Thanks to the compassionate and helpful members of the College of Agriculture and Human Sciences’ Student-Led Garden Club and the campus’ Wesley Foundation, a local Prairie View church now has eight garden beds of produce and herbs to feed the community.

CAHS senior Rebecca Annan is the President of the Wesley Foundation, and Dwayne Thompson is the foundation’s director and senior pastor of First United Methodist Church of Prairie View and United Methodist Church of Hempstead. Together they came up with the idea to plant nursery beds in a community garden just a few blocks down the road from Thompson’s First United Methodist Church of Prairie View on October 8.

More than 20 volunteers came together to plant the beds of vegetables and spices. They planted cabbages, collard greens, lettuce, mustard greens, radishes, kale, oregano, parsley, basil, and mint. The student club plans to connect with the foundation and the church to keep up the maintenance schedule; the produce needs to be observed at least once a day and watered at least two times a week. All the produce will be ready to harvest and eat by late December.

While there were many hands on deck to complete this project in two weekends, planting produce and herbs is not an impossible task for the average person. According to CAHS senior and student garden club member Charles Carpenter, all agriculture enthusiasts and those interested in healthy eating habits should take a stab at it. It just takes a bit of discipline.

“You have to be consistent,” Carpenter said. “Consistent maintenance, consistent watering, and checking on it periodically as needed, but it’s much easier than people expect it to be.”

Understanding the basics of planting will also result in smooth sailing when maintaining a garden bed.

“Learning about indicators, like when your plant needs water, what to do when pests invade, and proper maintenance is probably the biggest thing, but planting and harvesting your plant is very much so simple,” Carpenter said.

The student club’s advisors, Laura Carson, Ph.D., and Richard Griffin, Ph.D., aided the students and contributed to the success of this project.

Pascale Mondesir
Communication Specialist
pamondesir@pvamu.edu