Community garden
sprouts excitement
SUN PHOTO BY BRENDA BARBOSA
Colorful flowers grace one of the 11 beds at the new community garden a the Family Services Center in Port Charlotte. For $20 a year, residents can lease a bed and plants flowers, vegetables and herbs.
SUN PHOTO BRENDA BARBOSA
Master gardener Dan Baugh tends his vegetable patch in the community garden at the Family Services Center in Port Charlotte.
SUN PHOTO BRENDA BARBOSA
The community garden in Port Charlotte is a collaborative partnership between TEAM Port Charlotte, Keep Charlotte Beautiful, Keep America Beautiful, Charlotte County Family Services, and Waste Management. Eagle Scout Aaron La Plante of Boy Scout Troop 37 in Port Charlotte built the flower beds for the garden. Private residents and community groups like the Boys and Girls Club of Charlotte County, use the gardens to grow a variety of fruits and vegetables and teach schoolchildren about growing their own food.
SUN PHOTO BRENDA BARBOSA
Preschool children from the Educare Learning Center in Port Charlotte visit the new community garden at the Family Services Center on Gibralter Drive in Port Charlotte, where their teacher Kendra Stamp has two vegetable plots. Stamp teaches the children about organic gardening.
PORT CHARLOTTE — For locals George and Susan Haray, there’s nothing sweeter than a vine-ripened tomato straight from the garden.
The Harays, formerly of New York, grew their own fruits and vegetables at the community garden in Port Jervis, where they cultivated — among other things — onions, peppers, lettuce and, of course, tomatoes.
