Community Gardens are a two fold approach to supporting our local community.  From first look, a garden is a way of providing wholesome produce to members of a community.  A secondary impact of our garden is that it provides master gardeners with a purpose.  It gives them the ability to share their knowledge and experience with a younger generation.  This was a hope that our Junior Master Gardener leaders had for the youth that signed up to participate. The Jr Master Gardeners program in Christian County became a partnership with the Master Gardeners as two of the more experienced members volunteered to lead the program.

The Master Gardener leaders participated in the Jr Master Gardeners virtual conference to gain more knowledge of the program so they would benefit the youth more. For sign-ups, there were twelve spots open, and all were filled, but there are eight that consecutively come to the meetings. Meetings are held every other week, and a watering/weeding schedule was created for the youth to help maintain the gardens and have more ownership. The youth were able to build two new raised beds, learn what needed to go into the bed, and then how to best plant vegetables and fruits in the raised beds. During the first meeting, after they built the beds they went through a list of vegetables and fruits that would best grow in a raised bed and chose what they wanted to grow and harvest. Some of the plants chosen were corn, beans, zucchini, mustard, radishes, cantaloupe, tomatoes, peppers, and lettuce. They have been able to harvest zucchini, mustard, and radishes so far with still more time to produce more. The program has been a success with youth being excited about being there and all are new to the Christian County 4-H world.  For our Master Gardeners it has given a renewed confidence in our communities' youth.