Nutrition education is a program responsibility of all Kentucky Extension agents.  For many ANR agents the bulk of their SNAP efforts are done through local farmers’ markets, but that opportunity isn’t present in Todd County since there is no farmers’ market.  Therefore, I utilize other avenues to conduct nutrition education activities.

     Twice in the past I have worked with residents of the Todd County Housing Authority’s Pennyrile Village apartments on traditional “in-ground” community gardens.  When we did those earlier gardens, we had difficulty in keeping them worked, particularly with chopping out weeds.  To deal with that issue, we switched from “in-ground” to containers for the 2017 garden, utilizing repurposed 18-gallon cattle protein lick tubs for the containers.

     In the summer of 2018, the Pennyrile Village garden was expanded from three to eight containers, and onions and squash were planted in addition to tomatoes and peppers.  The squash were planted so that our SNAP assistant could use them in demonstration recipes in classes at the Village.  Most tubs were set up in a central area close to the mailboxes, making it convenient for residents to follow the progress of the plants and to gather some of the fruit and vegetables.  Five residents assisted with planting the containers and with keeping them watered over the summer. Approximately 20 residents gathered and used produce grown in the containers.  

     A second community container garden location was added at the Todd County Senior Citizens Center in 2018, with tomatoes, peppers and squash grown.  Several seniors helped with planting and watering the vegetables.  Summer intern Jaeana Gates did several demonstrations at the Senior Center, using vegetables from the garden to prepare various nutritious dishes.  Some seniors also took vegetables home to use in their own meals.

     Finally, I conducted some container gardening research, comparing three soil materials to see which was more productive.  Those materials were a generic low-cost soil, a name brand soil with moisture control, and the same name brand soil without moisture control.  All three of the soils contained fertilizer that was supposed to provide the plant nutrition needed for the summer’s growing period.  Both of the name brand soils out-performed the lower cost generic soil (which didn’t have adequate fertility for vegetable production).  But surprisingly, the name brand soil without moisture control produced more vegetables that the more expensive version that had moisture control.