This year, Second Wind Retreat guests will enjoy fresh veggies grown right in the Retreat's own back yard, thanks to the efforts of The Home Depot of Blue Ridge and Team Depot volunteers. They arrived bright and early on April 10th to install six large custom-made cedar boxes, soil and river pebble walkways.

All materials were donated by the Blue Ridge Home Depot, including natural cedar for the boxes, tons of garden soil to fill them and plants, as well as landscaping fabric, hardware, landscaping timbers and river pebbles for the walkways around the between the boxes.

The time and expertise to construct the garden was donated by Team Depot members, who volunteered to design the garden, build the cedar boxes, level the ground and even install a piped watering system with cut-off valves at each box. Ten Team Depot volunteers as well as ten additional volunteers from the community worked to complete all the digging, leveling, lining, lifting, filling, and spreading of walkway rock.

Dairy Queen of Blue Ridge and Papa's Pizza donated lunch and snacks for the hard-working volunteers, and by mid-afternoon, the empty Retreat back yard was transformed into an expertly designed and installed organic garden ready for planting. Our sincere thanks go to Home Depot and all our volunteers, for a beautiful raised bed vegetable garden that our guests will enjoy throughout the growing season!