Plants, People, Purpose = Community Garden | Volunteer Gardener

It's not just about the plants when you put in a garden. It's about the people that work there and also the purpose of the garden. What is it for? Today, we're at Bell Garden and I have the privilege of meeting with Deborah Stilwell, the executive director, and Missy Hamilton, who is in charge of gardens and programs for Bell Garden. Tell me about this wonderful place. It's a hybrid, right? It's not just a community garden. It's that and students from Bellevue Middle School. Correct. So we are the largest and the only hybrid school and community garden. And the hybrid came in after COVID, where we saw so many people that needed somewhere to go. And it's also about sustainability. So where other gardens have issues with getting volunteers or people to manage it, we have both students and volunteers who are always here. And our purpose is, first of all, it's to educate. Second, it is to serve. Deborah will talk about our food donations. And then again, it's all about building community. That's great. So Deborah, how many pounds of food do you typically give away in a year? Well, it depends. This year, it has been a difficult one, the weather, tomatoes. We lost all our zucchini to mosaic virus, had to pull up 150 plants. That was heartbreaking. We look to donate about 2,000 pounds this year. And we donate to the Bellevue Food Bank. There is a food bank in Trevecca Towers, where there's a food desert and also free store. So we have three places a week we donate our produce. That's fantastic. So we are in the pollinator section right here. Beautiful flowers all around. Tell us about them. Well, our most prolific flower here are zinnias. They're super easy to grow, come in a lot of different colors. And we succession planted them so we'd have a lot of new blooms coming up and the others die back. We also have some gumphrena here, comes in lots of different colors and they're great filler flowers. One of our other truly popular plants for pollinators are celosias. These right here are some smaller celosias here, but we have them throughout the garden. Another thing that they love is lambs ear. We have a bunch of perennial lambs ear. When they bloom, these beautiful purple flowers, they're all over the place. The beauty of the lambs ear is the perennial will come back for us every year. Not a native plant, but the bees really love it. Bees we have to plant. Okay, and tell us about the asters too. Well, they're perennials. They come up every year about this time. What we really love about them, first of all, the unusual color, there are not a lot of purple flowers in everything such as this. And they tend to bloom after these start dying back. So something is beautiful going on in the garden for the pollinators all the time. Great, and the goldenrod in the back, I especially love that. So that's great. And it looks good with that other aster back there, which is a different species and it just taller, different form altogether. So this is great. Why have a pollinator garden in a food community garden? Well, obviously the pollinators pollinate. So we have more food and everything do their job. But interestingly enough, this isn't just a pollinator garden. It's also our cutting garden. We had a lot of our supporters come in and wanted to cut some of our perennials and everything for flower bouquets. And we thought, okay, we'll just plant a few raised beds of flowers. And they were so popular, so phenomenal that we put in, we have 12 beds here, mainly zinnias, but other things too that are cut flowers. So they bring income to the garden because we sell our cut flowers. And also they're beautiful. And also they're great for pollinators. So they're very important to us. And this, with the marketing background, right? You came up with the idea of why aren't we selling these at the farmer's market? Well, interestingly enough, when I first came here, we weren't even selling our produce. We were giving to one food bank one day a week. And then the rest of the week, I can't even remember what was happening to our produce. So I set up a small farm stand at our gate and it was so popular that we have grown to farm stand Tuesdays and Thursday afternoons, Saturday mornings. And on Thursdays, we're also at the Bellevue Farmer's Market across the street. That's so cool. This is the primarily food garden section and a lot of raised beds here. I think you said 52, maybe? They're everywhere. And they use a lot of companion planting here. So tell me about that. Absolutely. So one of the main things, for example, is using marigolds and zinnias. Zinnias to bring in the pollinators, marigolds because they're stinky and repel squash bugs, which are evil. And calendula, I know all the things. The other part that's so important, we have the raised beds out here and we want to keep crops going