Trinity Lutheran’s pollinator garden project, Cook, MN.

            We started this summer out with a great plan and high hopes! The small plot of land was found. The space was staked and trenched out. Not so fun buckthorn was found everywhere but we forged forward! The space was covered with plastic to hopefully kill off the invasive plants that we didn’t want in our garden. After much waiting and anticipation, kind of like Advent but with warmer weather, the plastic was pulled back and much to our dismay, it didn’t do its job of killing the plants we didn’t want. So “Plan B” was formed real quickly!

            “Plan B”… use garden space from our raised flower beds in the front of the church. It was decided to winter our pollinator plants in the ground instead of in their small containers. “Plan B” also came with some extra help! As a pastor one of my mottos is if we do this with the adults we need to be doing this with our kids. And by with adults, I mean the people of congregation not just paid staff, need to do this with the kids!

            At Trinity we have “Sunday School” on Wednesdays. Wednesday is an early out of school day for our district. We pick the kids (30-40 each week!) at school and bring them to church for a mini-day camp each week. We include snacks, singing, prayer practices, games, crafts, bible learning and "God’s work our hands" projects with congregational members.  We call this time Bible Quest.

            Week one of pollinators at Bible Quest Bruce Garbisch, the lead pollinator garden person at Trinity, came with a presentation for the kids to talk about pollinators. His presentation included pictures of some of the pollinators we would be planting. The kids soaked up this presentation. They even added to the presentation because they were studying monarchs and pollinators at school!

            When the presentation was finished, the kids got to work making labels for each pollinator. We used index cards. The kids wrote the name of the plant and if they felt so moved, they could draw the plant as well. We then laminated the cards and hot glued popsicle sticks to them so they were ready for the next week. (see picture below). 

            Week two of the pollinators was the planting! Of course, God wanted to help and sent a hail storm then several large clouds of rain but the rain and hail stopped right before we needed to send kids out. With the help of several of our adult church members, we were able to plant all the pollinators that were well identified (the wild strawberry plant, which we had two plants of, has about ten labels!!). The kids are looking forward to replanting when pollinator garden is ready!

            We are excited to see how our pollinators will grow and we are hoping to expand already, since now we have 30+ kids ready to get in on the action. Plans, adamantly insisted by our kids, are also in the works to do something for the butterflies as well!

            God’s good creation is in great hands now and in the future!

Blessings on your plantings,

Pastor Erika Foss

Pastor Trinity Lutheran Church, Cook, MN