Three simple words guide a group of DeKalb Master Gardeners: grow and give.
They flock to the DeKalb Services Center, which serves the neurologically disabled, where they maintain a vegetable garden known to yield nearly a thousand pounds of produce. But they don't eat their bounty of potatoes, peppers, okra or beans, save for the most battered and bruised of the bunch. Instead, the veggies are donated to a local nonprofit, to be doled out to those in need.
"We wanted to do something that would make a difference in someone else's life," said Bert Weaver, who helped create the garden in 2003. "Gardening is important, but having food is important, too."
The garden, established by the DeKalb Master Gardener Association, is dedicated to Plant a Row for the Hungry, a national food drive. Created by the Garden Writers Association in 1995, the drive has collected about 12 million pounds of vegetables across the country. Atlanta-area gardeners have donated more than 120,400 pounds since 2002, and have already grown more than 4,600 pounds this year, according to Fred Conrad of the Atlanta Community Food Bank.
Last year, DeKalb Master Gardeners donated 860 pounds to the drive, said Dr. Phil Edwards, who helped create that program five years ago. Conrad said the program hopes to raise at least the same this year.
The DeKalb program is well on its way, having harvested 300 pounds of red and Yukon gold potatoes thus far. (They tried tomatoes, but squirrels destroyed the crop.)
Originally, the DeKalb garden directly involved the residents of the services center, Edwards said, but that program has largely subsided. The residents' often substantial disabilities made it difficult to involve them in planting and harvesting, he said. While the garden is located at the services center, the agency doesn't accept raw produce; instead the vegetables are given to the Sullivan Center.
Freshly dug white potatoes
beds of okra and peppers for passers-by. Each bed has a labeled sign letting residents see the foliage of the various veggies. "This way they know what sweet potatoes look like, because a lot of people don't," Weaver said. On a recent day, Weaver and about five others reached into a bed of white potatoes and pulled out vine after dusty vine; on each hung a cluster of five or so small potatoes. "Look at that; that's a good yield," Edwards said with satisfaction. "This next year we're going to go for the biggies—the Vidalias."
Guide for New Gardeners in DeKalb County, GA