throughout the season. So we have chard, we have kale, we have more cold hardy plants out here. And then inside our high tunnels, we have the lettuces, the less cold hardy. So the most important thing is that we maintain organic gardening practices. Tell me about the irrigation. Yes. So we love it. One of our volunteers named Evan has done a remarkable job of creating throughout the entire garden, a DIY irrigation system. And he's been here for years and years. Yes. So people have different skills. And they come in and some people do the mulch in the garden and some people do other things, build things, whatever. So tell us about, do you have any other plants? And I see the goldenrod over there, the zinnia here you brought in from the pollinator garden. What else do you have here? Do you have? So this time, what is this? These are jalapeno peppers. Of course, they are not cold hardy. So we'll be seeing them go bye-bye after a while. We have these amazing long beans. They are long and purple, which makes it easier for our volunteers to harvest. All right. And then we have the end of season, our eggplants, tomatoes. And again, we do so much companion planting that there's a lot of basil and all kinds of things throughout the garden. But again, it's cool season. So you'll have to come back and visit us in May and June. Will do, that sounds like a great idea. Deborah, there are no less than eight or nine bees on this celosia. It is gorgeous and huge. And it's all mixed in throughout the food garden. But I also see a soldier beetle. Tell us about why you picked this plant, what it does. Well, interestingly enough, I picked it because I really liked it. I thought it was interesting and it's my favorite plant now. It comes in all different colors, all different varieties, spikes, fans. And it grows prolifically, as you can see. The seeds come up on these little areas here. And this big plant started from a seed about the size of a poppy seed. Oh my goodness. So if you can imagine, there's lots of different varieties. Some are short and compact, some are super tall. Some have super wide stalks, about this wide. And we just kind of planted them, assorted all around and got all this beautiful stuff. They're very hardy and they're good for bouquets. And as you said, pollinators with all these bees on them. Fantastic. I love the color pops in this, in the food garden too. You still have okra. I love the blooms on this. It's an African plant, but grows so well here in our hot, humid South. Tell us about this for fall. Do you get a lot of people wanting okra? I mean, what about that? Oh, absolutely. It's our number one crop behind tomatoes. And the great thing about okra is that it loves hot, dry weather and it will grow and grow and grow. We have to pick it every day. Last week I picked nine pounds in one cutting and it will grow into frost. Wow. That's incredible. So it's more a fall plant than it starts up in late summer, early fall. It starts in late summer, absolutely. It needs higher temperatures to germinate and to grow. Okay. So, and you have a red one there in your hand. Yes, we have two different kinds. We have the green and we have the red. What's your favorite? Well, I like these a lot because they're easier to see. It's very hard when you're harvesting because they blend in so well. And so you come in, you know, days later and you have something about this big. But as you can see down here, we have that one tagged. We do save our seeds. And then that way, you know, we don't have to purchase seeds the following year. Okay, great. Overall, how much food do you give away from this garden? This year, we hope to give away 2000 pounds, maybe even be more than that. We've just planted our cool season crops. We have a hoop house that we actually have plants growing inside to try to lengthen our growing season, but it'll be between 2000 and 2500 pounds. Wow, that's incredible. All on an acre of school property. So that's incredible. And the students learn a lot here too, right, Miss Evie? Oh, absolutely. Today, they're gonna be coming in to do a bee count. And actually, we're talking about with one okra pod, there are enough seeds to feed more and more and more. That's awesome. Do they get it? Oh, yes. Do they get the connection? Oh, absolutely, all of it. They love it, especially coming here. And most of them have never seen an okra plant before and they love it. And we put them to work. That's incredible. So thank you so much for letting us come today. We really appreciate it. And it's a wonderful place, doing such good work. You have people, you have plants, you have purpose. You have all three of trifecta of gardening. So thank you. Thank you. If you love gardening as much as I do, you'll want to subscribe to this channel. We showcase not only gardens, but gardeners as well. And the joy that the two of those meshed together can bring.