“Feel free to get your hands dirty,” says the announcement in the weekly bulletin at Holy Spirit Parish in Butte. Paula Boroni does just that as a user of the parish greenhouse erected about five years ago.

Measuring approximately 8 feet by 30 feet, supplied with water and standing between the church and the rectory, its availability is announced in the bulletin.

Parishioner Boroni uses the greenhouse to grow Sun Gold cherry tomatoes and other produce. “I live in an apartment and I can’t grow anything there,” she says. Her harvests exceed her needs, and she shares the bounty with neighbors.

The greenhouse draws Boroni from May to September, and at the height of the growing season, she is there almost daily. Tomatoes remain in the greenhouse until she picks them, but she finds that peppers do better if they finish growing outside.

A group of parishioners who were gardeners raised the money to buy the greenhouse.

Usage is now light, but the parish encourages more gardeners to set their green thumbs in motion within the greenhouse walls.


Published in The Montana Catholic Online, Volume 26, No. 7, July 16, 2010.