Community garden provides produce for those in need

Food bank, others to benefit from project

Susan Schell

of the Gateway

More community members will have a chance to get their hands in the soil at Wilkinson Farm Park next spring. In addition to the community garden growing a bountiful supply of fresh vegetables for the Gig Harbor Peninsula FISH Food Bank, the city has allotted another parcel of land on the farm for individual rental plots.

“We will be preparing the land this fall and dividing it into rental plots for next spring,” said Julie McClellan, a garden volunteer. “It will be an opportunity for someone who wants to get into gardening that lives in an apartment or has a yard that just has shade.”

The community garden came to fruition last spring through a partnership with the City of Gig Harbor and the Health Community of Pierce County. It was a resurrection of a former program started by the YMCA but previously abandoned due to funding issues.

“It got started again last year and is a wonderful asset for the community,” said Gig Harbor Mayor Chuck Hunter, who visited the garden last Wednesday.

“We’ve got a great city that loves to participate. We have the Cushman Trail going through here, and there’s a nice pond over there. I think the city is fortunate to own a piece of property like this.”

The community garden is kept up by a group of citizens and volunteers, and it has produced 1,521 vegetables for the food bank since July.

“It’s been an incredible year for gardening,” McClellan said. “My sons helped with the harvesting.”

Barbara Carr, coordinator for the project, said growing a community garden with primarily volunteers and donations isn’t all that easy.

“To start a garden from scratch, you have to start with tilling,” she said. “If you can get someone with the equipment to volunteer, that’s great; otherwise, it costs about $2,500 to $5,000.

“We got some leftovers from the library plant sale, and Cenex Seed gave us some seed. We took whatever we could scrounge.”

Volunteers installed all-important deer barriers around the garden with netting and fence posts. After so many backbreaking trips from the watering posts — installed to provide water for dogs who visit the park — the gardeners splurged on a drip hose to keep the plants alive.

With that addition, the 30- by 70-foot garden has thrived at the former family garden site for the Wilkinson house.

“You wouldn’t believe how much broccoli we got from four plants,” Carr said.

The group hopes to share the garden with schools and other organizations, like the Boys & Girls Clubs of South Puget Sound, by inviting children to learn about growing vegetables.

“I’ve seen kids that don’t know that French fries come from potatoes that come out of the ground,” McClellan said.

“We have everything here to make pizza sauce,” she added.

The group plans to build compost bins that also can be used to teach students about the importance of recycling.

“It really provides a visual guide to teach students what happens to things when they’re thrown away,” Carr said. “They can see that, if they throw a soda pop lid in the compost, it doesn’t go away.”

Reach reporter Susan Schell at 253-853-9240 or by e-mail at susan.schell@gateline.com.