Community garden group reports on first year

WASHINGTON — Organizers of a community garden that quietly launched in Washington last year reported its growth to the city council last week, and updated municipal officials on their plans for the future.

The garden is run by a group called PLANT, an acronym for “People Learning and Nurturing Together.” Board Member Kerrie Willis said last year saw the property connected to a municipal water line, and a first load of mulch provided by the city. The group also planted a modest orchard in 2024, getting 16 trees into the ground in November.

While those haven’t seen a harvest yet, she said they represented the first step of an ambitious project, which aims to build community connections, line up educational endeavors and boost food security in Washington.

“What we really want to focus on is helping people grow nutritious food to feed their families,” Willis said at a city council meeting Jan. 7. “There’s obviously a need for nutritious, available food, and for kids and families to go out and pick it themselves, and learn about it from experts in our community.”

PLANT hopes to expand its operation considerably in the near future. Willis said the board hoped to add a “bottle tree,” using debris found while digging on the property, which was once a trash dumping site. Members also plan to grow a flower-filled pollinator garden, which would double as a natural border separating the growing area from a neighboring house.

The “natural fence” would offer some privacy to the nearby homeowners, help nearby fruit trees and vegetables flourish, and ensure visitors stay within the garden according to Willis, who said it would be about six feet wide and “as long as we can make it.”

The group also expects to bring in raised garden beds sometime in March, and open the property for community members to reserve their own plots and grow their own food there.

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That element of the garden is truly a community effort: Willis said $4,500 for the raised bed materials were donated in a grant from the Brinton Trust, and the beds will be assembled by a class at Washington High School.

“We’re excited about that, we’re excited about the ownership kids feel when they’re like, ‘I made that, I made that in shop class,’” Willis said.

The community garden sits on city-owned land between Washington High School and the Woodlawn Cemetery. Accordingly, Willis said the organization needed some help from the city to move its plans forward.

For one thing, she said the lot needed a USDA designation to qualify for another $3,000 grant, a designation only the city could arrange as the landowner. Additionally, she said volunteers needed municipal staff to mark the property line before a pollinator garden could go in, and asked for help removing two dead trees and installing a small gravel parking area.

The board also asked for a “long-term commitment” of the land on Boot Hill. PLANT currently uses the space with the city council’s blessing, but Willis said a more formal, lasting promise would help justify investments in the garden.

“The stuff we’re doing takes decades, it’s long-term, that’s how we think about it,” Willis said. “We’re hoping to do this until, I don’t know, infinity and beyond … do you think this land will be available as a PLANT site for decades to come? Or is there something coming that we might need to know about in order to change directions?”

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com