Garden Program Impact
The goal of our garden program has always been to provide good nutrition, outdoor experiences, regular physical activity through gardening, and increasing access to fresh fruits and vegetables, leading to the improvement in a child’s overall well-being.
Our garden program gives youth access to the agricultural process from planning to planting, weeding and watering to harvesting for the over 30 varieties of fruits, vegetables, and herbs. Youth have the opportunity to learn about the environment, healthy foods, importance of pollinators, and local growing systems.
Garden produce is served in summer lunches and school-year snacks at the Club. Harvest season for our outdoor garden also leads to youth developing entrepreneurial skills, while they sell produce at onsite farmers markets, along with annually selling produce to their local schools in the Bemidji School District for use in school lunches.
In October, a Harvest Celebration is held for Club members who engaged in the garden program, along with their families and key supporters. Over 75% of the menu’s vegetarian ingredients come from the garden. Youth participate in the planning, food preparation of most menu items, serving of the food, and sharing gardening stories and lessons learned during this event.
The garden program is led by garden manager Deb Dilley. Dilley originally started the garden program at the Club through her employment with UMN Extension. Dilley has retired from UMN Extension as a Health & Nutrition Education after 22 years of service. Through her employment at the Club she continues her passion of educating youth on gardening by leading our comprehensive, year-round garden program as well as leading our garden committee made up of dedicated community members.
Garden Program History
- 2006: Garden program launched with one raised bed known as the “Pizza Garden”.
- 2007-2011: Installed one additional raised bed each year.
- 2012: Added 1,500 square-foot high-tunnel.
- 2016: Extension of the outdoor garden that included 15 additional raised beds, nearly 2,000 square feet paver section, built seven large picnic tables, youth painted and installed tires for potato beds, and more.
- 2017: Added irrigation to raised beds, outdoor washing station, Eagle Scout/Home Depot Team Depot project of building pergola and benches to complete outdoor gardening education center.
- 2021: Secured three hydroponic indoor growing towers and built a new garden shed for additional storage.
- 2022: Partnership established to add a fourth hydroponic unit that is co-located at a local school.
Since the inception of the Club’s garden program, we have secured multiple funding sources to continue to grow the program for our youth. Some of those have included:
- NRCS: Natural Resources Conservation Services
- Beltrami County Funds
- USDA: Farm to Schools
- MN Department of Agriculture
- Home Depot Foundation
- Individual donors
- Program sponsorships from businesses
- Local civic, grantors, and community foundations
FUN FACT: Studies show that when youth have contact with soil, they have improved moods, better learning experiences, and decreased anxiety, addressing health disparities in our community.
The garden not only produces over 1,000 pounds of produce per season, it also provides:
- Good nutrition and healthy lifestyles
- Club kids get a chance to get their hands dirty and be active in the garden. They also learn about good nutrition from vitamins and minerals to phytonutrients that keep us healthy.
- How to feed the earth by composting so the soil is ready for another season of production. Our kids love the magic of feeding the compost bin and watching it turn into rich, nourishing soil to feed the garden.
- Our gardeners also get time in the kitchen learning how to prepare their harvest. Kale chips are a favorite.
- Every fall, Club kids host a Harvest Dinner and invite friends an
- Leadership skills
- Through partnerships with our local community, our Club members learn how to plan, plant and harvest the produce in the garden.
- The garden provides an opportunity for the older members of the Club to teach the younger members how to garden.
- Entrepreneurial skills
- Club members host on-site farmer markets where they sell healthy produce to Club families at below-market value to make produce more accessible.
- Club youth gain valuable skills when they sell and deliver harvested produce to local restaurants to use in their menu items.
- Cultural traditions
- Members broaden their knowledge of culture and language as they label vegetable beds in four different languages: English, Ojibwa, Spanish and French.
- Members learn about traditional plantings in Native American culture in the ‘Three Sisters’ garden, which features plants that are known to thrive when planted together. Our ‘Three Sisters’ raised bed includes squash, green beans and corn. While growing together green beans grow up the corn stalks and are surrounded by squash. These vegetables are staple foods in Native American culture.
Garden Resources
Through community partnerships, our garden continues to grow and expand. To learn more about our garden, and to schedule a tour, contact us here.
If you are interested donating to our garden, and other programs like this, donate here.
