Community Garden Up and Growing!

Participants in the Community Garden have been attending classes about gardening and participated in demonstrations about gardening. For many of the participants this is the first time they have ever gardened. Agricultural Extension Agent Keith Wood, Family and Consumer Science Agent Teresa Wiley, and 4-H Agent Shannon Coleman have been providing instruction on gardening and gardening techniques. Classes are $10.00 for the entire series for the public and are included in the registration fees for garden participants. Several classes are still to come so please call the Extension office for more information.
The Explorer’s 4-H Club is growing one of the rows in the garden. The Explorer’s are a home school 4-H club here in Cherokee County. One of the clubs main objectives is to learning about gardening and they are getting involved and are knee deep in dirt. The leader is Nancy Duggan, of Andrews, and she is an avid gardener herself so she has a lot to teach the youth. Youth in the club have also contributed by making plant identification stakes from recycled blinds. These have been a big help for the garden participants to identify their crops they are growing. Youth have also help with getting the trellis ready for the beans by helping Keith Wood put the string on the trellis. The youth will also be doing some canning projects when their crops come in but the majority of their row of food will go to help needy families here in Cherokee County.
As a rule of the garden all of the participants must give 10% of their products to a local charity. This giving back is part of our commitment to being good stewards and giving back to the county that helped the participants by providing a place to garden.