Bringing a community together through gardening
Although the vegetables are barely peaking through the soil, in a few months the boundless garden at Georgetown Newtown will be filled with healthy food, and happy children.
The community garden is the second one that the City of Salisbury has on its property. The first was the Camden community garden started by Martin Hutchison, a year ago. The success Hutchison’s garden had, made the process of getting the boundless garden much easier. In fact, Hutchison was part of the the reason why the boundless garden was started.
Boundless garden founder Nicole Long tells 47 ABC, she had wanted to help out with Hutchison’s garden and gave him a call.
“He kind of in a kind of joking way said you know I have enough help, but why don’t you start your own,” Long said.
So Long brought the idea to her church St. Francis de Sales, and after they got on board the process of getting the boundless garden started really took off.
The garden will eventually grow things such as turnips, collards greens, lettuce and more.
Long said the boundless garden is important to the community in many ways. Since anyone in the community can come and pick the vegetables once they are ripe, it allows for residents to have access to free organic vegetables. Something they might not have had access to before.
Greg Zaczkiewicz, who oversees the gardening, adds that it’s not just about the vegetables.
“It’s not just Nicole and I, or few groups of people, it’s the whole community and that’s what we’re growing, not vegetables, but community,” Zaczkiewicz said.
Long said it also allows for the community to have ownership of something. Long said that as part of that the community will learn to care for their garden and respect it.
Long said a huge part of it though, is the kids. She said that children are often curious when they see people working in the garden, and often come over and ask to help. By getting the children engaged, Long said that kids learn a healthy lifestyle and also have an area where they can come work together to build something beautiful.
“You reach the children and you can engage them and give them something positive to do,” Long said.
Mayor Jake Day said he loves what the boundless garden is doing, and said the city has showed their support in more than just words. Since the boundless garden is on city land, rent must be paid. However, Day said that rent for the garden is only $1 per year. On top of that, the city also pays for the gardens water usage.
“(These gardens) they can be transformative in terms of changing how people see their neighborhood, how people behave in their neighborhood, and I’m incredibly proud of that,” Day said.
Long said that the city will install an irrigation system for the garden in the coming weeks. She adds that once things get into full bloom, people will be amazed by what they see.
