Recently, more than 60 volunteers came out to help plant a new permaculture garden at St. Barnabas’s Church on Falmouth’s Main Street. The 2,500-square-foot garden is located on the church property beside Siders Pond on a section of lawn previously used for auxiliary parking.
The idea for this project began during the pandemic, when churchgoer Bette J. Hecox-Lea read ecologist Douglas W. Tallamy’s 2020 book, Nature’s Best Hope: A New Approach to Conservation that Starts in Your Yard. The book guides homeowners in fostering biodiversity by transforming their suburban lawns into native wildlife habitats.
Struck by the ideas in the book and concerned about how climate change was impacting the Cape, Hecox-Lea brought what she had learned to church. St. Barnabas’s ended up organizing a webinar with the author during the pandemic, and more than 100 people attended.
The church got a grant from the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts for around $7,500 to build a permaculture garden and used the funds to have the garden designed by Resilient Roots, a Cape-based nonprofit that specializes in designing such gardens.