, and second, we want to educate folks on what you can do with gardens,” she said.

The club just got started this year and has between 20 and 25 members, most of whom live in Donley County but gardeners from Memphis and Amarillo have been active as well.

Thomas said the Tour of Gardens will be self-guided with people being able to start and stop with which ever spot on the map they choose. Each location will have a donation bucket for the Christ’s Kids.

As it looked for a way to not only foster more interest in gardening but also to serve the community, the garden club felt that Christ’s Kids Ministry was a natural fit with its mission to feed local kids both spiritually and physically.

“It’s an outreach that ultimately feeds kids who may not get good nutrition otherwise,” Thomas said.

The Tour of Gardens will feature different styles of gardening. Thomas and her husband Gary utilize mostly raised beds in their garden where they grow tomatoes, peppers, onions, garlic, cilantro, zucchini, strawberries, and more.

“Raised beds are easy to care for and demonstrate what you can do in a small space,” Thomas said.

Gardening is not that difficult and used to be much more commonplace than it is today, Thomas said. Her own interest in the hobby was bolstered by a desire to be more self-sufficient in terms of the food supply.

“It’s not as much work as some people think,” Thomas said. “It’s also important to realize that you’re going to have fails, but don’t give up.”

Garden tour locations in Clarendon are at the residences of Gary and Judy Thomas at 508 W. Barcus Street, Che and Linde Shadle at 1013 W. 8th Street, Russell and Scarlet Estlack at 621 S. Collinson Street, and B.J. and Jennie Owens at 518 S. Bugbee Avenue as well as outside of town at Dale and Amanda Askew home at 4240 S. Hwy 70 and Bill and Deanna Cornell’s home at 4166 CR 13. A map is located on the back page of this week’s Enterprise. Click here for a map!

To learn more, contact Judy Thomas at 806-206-5278.