A Gardening We Will Go

Blink and you might miss it.  

A visitor driving into Crawfordsville from the south on highway 47, is met with the sight of cornfields. However, tucked inside a tree line just before town, residents of Crawfordsville have been cultivating relationships and community in a different agricultural setting.  

Since leaving her post as executive director of Crawfordsville Mainstreet, Sue Lucas has been hard at work along with Sue Smith overseeing the community garden, where she has been active since 2010. Now that the weather has seemed to cool off, on any given day both of them can be found there pulling weeds, watering plants, or advising newcomers how to garden and grow produce.  

In recent years there has been a national uptick in community gardens. Since they started keeping statistics in 2012, The Trust For Public Land cited an increase of 44 percent to 29,000 in the US by 2024. In turn, it’s raised property values. In 2008 NYU study by Voicu and Been found that property values in communities with a garden were, on average 9.4 percent greater than those without.  

This garden, operated by Sustainable Initiatives of Montgomery County, is not new to the trend. Being that it is now going on its sixteenth year, one may argue that this helped start that trend. 

In speaking with Lucas, the original site was going to be located in part of downtown. However, after visiting multiple sites and considering logistics, it was determined a site outside of town would be more suitable. Brian and Sue Smith offered a plot of their property to host the garden.  

Walking with both Sues, it was clear just how passionate they were about the garden. One can spend hours speaking to them regarding plant rotations, as well as the best plants to use to distract bugs from other plants. “It’s not what you want out of the soil, but what happens when you set out to nurture the soil,” Lucas said.  

Lucas and Smith see the garden not just as a place for people to rent out plots and grow things for the year, but as a gathering place for the community and a place where people new to gardening gain experience. Over the years, partnerships with the community, like with Wabash College, Montgomery County Soil and Water Conservation Growers, and Purdue Master Gardeners have brought more people here and enhanced community participation. ”While there is occasional turnover, several folks have been with us for over ten years, and we have had five new people get plots with us this year,” said Lucas 

Growth is not restricted to just the community garden. Across town, I walked the garden at Meredith Nichols Elementary School with Karen Thada. This was a passion project started by retired teacher Gerilynn Yerkes. The goal is to encourage students to get involved in gardening.  

“We’ll ask for students’ help during recess and we’re never short on helpers.”  

Many Purdue Master Gardeners have chosen to come to the elementary school, and after a background check, will volunteer their time with the students.  

Speaking with Thada, herself a former educator, she spoke of how she enjoys seeing the children get excited about gardening. She recounts when a child, seeing an eggplant for the first time exclaimed ,”so this is where eggs come from!”  

In speaking with Lucas, Thada and Smith, it’s clear, the goal is not just to produce food for a sustainable community, but also a means to grow community.  

For more information: Sustainable Initiatives of Montgomery County can be reached at  info@sustainmc.org or on the web at https://sustainmc.org