Community garden kick-off event includes information, work session

A small but interested group of gardeners learned about the new Lovell community garden, then joined together to help prepare the garden plot for spring planting during a community garden kick-off event Saturday morning, Oct. 17, at the garden site east of the North Big Horn Senior Citizens Center.Coordinator David Barton, a clinical educator for North Big Horn Hospital, delivered the “garden talk” at the site of the garden, noting that the garden is designed to address a number of needs in the Lovell community.Barton said 17 percent of rural Americans suffer from “food insecurity,” defined as not having enough healthy food available. Given that percentage, about 400 people in Lovell don’t have enough quality food to eat. Senior citizens and children are most at risk, he said.One of the primary goals of the community garden is to give half of the annual harvest to those in need, free of charge and without qualification. The rest would go to the gardeners.After announcing the project, Barton began looking for a site and came up with about a half acre of land just east of the senior citizens center and south of Rose City West. About 5,000 square feet has been sectioned off for the garden and has already been ploughed and disked, thanks to the work of a farmer who wishes to remain anonymous, Barton said.The garden will be a totally volunteer effort, he said, adding that he wants to avoid funding from grants. He said North Big Horn Hospital has donated resources for promotion, administration and management, Rose City West has donated the use of the site, Western Sugar has donated beet pulp to help build healthy soil and Big Horn Engraving has donated the directional sign at the end of West Seventh. Bruce Morrison is donating trenching.[caption id="attachment_10489" align="alignright" width="285"] North Big Horn Hospital clinical educator David Barton explains the Lovell Community Garden to a group of interested gardeners during a “garden talk” to kick off the effort on Saturday, Oct. 17, near the North Big Horn Senior Citizens Center.
David Peck photo[/caption]Rose City West is also allowing the garden volunteers to tap into a well to water the garden and Lovell Building Center is donating pipe for irrigation. Many volunteers are needed to do the actual gardening, Barton said, including families, church groups and school groups.The timeline includes preparing the soil and fundraising this fall, planning the garden layout and securing commitments from groups this winter to work in the garden, starting plants from seed in the early spring and setting up irrigation, preparing beds and planting transplants and seeds.The summer schedule will include mulching, weeding, watering and watching the garden grow, Barton said, with harvesting in the late summer and early fall, after which the garden will be put to bed until the spring of 2017.In concert with the garden will be community education in healthy eating and a healthy lifestyle, including monthly classes, Barton said. He added that he will employ organic gardening methods for the community garden.Barton said that the general area of the garden was about 30 to 40 percent old alfalfa, but the smaller area of the garden itself was about 60 percent alfalfa, which means the soil is likely nitrogen rich. He said beneficial fungi fed by beet pulp helps break down the nitrogen.Boy Scouts will cover the garden with black plastic after the beet pulp is disked in to “cook” the soil until planting in the spring.Activities this fall and winter include presentations to the community and fundraising including a raffle for tools and a raised garden bed.The raised beds will be placed on the west side of the main garden, and Barton said there will be rows of sunflowers planted to encourage pollination, as well as a beehive placed nearby. There will be drinking water at the site, as well as a port-a-potty. Shade will also be provided, along with a place to rest.“There’s no reason a community the size of Lovell can’t grow all of the produce it needs to support itself,” Barton said.After Barton’s talk, volunteers walked the garden plot tossing alfalfa root and large rocks to the side.University of Wyoming Extension Educator Mae Smith of Hyattville attended Saturday’s presentation and said Barton is on the right track with the gardening methods.

By David Peck