Spring has sprung, leaving many people thinking about growing food and decorative plants.
At the Habersham County Senior Center near Demorest, members there are no different.
With the addition of a greenhouse built by Frank Riley of Chestatee-Chattahoochee Resource, Conservation, and Development, Senior Center members now have planted their spring crops.
Graduating horticulture student Allison Collins of North Georgia Technical College has been working with the senior center on the greenhouse growing project.
“When I showed up, there was just empty beds and I have filled them with soil and we’ve had a pretty prolific lettuce garden since probably January,” Collins said. “It’s been growing pretty well in here. We have just added in some parsley and cilantro and the clients here have added in their own tomatoes among other stuff.”
Lettuce grown in the greenhouse already has been harvested twice, while new plants were put in by members on May 2.
“It’s grown really nicely here,” Collins said. “As far as I know, all of the clients that are affiliated with it are excited about it and happy with it.”
Scotty Peppers, horticulture program director at North Georgia Technical College and currently the sole horticulture instructor, said the partnership came about as the result of a suggestion from a lady in the Soque River Garden Club, who mentioned to him that the Habersham County Senior Center had a new greenhouse.
“They were just looking for somebody to give them a hand, help them get some plants in here, and just sort of help them maintain and manage the thing,” Peppers said. “I thought it was a great idea. My students need internships, so I thought this was a perfect internship fit. I brought Allison out here and she enjoyed it and wanted to do it.”
Collins, who is moving home to take over her grandfather’s cattle farm in middle Georgia, said she’s glad she overcame personal uncertainty to get involved in the project.
“When my teacher offered me this opportunity, I was unsure at first,” Collins said. “It just felt like the right thing to do, and it really has been a blessing to me to be of service to elderly people because I have a lot of respect for those people.”
Peppers said the college helped the Senior Center start from scratch to bring the greenhouse to life.
“There wasn’t anything in here when we got started earlier this year,” Peppers said. “We’ve got some water hoses out here now. We’ve got plants in the beds. We filled them up full of soil and fertilizer that we brought, and I hope to keep this going indefinitely now because it’s a good location to the school and I’ve always got students that need internships as we have a requirement for the program.”
Collins also praised the horticulture program from which she received her associate degree.
“There are lots of job opportunities in horticulture,” Collins said. “My goal is to be a market gardener and sell produce at farmers markets.”
Her experience at the Habersham County Senior Center supported that goal.
Peppers said there are opportunities for both traditional and nontraditional students in a variety of horticulture applications at NGTC.
Commercial growing, greenhouses, and retail garden work are one aspect, while another is landscape maintenance and landscape design.
Peppers said it’s not too late to get involved in horticulture, even if a person did not do so straight out of high school or is older.
Peppers’ classes currently are diverse – “a good mix of young folks fresh out of high school, a good mix of folks in their early to mid-20s that maybe didn’t go to school originally and now have decided to go to school and get some paperwork and a degree, and I’ve got a healthy – 20 to 30% of the students are retired, maybe in their 50s, and this is like either a second career or just a hobby for them and they just want to learn how to grow their own vegetables and food on their own property.”
Peppers said he is in the process of getting the college’s half-acre garden certified organic.
“I teach a small-scale food production class, really focused on the beginning farmer/homestead aspect,” Peppers said.
Rob Moore is the public information officer for Habersham County
