Most of us have quick and easy access to just about anything we want. Especially when it comes to food. Chances are you live in a place right now that is within five minutes of a grocery store, where you can buy any food item you want, including fresh vegetables. For the residents of Crawfordville and Taliaferro County, however, this was not always the case. In fact, before March of 2022, they faced a one-hour round trip if they wanted to buy fresh fruit and vegetables.
And ice cream? No way. The drive was so far away, the stuff would melt by the time they made it back home. (No, it’s not the same as fresh vegetables, but you get the point.)
Fortunately for this community of about 1,800 people, a program was created with the goal of eventually providing enough fresh vegetables and fruit to feed every man, woman and child who desires fresh food. It’s called the Taliaferro County Community Garden.
“Our county had only two places to buy groceries from: a Dollar Tree and a Dollar General,” said Claire Woodard, Taliaferro County Schools’ agriculture science teacher and manager of the community garden.
Those are fine stores that sell a variety of products, but fresh vegetables are not among them.
“It doesn’t allow us many choices when it comes to fresh vegetables that the community needs,” Woodard said.
In 2020, University of Georgia personnel asked Taliaferro County Schools superintendent Allen Fort to help identify the greatest needs of the area’s students. Woodard said UGA and Fort quickly determined that Taliaferro County – including Crawfordville, the county seat – was a “food desert,” an area that has limited access to affordable and nutritious food.
“We are a 20- to 30-minute drive from the nearest grocery store,” Woodard said.
That’s when the idea of a community garden was born. Plans were drawn, research was conducted, and in March of 2022, a local landscape company built 20 raised beds on a two-acre plot of land where the vegetables could be grown.
Woodard explained that the raised beds allow for better structure to maintain the process of planting and growing the vegetables. Students can learn to plant the seeds, add soil and nutrients, then harvest and sell the end product.
“Every individual grade is able to have their own raised beds, to grow and maintain the plants and vegetables,” she said. “The raised beds allow them to see and better understand the whole process.”
Every middle school and high school student gets an opportunity to work with and maintain the garden on a daily basis. Elementary students also enjoy opportunities to plant and maintain the garden.
The site includes a greenhouse in which seeds are grown and cultivated before being planted into the community garden.
Currently, the only fruit and/or vegetable that is grown and served in the school lunchroom is watermelon.
“We are able to donate all of our watermelons to our lunchroom, so watermelon was served with every student lunch,” Woodard said. “Most of the other vegetables are harvested during the warmer, or summer, months.”
Woodard said student workers are paid to help harvest the food during those times, when they’re on summer break.
“We have a couple of fruit trees on the two acres, but it takes about three years for the trees to bear fruit that can then be eaten,” she added.
Woodard said approximately 15 varieties of fresh vegetables are being grown in the Taliaferro County Community Garden.
To draw attention to the community garden, the county hosts two annual events in which the public is invited to see what the students are doing and witness the literal fruits of their labor.
“We host a fall and Christmas harvest to get people out to see what we are doing and draw attention to the garden, and just make them aware that we are here,” Woodard said.
Right now, the Taliaferro County Community Garden provides enough fresh fruit and vegetables for an estimated 50 people, but Woodard said she hopes to feed many more.
She also pointed out that a third local store, A and B Fresh Foods, has opened, and that the community garden is providing fresh food to it.
“When our school isn’t open, we donate food to them,” Woodard said.
“My goal is to one day feed around 150 people,” she added. “That may not sound like much, but in a community as small as ours, that’s a lot of folks we can feed.”
