Need vegetables? Stop by Middletown City Hall’s public garden
The garden and other efforts “help complete the cycle for the city, diverting food waste that goes through the process of anaerobic digestion composting, and then back to food again,” Holden said.
By Cassandra Day
Middletown Press
July 16, 2021
Excerpt:
MIDDLETOWN — As part of a continuing effort to promote sustainability and reducing food waste, city staff have planted a host of vegetables, flowers and herbs that are thriving in a newly created community garden outside City Hall.
Thyme, parsley, basil, oregano and vegetables, including peppers, Swiss chard, Brussels sprouts and lettuce bask, in sunlight throughout the day at the east-facing formal entrance to the municipal offices, at 245 deKoven Drive.
Anyone is invited to stop by and pick a couple items, Recycling Coordinator Kim O’Rourke said.
“Green thumb,” Middletown Chief Tax Clerk Alissa Elliott, was the impetus for the project, according to O’Rourke. The two often go for walks on their lunch break and usually water and weed the garden before going back to the office, she said.
Public Works Deputy Director Chris Holden is also involved in the initiative, which originated with Elliott a few years ago. Members of the Middletown Garden Club donated the seedlings, and the soil was enriched with Blue Earth Compost, the Hartford-based company that is part of the city’s new Feed the Earth compost program offered for free to businesses in the sanitation district.
The garden and other efforts “help complete the cycle for the city, diverting food waste that goes through the process of anaerobic digestion composting, and then back to food again,” Holden said. “It’s a complete, self-sustainable cycle.”
After speaking with Elliott, O’Rourke learned that if sunflowers are planted alongside cucumber plants it sweetens up the crispy veggies.
Last fall, staff laid out a 10-by-20-foot area and put down newspaper and cardboard to kill off the grass and weeds, Holden said, rather than dig up the area. Mulch was placed on top.
In the spring, the garden club helped by preparing the soil with Blue Earth Compost because her bins don’t generate enough humus. O’Rourke and Elliott chose plants donated by Harvey’s Brush Hill Farm on Randolph Road. “We weren’t totally sure what was going to grow, and what would work,” the recycling coordinator said.
O’Rourke grabbed some Swiss chard and basil Wednesday night for dinner. “It was really good,” she said.
She posted an invitation to the public on the Middletown Recycling and Public Works Facebook page informing people, who she asked to “tread lightly” around the plants. “It didn’t want people to think it was for city people only,” she said.
O’Rourke, who creates a monthly recycling video for the recreation department, used parsley and apple cider to make a “concoction” — a do-it-yourself bug repellent. “I’m hoping to use it as an educational tool,” through Sustainable Middletown, she said.
“The mayor and that group are working on making city government more sustainable and taking actions within our departments,” O’Rourke said. It will highlight “the whole cycle of growing something, and, at the end of the season, we can compost the plants, and, that compost the next spring.
“It’s beautiful, and works really well,” she added.
Future plans include signs with information about gardening and composting at home, said O’Rourke, who is also creating a food waste prevention program. “We not only want people to learn how to compost, but eat their food so they have less to compost.”
That includes teaching people about consuming foods by their sell-by date, incorporating parts of the plant that aren’t traditionally used, such as broccoli stems, and storing vegetable scraps in the freezer for use for stock.
“Using as much food as possible, learning how to store it, and cook … so you use everything up,” is her goal.Read the complete article here.
