ELLICOTT • Aubrey Blood wanted to do a good deed.

For her Silver Award project, the Girl Scout planted a community garden in this tiny ranching town on the eastern plains.

“I decided it would be cool to plant a garden,” she says. “Then we’d have fresh vegetables for everyone. It will help the school and food bank.”

Feed the hungry and give kids an alternative to junk food. Now that is cool.

And it forces Aubrey out of her comfort zone. She’s an indoor kid, with musical hands that play clarinet, trombone and guitar.

But no green thumbs.

The garden has been a challenge from the start.

Aubrey began drumming up support in April at the big annual Ellicott community yard sale. There she sat for two days with a display board, sign-up sheet and donation jar. She collected names of a dozen volunteers and $18.

“My mom gave me $2,” she says, “to make it an even $20.”

Aubrey wanted to put the garden behind her school, a convenient spot for folks to come plant, pick and socialize. But the school rejected it, citing legal liability.

The only other option: Plant it four miles from town, behind her home on rural Spotted Owl Way, where the family moved four years ago after her dad died.

Undeterred, Aubrey plowed ahead.

Armed with sunblock and a plan, she made her field of dreams: A 100-by-16 garden with peas, radishes, tomatoes, cabbage, cauliflower, cantaloupe and watermelon.

The garden is the size of her mobile home. And it could triple in size if she had the supplies and help.

“I’m just a 13-year-old kid trying to do this,” Aubrey says. One who now plays the clarinet with dirt caked under her nails.

“Most kids would have quit,” says Marty Lockhart, her Girl Scout adviser. “She is definitely tenacious.”

Aubrey got a $200 grant from the Scout’s Forever Green program for supplies. A neighbor tilled and donated fencing. God’s Pantry, the benefiting food bank, gave her some starter plants.

“My friend, Sam, helped pick some weeds,” Aubrey says. “My brother helped plant; I honestly didn’t expect that.”

Still, Aubrey is finding this gardening thing is hard.

“I’m a little nervous because some of these plants aren’t growing,” she says.

Other plants grow too fast.

“Our peas need sticks,” she says, “because they’re starting to fall over.”

Weeds are a constant problem. And then there are the pesky rabbits. They think the garden patch is their dinner table.

As for her sign-up volunteers, they’ve been no-shows. Probably because Aubrey’s garden is so far off the beaten path.

But she’s working away. She’d welcome anyone to come lend a hand and share in the harvest.

Who out there, besides rabbits, will help Aubrey put the “community” into her community garden?

—

To donate to Aubrey’s garden, contact God’s Pantry at 719-660-0834.

—

Got a story?Go to gazettedev.gazette.com/yourspace

Aubrey Blood, 13, and the Ellicott community garden she planted for her Girl Scout Silver Award project. Photo by ANDREA BROWN/THE GAZETTE

Aubrey’s garden is tilled and partially planted. More seeds and help are needed. Photo by

Andrea Brown, Your Space Columnist Photo by