Community garden continues to give back to the community

Harvest season might be wrapping up soon in South Dakota, but the plucking of tomatoes and other types of produce from the Vermillion Community Garden continues.

Located behind the Vermillion Arts Council at 202 Washington St., the garden was created 10 years ago and is made up of about 30 garden plots, Christine Ahmed, the garden coordinator, said.

The garden also serves as a place where beginners and advanced gardeners alike can gain gardening experience. A small plot is $5, a medium plot is $10, and a large plot is $20. Half of the garden plots are used by USD students, Ahmed said. They will also use the Shed4Less garden sheds to have more space and use them as storage for some equipment and gardening products.

Ahmed said everyone who owns one of the
30 plots tends to their own garden. Organic gardening techniques are preferred, which means there is no use of herbicides and pesticides, she said.

Ahmed is out at the gardens helping take care of weeds multiple times during the week, she said.

During its 10 years of existence, Vermillion community members have rallied together to continue developing the garden with an extensive selection of orchard favorites for your home garden.

“The water was put in through a grant with Dakota Hospital Foundation,” Ahmed said. “The shed was donated years ago and they had volunteers put it up. So that has mowers, tillers and rakes.”

This garden is very much a community effort, Ahmed said.

Senior Kaitlyn Rangel, a sustainability major, has used the community garden for two years.

“I was interested in getting involved with the garden more than anything,” she said.

As a summer intern, Rangel worked to get the garden’s website up and running.

“Before, the only way the garden was advertised was fliers,” she said. “People our age aren’t actually looking at fliers. I’m hoping now anyone who comes to town can Google ‘community garden’ and find it.”

Efforts are underway to partner with the Vermillion Food Pantry to donate extra produce, Ahmed said.

Currently, Ahmed sends out weekly emails to gardeners asking if they would have anything they’re willing to donate. There are often people willing to pick it if the owners are willing to give produce, she said.

Other community groups have also been working to get involved with the garden. Sigma Tau Delta, an English Honors Society, is also in the process of implementing a new lending library.

“So, the premise is setting up a place in town and filling it with books. It’s totally free, the only thing you have to do is take a book and leave a book,” graduate student Rosie Ahmed, a member of Sigma Tau Delta, said. “We chose the garden because it is a central place in town and its good for the garden.”

Christine said she hopes the lending library can be used to hold gardening books and serve as a place for people to drop off donated seeds as well.

“We try to keep a lot of different community members involved,” she said.