GRAND PRAIRIE—Recently, Keep Grand Prairie Beautiful hosted its first tour of community gardens. The group of Grand Prairie green thumbs saw more than 100 attendees.
“This was the first event like this that we’ve held,” said Amanda Lindbergh, Keep Grand Prairie Beautiful Coordinator, Solid Waste and Recycling Division. “We are excited for the possibilities.”
For four hours Grand Prairie Community Gardeners, Dallas and Tarrant County Master Gardeners were available during the tour to answer gardening questions for all participants.
While the gardens are intended for Grand Prairie residents only, Lindbergh said there are a few non-residents who work in Grand Prairie that also have plots.
“Attendees were able to tour the Gateway, Luckett, First Presbyterian and Russ Glenn Community Gardens,” Lindbergh explains.
Overall there are seven community gardens in the Keep Grand Prairie Beautiful Community Garden Program. Each garden has about 25 to 55 beds with some gardens having a fruit orchard and row plantings as well. The Keep Grand Prairie Beautiful group also has the Kirby Creek Compost Demonstration Garden, which is reserved for Master Composter training and service hours.
“Kirby Creek was built in 2011 and the first community garden is the Luckett Community Garden, which was built in 2005,” says Lindbergh.
Open To The Public
The Keep Grand Prairie Beautiful Commission is a board of nine city council selected volunteers that meet the second Tuesday of each month to support the efforts of Keep Grand Prairie Beautiful.
Community Garden tours have been a consideration in the past. During a recent garden coordinators meeting, it was decided they wanted to invite the community to visit their gardens.
“The garden coordinators hope to recruit new volunteer gardeners,” Lindbergh said.
In the meantime the community garden program was started as an opportunity to allow residents to grow their own fresh vegetables. Lindbergh said gardens were strategically located in food deserts. These designated areas, are geographic regions where historically access to affordable fresh fruits and vegetables is limited.
“Each gardener is asked to donate 10% of their harvest to a local food pantry.”
Lindbergh says these civic donations have been in effect since its inception in 2005.
“Many of the gardens accomplish this by reserving 10% of their beds as donations beds. Each gardener is asked to assist with growing the vegetables in the donation beds. This has resulted in the donation of thousands of pounds of fruits and vegetables to our local food pantries.”
Just last year over 2,000 pounds of fresh fruits and vegetables were donated. For more information visit Keep Grand Prairie Beautiful and its Community Garden Program.
