Emily Johnston, co-leader of a Atonement Lutheran Church garden project, stands near a cluster of raised garden beds that are growing vegetables for Newport-area food banks, congregation members and its Stone Soup program. (Quinton Smith/Lincoln Chronicle)

Ten sturdy garden beds have arisen at the southwest corner of Atonement Lutheran Church’s parking lot in Newport, part of a new project to help address food insecurity in the community.

The garden will grow produce and attract pollinators and as it expands involve neighbors and a preschool to help learn how to grow, nurture and harvest food.

Atonement Lutheran Church volunteers work on erecting raised garden beds to help grow vegetables for the community as part of its “Ecumenical Earth and Heaven Project.” The 10 raised beds are eight by four feet and 26 or 32 inches high. (Susan Reese Painter photo)

The church is using a grant, donations and volunteers to construct the raised beds, turn unused space for a field of potatoes and eventually plant fruit trees on other parts of the its property.

Sunday School students also learned about and cultivated Mason bees – a native, non-aggressive species which acts as a good pollinator for a garden. After the bees hibernated in the refrigerator, the students released them into bee houses. A pollinator garden in the center has been planted with seeds of nasturtium, dahlia, zinna and other flowers.

After volunteers from the church and the wider community filled soil and composting inside the beds and then planted radish, lettuce, beets, chard, kale, carrots and other vegetables.

Newport businesses have been the source of supplies, plants, seeds and support, the church said, and fruit trees are being grown, grafted and maintained at other locations for eventual transplanting. Church leaders say they envision a comprehensive and ongoing series of gardens and gardeners to function in every season.

— Susan Reese Painter