Benefits sprout at jail garden

Joni Tucker often spends several minutes scrubbing her hands when she gets home from work.
Tucker is Allen County Jail administrator, and since gardening weather has arrived she spends part of most days helping inmates and jail staff tend to a vegetable garden at the corner of Jackson and Jefferson avenues.
“My hands get pretty dirty,” she laughed, but not to worry, it’s for a good cause and one inmates are given the opportunity to embrace.
The garden’s produce also has saved Allen County about $17,000 since it came into being five years ago.
Cook Darlene Kitchens daily uses most of what is grown and also preserves some, which extends financial benefits over a full year, not just garden season.
“We’re just using up green peppers we froze last year,” Kitchen said.
Inmates eat cucumbers fresh and she also makes relishes and pickles. Tomatoes are eaten in season, as well, and the crop lasts into the next spring as sauces and those frozen.
The garden occupies a corner lot owned by Kent Thompson, local real estate agent and former county commissioner, who made it available when the idea for a garden first took root.
The garden covers 640 square feet in 20 boxes eight feet long and four feet wide. Flower boxes, made from plastic totes that didn’t work well in jail cells, accentuate the lush, green growth of vegetables.
Kitchens pointed out that information from the extension service prompted careful weeding of the plant boxes and keeping them crowded with plants.
With more plants, less water is needed, as incongruous as it seemed, she said. The preponderance of plants act as mulch.
“We water less and harvest more,” Kitchens said.

RADISHES, snow peas, leaf lettuce, spinach and onions are being carried across Jackson Avenue to the jail kitchen each day. Other crops — tomatoes, peppers of several varieties and cucumber — will be coming on soon.
An example of savings with the garden, Kitchens noted, is that salads for 38 inmates, including seven females, cost only about $1.
“I’m buying one head of lettuce, instead of six a day, by using leaf lettuce,” she said. “That’s savings us $5 a day. I haven’t bought onions for quite a while.”
The garden is popular with inmates who have an opportunity to work there, Tucker said, noting it gave them exercise and chance to be out in the sunshine and fresh air.
“They’re also eating healthier,” Kitchens said, stressing the benefits of fresh vegetables. “It’s good for them,” what they eat as well as growing their own food. “It shows them hard work pays off, and they have a sense of accomplishment.”
“The inmates enjoy the fresh vegetables,” Tucker said, and occasionally eating them is a new experience. “Some inmates had never eaten snow peas,” which are available in salads and also for snacks.
“They take a lot of pride in the garden,” she said.
Allen County’s jail garden isn’t unique, but only a handful of other jails around the country have similar programs.
Tucker said at a recent meeting of the American Jail Association she attended in Grand Rapids, Mich., she found “only six other agencies had gardens. We’re one of the leaders.
“It’s a win-win situation,” she continued. “It’s a chance for inmates to learn gardening, it gives them good, fresh vegetables to eat and it really dresses up the (Iola) square.”
A typical observation she hears, said Tucker, is, “We grew this and we get to eat it.”