MANSFIELD – As the weather slowly turns to spring, gardeners of all skill levels gathered at the Raising Richland Community Garden Summit on Thursday evening to prepare for the season.
Gardening exhibits and educational speakers welcomed attendees, introducing a number of resources available to Richland County gardeners. Jean Taddie, garden and local foods program coordinator at the North End Community Improvement Collaborative (NECIC), said the goal of the summit was to motivate and educate people about gardening.
“If they loved to garden before hopefully they know a little more and are more equipped, and if they are interested in gardening but afraid to start, we want to inspire folks to give it a try,” Taddie said. “We love to educate the community and inspire folks to get outdoors and put a plant in the ground.”
Some of the exhibitors present on Thursday evening included the Creating Health Communities project, the Mansfield/Richland County Public Library, the Richland County Master Gardener Volunteers, and the Community Gardens in the Raising Richland network.
“By bringing many partners together that all have an interest in not only gardening but the healthy environments that promote gardening, we’re showcasing all that we have in Richland County,” Taddie said.
The highlight of the summit was the educational programs from three featured speakers. First up was Jim Chatfield, associate professor and extension specialist at The Ohio State University Department of Horticulture and Crop Science.
Chatfield has held extensive green industry workshops throughout the United States including plant problem diagnostics, plant materials, plant selection and plant pathology topics. On Thursday, he engaged the audience with questions and answers in his program, “Why Won’t It Grow?”
“What it comes down to is people remembering what’s going on,” Chatfield said. “For example, people will damage the roots of their trees with lawn mowers, and that’s bad because the only way plants are able to get food to the roots is through the stems. You cannot feed roots with fertilizer and expect everything to be OK, you have to get it through that natural connection.”
The summit also heard from Dave Duncan, a local beekeeper and co-owner of BeeOlogy, a company that creates natural personal care products containing ingredients from hives. Duncan also owns his own pest control business, and talked about treating gardens for insects while protecting pollinators.
“You want things to pollinate. One-third of the food that we eat is pollinated by bees,” Duncan said. “There are a lot of other pollinators out there that we don’t want to kill, either.”
Duncan discussed setting traps for insects rather than using pesticides, and how to use pesticides safely if there are no other options.
Pesticides were also a topic of discussion with Maggie Rupp, an organic farmer. Rupp spoke of the “dark side” and the “light side” of the food industry; the dark side being genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and the light being organic.
“You don’t do organics, you are organic,” Rupp said. “I think GMOs should be banned; they’re not what they’re cracked up to be, and why have we allowed this to come into our world and into our foods, trashing our water with runoff and pesticides.”
Rupp explained going organic is best for your health and the health of the land you live on.
“The earth is a living thing – it was born organically, we were born organically, why would you do anything else?” she said.
Overall, being healthy and healthy living was the main message the summit hoped to get across, according to Taddie.
“It’s really an opportunity to showcase not only gardening in general, and particularly food gardening, but also healthy environments that promote good gardening,” Taddie said. “You have healthy produce, the physical activity of gardening, fresh air, getting to know your neighbors, and reusing a space that was previously vacant.”
