CRESTVIEW — It’s been almost three-and-a-half years since a dedicated handful of green-thumbs started turning the soil on Main Street South.
Now, Dr. Cathy Ward, one of Common Ground Community Garden’s founders, says putting an exact number to the garden’s membership is hard to do.
PHOTOS: View pictures from Crestview's Common Ground Community Garden>>
Like weeds, more participants keep sprouting up.
“It’s more than a hundred,” she said.
As the garden continues to grow, so does its impact in the community. A couple of months ago, Common Ground launched a monthly farmers market on Main Street.
In addition to offering residents fresh produce raised by their neighbors, the market also brings a little extra cash to gardening families of limited means.
“The market encourages people to grow as a way to earn money,” Ward said.
And, volunteer Rick Pinch said, proceeds and donations from the market contribute toward the garden’s goal of self-sufficiency.
“We’re hopeful,” Pinch said. “We’re hoping we get support from the citizens of Crestview. We hope they feel it’s something that’s beneficial to the community. We are still growing. It’s not sustainable yet, but it’s getting there.”
GARDEN FRESH
Common Ground’s gardeners are now turning to summer crops, garden President Esther Phelps said.
“We’ve got cucumbers, a lot of peppers and a lot of tomatoes are ripening up,” she said. “We have a lot of growth, but with all the rain we have a lot of weeds as well.”
Produce at each third Saturday’s market comes straight from the garden that morning, and that makes a difference in taste, Phelps said.
Take, for example, the garden’s fresh, flavorful tomatoes versus those that have spent weeks traveling to a grocery store, she said.
“The best way to eat a tomato is hot, right off the vine,” Phelps said. “At the store they pick it totally green and hard. By the time it gets to the warehouse that the store uses, it’s turning pink. By the time it gets to the store it’s red, but it’s not ripe. By the time it gets ripe it’s on the verge of rotting.”
The market also serves as a resource center.
“The good thing is, when you go to the market, people will say, ‘I don’t know how to cook this,’ or ‘I don’t know what to do with this,’” Phelps said. “We can tell them.
“If they say, ‘I have never been able to grow anything,’ come on back with us and we’ll show you. Even any little space you have, you can always grow tomatoes and cucumbers. We’ll show you how to grow things in a bucket.”
EDUCATIONAL BENEFITS
When combined with science education, gardening can be a form of learning from experience, which can be more effective than traditional classroom learning, Gardening Matters, a community gardening website, stated.
A group of some 35 students from the North Okaloosa Association of Homeschoolers recently learned about community gardening.
Boy Scouts and ROTC battalions have tackled projects in the garden to meet community service goals.
College kids are taking notice, too, Ward said. As garden members pondered a water reclamation project to use water cascading off their long storage shed’s metal roof, along came University of Florida student Aaron Jenkins.
Using an above-ground pool and a pumping system, Jenkins will spend his summer in Crestview coordinating the water sustainability project, which will decrease dependence on — and the cost of — using city water.
Plus, newcomers find local growing advice at Common Ground.
“We’ve had some people join us who have been transplanted here,” Phelps said. “They say, ‘We don’t know what to grow here,’ so we help them.”
ANYBODY CAN GARDEN
Community gardeners can choose from two types of plots, Ward said. Raised beds are built in a 12- by 4-foot frame that is 1 foot tall. In-ground beds are 4 feet wide by 27 feet.
Each bed rents for $50 a year, which garden managers say can easily be recouped by savings over purchasing produce in stores, and by selling some at the farmers market.
Still, some families, particularly in some of the neighborhoods near the community garden, don’t have $50 readily on hand, Ward said.
“If a family can’t afford it, they can earn the fee with two three-hour work days,” she said. “Work days are every Tuesday, then we cook lunch straight from the garden.”
Pinch oversees the weekly Tuesday work days, and also prepares the lunches.
“Last week we had salad and potato soup,” Phelps said. “He’s done stir-fry before, with vegetables from the garden and rice Rick grew at home. We use the things we pick right then.”
Ward said lack of disposable income is no reason to not participate in the community garden.
“We have tools there you can borrow, so nothing should stand in anybody’s way if they want to garden with us and they’re willing to work,” she said.
“You can use food stamps to buy seeds and seedlings, but we get them donated so money needn’t be an impediment at all.”
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See www.crestviewbulletin.com for photos from Crestview’s Common Ground Community Garden and market
WANT TO GO?
Common Ground Community Garden welcomes new gardeners. Plots cost $50 per year; financial assistance is available. Visit www.crestviewcommunitygarden.org for an application and information, or call Dr. Cathy Ward, 758-8481.
The community garden’s farmers market is 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. every third Saturday at 157 S. Main St., Crestview. Produce and craft vendors and entertainers are welcome. There is no charge for vendor space.
