- By Shawn Galbraith
- Around Town
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The program has served over 140+ households (450 people) of modest means who are served by Tompkins Community Action and who live in the towns and countryside of Tompkins County, particularly those experiencing persistent poverty. The major goal of the program is to provide the initial seedlings needed to start a family garden and to offer gardening coaching. Households with no garden space take home seedlings and 5 gallon containers filled with Cayuga Compost to grow a container garden. Gardeners also receive a handbook with information about the plants they have chosen and a list of community resources available to trouble shoot plant, garden, pest and critter problems.
Donated seedlings are carefully planted, grown and delivered by Professor Neil Mattson and his students in the Cornell Horticulture Program. Lowes and Home Depot donate materials and containers for transporting the seedlings home. Volunteer Doug Robinson has been key in its success. Cayuga Compost donates the compost for the container gardens, and many dedicated volunteers make the program very successful, like the seasoned gardeners including Master Gardeners who serve as consultants on the project.
The Victory Garden Program introduces new sustainability tools and methods that support people’s efforts to improve the quality of their lives by being able to grow their own healthier foods. Hundreds of Tompkins County residents who have low income have learned about horticulture, sustainable gardening practices, nutrition and the preparation of healthy meals using produce they have selected and grown in their gardens. Each year TCAction consumers have had their choice of several seedling varieties of tomatoes, peppers (sweet and hot), lettuce, kale, eggplant, collard greens, cantaloupe, and marigold seedlings. Seeds are also distributed for beans spinach cucumbers parsnips, dill and carrots.
Families who had never grown a garden and whose children had been unwilling to try vegetables were surprised by these same children trying something new, like kale and liking it—all because they grew it themselves.
The seedlings offered to new and seasoned gardeners provide healthy food access in food desert neighborhoods and can create healthier community gathering spaces, encouraging greener and healthier communities. Tompkins Community Action consumers who took part in the program have said that gardening has brought them joy, healthy food and brought family and neighbors together.
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