Santa
Clara community garden helps take a bite out of hunger
May 25, 2020
St. GEORGE — For more than 10 millennia, mankind has tilled the earth
to grow
food for their families and community. Not much has changed.
Although not quite 12,000 years
old, the Santa Clara Community
Garden is teaching homegrown gardeners how to plant various
fruits and vegetables, how to care for them and how to respect what comes from
the soil.
Patrice Hunt, the manager of the
garden, told St. George News the genesis of the garden, which began in 2009,
came during a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints meeting when
leadership asked for ideas of how the church could help people whether they
were members of the congregation or not.
After some discussion, a garden
was suggested.
The
thought was to help people physically by providing food, mentally by learning
how to raise a garden, emotionally through the interaction with other people,
and spiritually, being reminded that working in the soil we are all “God’s
creation,” said Hunt, who originally presented the idea to the church through
“direct revelation.”
Bringing
the garden to life was a communal effort, she said – from Salt Lake resident
Anton Tonc, who owned the lot, to the Santa Clara City Council to volunteers
who worked, donated, raked, shoveled, trenched and ran sprinkler lines to the
garden at 1726 Clawson Circle.
Kids hold
peppers from Santa Clara Community Garden, Santa Clara, Utah, date not
specified | Photo courtesy Santa Clara Community Garden, St. George News
Typical
harvests include many produce options, including sugar snap peas, beets,
spinach, lettuce, carrots, squash, zucchini, cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes,
watermelon, cantaloupe, pumpkins and a “really cool” crop of heirloom peanuts.
The one
caveat from the city when it gave the garden the go-ahead was that any extra
produce harvested by the gardeners could not be sold.
When
there are excess bumper crops, they are put on the corner of Canyon View and
Red Mountain Drive for anyone to take home.
Planting
in any one of the 50-foot-long garden beds is free.
The 24
beds are available through adoption requests to Hunt’s email. Although Hunt
suggests what will be planted, she is open to a gardener’s wishes. Planting,
tending the garden bed and harvesting is done in one-hour scheduled shifts.
“Our
garden is a learning place,” she said. “It is really a cool place to be.”
To
accommodate coronavirus concerns, Hunt schedules private times to work in the
garden along with staggering access to the various planting beds for groups of
people.
“There is
plenty of distancing for anyone who wants to be careful,” she said.
After months of
waiting, harvest time is always a joy at the Santa Clara Community Garden.
Santa Clara, Utah, date not specified | Photo courtesy Santa Clara Community
Garden, St. George News
At the
end of the day, the garden offers so much for so many people, Hunt said.
“We’ve
been open for 11 years, and that says something,” she said.
St.
George City Council member Dannielle Larkin said it is community gardens like
Santa Clara and those which dot Washington County that are “vital” to make a
dent in neighborhood hunger by watering food deserts – areas where it is
difficult to buy affordable or good-quality fresh food.
“I have
seen metropolitan communities that regret allowing themselves to become a food
desert,” Larkin said. “When that happens, they scramble finding ways to reverse
that. It is vital to get creative to come up with ways to encourage growing
food. The key is creativity.”
Larkin
added that just because Southern Utah is a relatively dry climate, there are
creative ways to employ responsible irrigation practices that can reduce food
insecurity.
Although
Larkin doesn’t think community gardens will solve all local residents’ lack of
access to fresh food, she said doing something is better than doing nothing.
“It is a
super important discussion that we don’t let community gardens die,” she said.
“I know it’s hard to grow here and it’s not something we can learn overnight,
and I am not foolish enough to think we can grow enough food for all of our
population, but we are giving up a lot as a community if the local gardens
disappear. ”
In recent
years, there has been a growing movement for farm-to-table meat and produce.
This movement, Larkin said, can be seen happening throughout Washington County.
With a little
patience, zucchini larger than a small child can be grown in the fertile soil
at the Santa Clara Community Garden, Santa Clara, Utah, date not specified |
Photo courtesy Santa Clara Community Garden, St. George News
“It
really is a learning experience that helps develop a healthy respect for the
food that we eat,” Larkin said. “When we look at our general plan there are a
lot of small spaces that if we cover them up with homes and we don’t leave
arable land, we are really going to regret it in the future.”
In growing
numbers, communities across the country are trying to find “creative” ways to
encourage community gardens, Larkin said, and Southern Utah shouldn’t be any
different.
“Are we
shooting ourselves in the foot by viewing building and development as the only
thing that propels us forward in a positive way?” Larkin asks. “I think there
needs to be some kind of balance when working with our developers.”
For more
information on the Santa Clara’s Community Garden, visit the garden’s Facebook page or for gardening
requests send an email to huntent@gmail.com
