The grand opening and ribbon cutting of the Fifth Street Community Garden (FSCG) gathered community members in Madison on May 5.
Located at 664 Fifth Street in Madison, FSCG is a nonprofit, the goal of which is to bring the community together and increase local food sources.
According to its founder and president, Sally Fowler, FSCG opened in the fall of 2022, but preparations and planning took until now.
“Then we opened for the spring,” she said. “This is our first season in business,” Fowler said.
FSCG currently has 45 beds for the community to lease at $35 a bed per year, which includes the bed and the soil, tools and access to the tool shed. The gardeners bring plants of their own to plant and take care of.
“We have Master Gardeners available to help and scholarships for families that don’t have money to pay for the bed,” Fowler said.
“There are three prongs of our mission statement,” she said. “One is education. We want the children to know that healthy food comes from the ground, not from Ingles or Golden Pantry. The second prong is sustainability and honoring Mother Earth, finding better ways to produce food locally and eating healthy. I’ve already picked my first green beans at the beginning of May, and they are so much more tenderer and delicious straight out of the garden. The third prong is the community and bringing people together.”
Speaking of education, Fowler mentioned that FSCG partners with the Boys and Girls Club of Madison.
“We will have a watermelon patch in summer and a pumpkin patch in the fall so kids can experience growing their own produce,” Fowler said. “I think it’s a really good way to inspire them to do that into their adulthood.”
Fowler said that the inspiration to create this garden came from watching a television show called Grow Cook Eat. In the middle of that episode, there was a feature about a community garden in Mud Island, Ireland. Thinking that it was a wonderful idea to apply in Madison, she turned to a group of six friends, who at the time were trying to come up with an idea of a community project related to sustainability.
“We didn’t know what our mission was yet, but we wanted to bring something locally either about recycling or composting or something that would have an impact because we were very discouraged with the global environmental concerns,” she said.
The group was on board immediately.
Having no prior gardening experience, Fowler, a former regional director for Unum Insurance, where she supervised about a hundred employees, used her experience organizing.
“The whole community came together and helped raise money,” she said. “We got grants from Lowe’s, AARP of Georgia, and $15,000 from the City of Madison under the American Recovery Plan.”
FSCG is open both for those who have no space to grow to produce at home and for those who have gardens of their own.
“Some gardeners have their own raised beds at home, but they come here to enjoy the community. It’s so much more fun to have people to garden with,” Fowler said.
It’s also open for those who don’t garden at all. There are three picnic tables and a bench, where people can sit and have fellowship while enjoying a meal they bring with them.
“They will find a peace of mind, a calming feeling of being in nature, find friends, and learn things about other people or about how to garden differently,” Fowler said.
Speaking of future plans, she said there may be Phase Two for expansion down the road if there is enough community interest. She also talked about possibly installing more benches and a swing for the children.
For more information, visit fifthstreetgarden.com or facebook.com/FifthStreetGardenMMCG.