Starting this month, patrons of Katie's Kitchen can eat a little healthier.

An assortment of organically grown salad greens and other vegetables are being supplied by Katie's Garden, planted this year at Trinity Lutheran Church on Sunset Drive in Center Township.

Although the free meals at Katie's Kitchen are a shared ministry of Trinity and St. Mark Evangelical Lutheran Church on Jefferson Street, the garden has drawn broader participation.

Planting, weeding and other maintenance is also being shared by members of St. Peter Roman Catholic and St. Peter's Episcopal churches in Butler and Rider Lutheran Church in West Sunbury.

The garden includes salad greens, potatoes, tomatoes, broccoli, beets and other vegetables.

Apple trees are growing nearby, and newly planted grapes will eventually be made into freezer jelly.

"We started in April with early planting with things that could withstand the cold," said Janet Flecken, a member of Trinity.

"The church has a chart: People and families have adopted the beds. A Boy Scout troop comes and weeds for us," she said.

All but two of the garden's 22 beds have been adopted, she said.

Although Flecken initially announced garden workdays by mailing postcards to volunteers, maintenance is now done at the convenience of those who have adopted the beds.

Flecken said crop selection was based on a wish list provided by Katie's Kitchen, and garden layout was done with the help of an area master gardener.

"It's all natural," Flecken said. "Some of us went to Camp Lutherlyn to Terra Dei (homestead) just to get some tips — just to see how their garden grows. The rest of us are just learning as we go along."

The 50-by-100-foot garden was conceived by Vicar Brian Evans of McCandless Township, Allegheny County.

A student at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg, Evans spent a year as an intern at Trinity. During that time, he also volunteered at Katie's Kitchen.

"Grocery stores had been giving a lot of produce and food to Katie's Kitchen, but suddenly they weren't. There was a difficulty in finding fresh produce,"he said.

"I was really struck by how difficult it was to come up with enough food to feed all these people every week."

Nancy Niklas, manager of Katie's Kitchen, said the produce donations began to taper off about two years ago.

Open from 5 to 6 p.m. on Thursdays at St. Mark on Jefferson Street, Niklas said the kitchen served about 4,600 meals in 2003, but meals increased to about 5,670 by 2005.

Although law prohibits the kitchen from canning produce for public consumption, the gardeners hope to freeze excess food for later use.

Since many of the seedlings and other supplies for the garden were donated, the gardeners hope the community will also help the ministry acquire freezers.

Rain so far has provided adequate water for plants to germinate and grow, said garden chairman George Rekich, but the group hopes also to acquire a water buffalo for years when rain is less plentiful.

"So far, God's been good to us,"he said.

As well as supplying food to Katie's Kitchen, Evans said plans include teaching container gardening and related classes in the community.

"I was hoping that part of the idea of having a community garden would be to teach people about gardening and about good nutrition: Hopefully people who benefit from Katie's Garden would be able to do some gardening themselves and have more opportunities for better nutrition."

To help fund the project, Trinity Lutheran has begun a paper recycling project in which community members can deposit paper into a big yellow bin in the upper parking lot behind the church.

"We've made $10 so far (since March)," Flecken said.

"We're fighting hunger one page at a time and one vegetable at a time."

The kitchen and garden are named after Katharina von Bora, a runaway nun who married MartinLuther in 1526 and who was known for growing a large garden to feed frequent visitors.

For more information on Katie's Garden, call Trinity Lutheran Church at 724-287-1977.