Wednesday, Jun. 23, 2010

Community growing a garden

Casie Ingram, 17, pushed a wheelbarrow full of mulch across the Garner Grows community garden while 16-year-old Kelsey Stutts spread wood chips around a new children's play area.

The teens were among dozens of rising high school seniors from across North Carolina who descended on Garner's community garden last Thursday to make upgrades to the burgeoning urban-agriculture project. They volunteered their time as participants in the weeklong Institute for Agricultural Leaders, a program of North Carolina Farm Bureau and hosted at N.C. State University and N.C. A&T University.

As potential future farmers, the students got a taste of the hard work it takes to grow your own food. In sweltering heat, they laid mulch paths to a children's garden, built birdhouses and scarecrows, painted a shed and repaired a broken picnic bench.

The improvements helped spruce up the garden, said Kristen Warren, who helped start Garner Grows with Maggie Tubilleja in March. "We would have gotten it done, but it would have taken us a long time," Warren said.

Community gardens are popping up more often as people want to grow their own food. Garner Grows, which is the town's only known community garden, is undoubtedly urban - it's nestled on one acre at the intersection of bustling U.S. 70 and Loop Road.

So far, between 20 and 25 families have paid the $20 membership fee to take part in Garner Grows. Whenever they put in work at the garden, they can take fresh cabbage, lettuce, watermelon and other fruits and vegetables home with them. They can also snag eggs from the dozen chickens at the garden.

A children's garden will eventually feature a sandbox for kids to play in while their parents tend the crops, Warren said.

Several local businesses have donated supplies for the garden, which Warren says has become the second-largest community garden in Wake County.

Dr. David Jones, an assistant professor at N.C. State, got a $10,000 grant from the N.C. Cooperative Extension Service so the students could make improvements at Garner Grows.

Through the leadership program, Jones said, he encouraged students to take part in community-service projects that can have lasting impacts. "They came out fired up," he said of the students.

Katie Mottern, 17, of Granville County pulled up grass in the garden to make way for the mulch paths. Mottern wants to attend N.C. State to pursue a career in agriculture. She's considering pre-veterinary science, dairy science or floriculture.

"It makes me feel like, 'Wow, this is going to be here for a very long time, and I was a part of it," Mottern said of the Garner garden.

Thomas Privott, 17, isn't sure if he's ready to commit to a career in agriculture, but he took part in the leadership program to learn what N.C. State has to offer. He already grows peppers, tomatoes, squash and other veggies in his parents' backyard in Rocky Mount.

"It's one of those things you can fall back on," Privott said. "People are always gonna eat."

Members of Garner Grows want the food they eat to be grown locally. Duane Hedley, a science teacher at East Garner Middle School, spends about six hours a week at the garden. He pulls an old ambulance he has turned into a carpenter's truck onto the garden lot and gets to work. He's already built a chicken run, a work bench and shelves for the shed.

Hedley said the future of the environment depends on a shift in people's thinking when it comes to food. Vegetables don't have to travel thousands of miles before they end up on the dining room table.

"I don't think a lot of us are here for the food," Hedley said of the garden. "I'm here to build community and to teach kids how to grow food - because we're going to have to."