FELLSMERE — With soil tilled and tools at the ready, dozens of Fellsmere residents gathered to build a hoop house and plant the seeds of a community garden on S. Myrtle Street.
“It’s a community coming together in a unique way,” Lorette Picciano said of the gathering over the weekend.
Picciano, executive director of the Rural Coalition, based in Washington, D.C., said that the organization would be watching how the Fellsmere community garden progresses.
“We think this could be a model project,” she said.
The purpose of the garden, located on city-owned property, is to provide a place for residents to plant fruits and vegetables and learn how to make the plants thrive.
Fellsmere Councilwoman Sara Savage referred to the old adage of a man being taught to fish – he eats for a lifetime.
“To me, that’s what’s wrong with the country,” she said of people being too dependent on the government and on others that they don’t know how to do for themselves. “We need to work together.”
She and fellow Council member Daniel Naranjo backed the community garden project.
Naranjo worked to get the Farmworkers Association involved and spearheaded the hoop house – a low-cost greenhouse alternative.
The organization works to help improve the lives of others by teaching them. The garden, Naranjo said, is a part of that effort.
“That’s the whole point,” he said – getting people together to share ideas and work together.
Currently, the Fellsmere Community Garden consists of about 30 member families who have committed to working the land and will share in the harvest come season.
Those families include many children, such as 11-year-old Alex Acevedo and his 6-year-old sister, Giselle. The Acevedo children are looking forward to working the soil and planting tomatoes – Giselle’s favorite.
“It’s better for the environment,” Alex said of growing local produce. It also would help people who don’t have the money to buy food at the grocery store, he added.
Teenagers Wendy and Jessica Salgado, agreed.
Wendy, 17, said that she’s excited about the garden because it will be organic and she’ll know that the food is healthy. She added that she would suspect that younger children would be more excited to eat their fruits and vegetables if they are given an opportunity to be involved in the process.
Jessica, 19, added that the garden would not only help improve health in individuals, but also bring the entire community together, noting that different groups would be working toward a shared goal.
Councilwoman Savage explained that this garden will serve as a test of sorts on a small scale. In the future, she’d like to see a larger “farm” with more people participating.
Extra produce could be sold to the community at large at regular farmer’s markets and to local businesses and restaurants.
“I’m really excited,” she said. “I see a lot of potential.”
That potential includes the possibility of making Fellsmere self-sustaining – producing its own food, including meat, to feed itself without the need of going outside the county for food.
“We’ve always kind of been independent out here,” she said.