The Healthy Communities of Clinton County Coalition community garden project proved successful this summer with over 1,000 members of the Clinton County community being served fresh produce.
The community garden at Healthy Communities kicked off at the Boys and Girls Club years before being relocated to the Healthy Communities building at 1234 Rossville Ave. in Frankfort around three years ago where it was reimagined with minor adjustments from its previous iterations. Every year, the garden is open to the public and provides fresh, Clinton County grown produce without cost for those in need and those seeking improvement to their diets. This past summer, the garden sported the typical array of green beans, carrots, yellow, red and cherry tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, zucchini, a variety of peppers and green onions. This year, Healthy Communities introduced a few new vegetables into the garden, such as eggplants and edamame, which Lorra Archibald, Healthy Communities Executive Director, expressed were a hit amongst the community.
“It’s truly a community garden,” Archibald said. “Anybody can come out and get anything when they want it.”
As the summer months came to a close, the garden was harvested for the last time of the year only a few weeks ago, and Archibald commented that this year’s yields provided fresh produce to numerous families in the community. Archibald commented that many community members would send her pictures of the meals they concocted utilizing the fresh produce harvested from the garden, which inspired the team to maintain the garden for families to continue celebrating healthy foods with access to fresh produce.
“Produce is really expensive, and the price of groceries has skyrocketed lately, but produce is extra expensive,” Archibald said. “On this side of town, there’s no grocery store. If you’re over here, and you want a tomato, and you need it for supper, where are you going to go on this side of town?”
The garden offers many features every year for the community to enjoy, and numerous families visit the garden to relieve stress and hone their gardening skills without the added effort of maintaining a garden at their own home. When the garden was relocated to Healthy Communities, raised beds were implemented to help community members in wheelchairs and senior citizens take part in the harvesting opportunities for those that may not be physically able to kneel to the ground to collect the vegetables. Archibald expressed that the raised beds have become a hit amongst the members of Paul Phillippe Resource Center who attend the garden to enjoy bonding opportunities with friends and family as well as partake in the joys of gardening.
“They’re wheelchair-height with the sidewalk, and it’s accessible to our older adults who can’t get down to ground level,” Archibald said. “These are nice working levels. You don’t have to bend over to work on these.”
As the produce ripens on the vines, the Healthy Communities team will also harvest the yield and place the produce in the front office of the Healthy Communities and Health Department lobby for convenience and ease of access for community members.
While the garden costs Healthy Communities around $200 to plant and care for the vegetables every year, Archibald stated that the garden has helped feed thousands of community members every year, which continued to grow this year, due to the large amount of produce that is routinely collected. In 2022, the garden produced around 50 gallons of green beans, and the Healthy Communities team even planted more green beans this year to keep up with the demand for the vegetables.
When the garden is open to the public, community members are encouraged to contact Healthy Communities for a request for delivery, and a staff member will deliver the produce to their home for even further access to fresh produce for community members. As the garden kicks off next spring, Archibald and the team will post pictures of the yield on the Healthy Communities of Clinton County Coalition Facebook page to help inform the community of the availability of fresh produce.
“It’s not income based,” Archibald said. “It’s open to everybody. If you want to work in it or if you want to get food out of it, it doesn’t matter. For us, it’s not an income-based program. You breathe, you qualify.”
Stay tuned to Clinton County Daily News and Boone County Daily News as well as the Healthy Communities Facebook page for updates on when the community garden opens next spring. For more information, visit Healthy Communities at 1234 Rossville Ave. in Frankfort or call 765-659-6063.