By NEAL WAGNER / City Editor

Alabaster residents with green thumbs who don’t have room for gardens at their homes soon will have a chance to sharpen their gardening skills at Limestone Park after the city and local volunteers partnered on a community garden project.

The volunteers have been working with the city over the past few months to organize the community garden, and recently received approval from the City Council to move forward with the project.

Alabaster has agreed to provide land, in-kind labor and tap the garden into a city water line for the project.

Once set up, the garden will be near a pond in Limestone Park, which is off U.S. 31 near Alabaster’s southern city limits. The project will contain a large garden dedicated to growing food for Manna Charities, which gives food to people in need every Saturday morning.

“Everything in that part of the garden will go straight to Manna,” said project organizer Robert Webb.

The garden will also include 32 plots available for rent by local residents, Webb said. The community garden organizers will hold an informational meeting at Limestone Park on March 9 at noon, and will offer applications for those interested in renting a plot.

Webb previously planned on setting up the community garden on a plot off Alabama 119 in 2012, but said he put the original garden project on hold to focus on the Limestone Park garden.

Over the next few weeks, Webb said he will work to mow and plow the land at Limestone Park, and will attempt to have the garden ready for planting by the first week in April.

For more information, search for “Alabaster Community Garden” on Facebook.com.