WHY JOIN THE COMMUNITY GARDEN?
Membership in Crestview’s Common Ground Community Garden offers these benefits:
●Grow local, fresh, nutritious food
●Learn local best gardening practices
●Reduce the family food budget
●Steward limited resources
●Have healthier bodies and healthier minds
●Beautify and enrich your neighborhood
●Reconnect with nature
●Create opportunities for income and entrepreneurship
●Forge connections with neighbors
●Increase self-reliance
●Discover rewarding work
●Increase resilience and preparedness of families and your community
Source: www.crestviewcommunitygarden.org
BENEFITS OF COMMUNITY GARDENING
●Fruits and vegetables sold in supermarkets spend as many as seven to 14 days in transit.
During this time, almost 50 percent of the transported food is lost to spoilage. Locally grown food reduces or eliminates this transit time, helping to greatly reduce waste
●Community garden programs provide employment, education and entrepreneurship opportunities for a wide variety of people, including students, recent immigrants and homeless people
●While vacant lots can attract litter and criminal activity, community gardens are observed and man-aged by the gardeners, resulting in a cleaner space and more active local community. All of this often comes at little or no cost to the city
●Gardeners save significant amounts of money on produce — potentially between $75 and $380 in food costs every season
●Community gardens provide access to fresh, traditional produce and nutritionally rich foods in low-income neighborhoods
●Community gardeners and their children eat healthier, more nutrient-rich diets than do non-gardening families
●Natural areas such as community gardens grant a variety of mental health benefits. Being in natural places fosters recovery from mental fatigue, improves outlook and life satisfaction, helps us to cope with and recover from stress, improves our ability to recover from illness and injury, restores concentration, and improves productivity
●Gardening is considered a moderate to heavy intensity physical activity, and has been linked to significant beneficial changes in total cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, and systolic blood pressure
●Besides being a way to exercise, gardening motivates people to stay active longer than other activities. In one study, participants spent significantly more time gardening (225 minutes per week) than doing other leading forms of exercise, such as walking (160 minutes per week) and biking (170 minutes per week)
Source: Gardening Matters, www.gardeningmatters.org
Common Ground Community Garden welcomes new gardeners. Plots cost $50 per year; financial assistance is available. Visit www.crestviewcommunitygarden.org for an application and information, or call Dr. Cathy Ward, 758-8481.
The community garden’s farmers market is 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. every third Saturday at 157 S. Main St., Crestview. Produce and craft vendors and entertainers are welcome. There is no charge for vendor space.
WHY JOIN THE COMMUNITY GARDEN?
Membership in Crestview’s Common Ground Community Garden offers these benefits:
●Grow local, fresh, nutritious food
●Learn local best gardening practices
●Reduce the family food budget
●Steward limited resources
●Have healthier bodies and healthier minds
●Beautify and enrich your neighborhood
●Reconnect with nature
●Create opportunities for income and entrepreneurship
●Forge connections with neighbors
●Increase self-reliance
●Discover rewarding work
●Increase resilience and preparedness of families and your community
Source: www.crestviewcommunitygarden.org
BENEFITS OF COMMUNITY GARDENING
●Fruits and vegetables sold in supermarkets spend as many as seven to 14 days in transit.
During this time, almost 50 percent of the transported food is lost to spoilage. Locally grown food reduces or eliminates this transit time, helping to greatly reduce waste
●Community garden programs provide employment, education and entrepreneurship opportunities for a wide variety of people, including students, recent immigrants and homeless people
●While vacant lots can attract litter and criminal activity, community gardens are observed and man-aged by the gardeners, resulting in a cleaner space and more active local community. All of this often comes at little or no cost to the city
●Gardeners save significant amounts of money on produce — potentially between $75 and $380 in food costs every season
●Community gardens provide access to fresh, traditional produce and nutritionally rich foods in low-income neighborhoods
●Community gardeners and their children eat healthier, more nutrient-rich diets than do non-gardening families
●Natural areas such as community gardens grant a variety of mental health benefits. Being in natural places fosters recovery from mental fatigue, improves outlook and life satisfaction, helps us to cope with and recover from stress, improves our ability to recover from illness and injury, restores concentration, and improves productivity
●Gardening is considered a moderate to heavy intensity physical activity, and has been linked to significant beneficial changes in total cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, and systolic blood pressure
●Besides being a way to exercise, gardening motivates people to stay active longer than other activities. In one study, participants spent significantly more time gardening (225 minutes per week) than doing other leading forms of exercise, such as walking (160 minutes per week) and biking (170 minutes per week)
Source: Gardening Matters, www.gardeningmatters.org
WANT TO GO?
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Crestview community garden offers a hand up, starts monthly market (PHOTOS)