Gardening At The Detention Center or Are You Hanging Out With The Right People?

For the November meeting of the North Central Louisiana Master Gardeners, 

we met at the Lincoln Parish Detention Center. 

That's right, the jail!

Amazing pumpkins from the garden greeted us as we arrived!

We were there to learn more about their inmate gardening program. Little did we realize we would come away from the morning uplifted and inspired! Here's the skinny...

In 2013, the Lincoln Parish Sheriff's Department assumed responsibility for the day to day operation of the Detention Center. Warden Jim Tuten, a gardener himself, decided that a vegetable garden could be a worthy program for the jail for three reasons. First, vegetables grown in the garden would cut down on food costs.  Second, seeing inmates out working in the garden would contradict the public opinion that prisoners just sit around and watch TV all day.  Lastly, working in a hot, dirty garden could be used as a discipline tool.

Warden Tuten's first two predictions about the garden came true. Produce from the garden reduced the grocery bills by thousands of dollars and Ruston residents soon began to talk about the new, big garden at they saw on Camp Road. But his final prediction never materialized.  Instead of inmates wanting to avoid working in the garden, they soon began requesting to be a part of the project saying they were "looking for an opportunity to change their lives," said Tuten.

Tommy Sutton is in charge of the garden which started out less than one acre in size, but has grown to over two acres.  This summer the garden produced 5,000 pounds of tomatoes!! The produce is dedicated to the prison kitchen first, then remaining vegetables are sold wholesale to local produce stands. Any remaining produce is sold to the public, and a couple of times the final leftovers have been donated to the Christian Community Action food pantry.

 The garden earned $5,000 at the end of its first year. Proceeds from the garden project go into the inmate welfare account which, among other things, has purchased a three room portable school building for the Detention Center campus.  GED readiness, anger management, and parenting classes are taught in this building. 

Growing the vegetables themselves has required the inmates to improve their math, science, and reading skills.  The inmates are required to calculate square footage of the garden plus the type and amount of fertilizers and pesticides needed for maximum vegetable production. 

After the first growing season, Mr. Sutton observed that they could get an early start on next year's garden if they had a greenhouse to start their own seeds.  The owner of Irrigation Mart (and my sweet neighbor who brings me figs and persimmons and lets me pick thorn less blackberries) donated the skeleton of a greenhouse.  The inmates revived and refurbished it and soon added grow lights confiscated during a drug raid by the Sheriff's Department. They hope to have fresh tomatoes from the greenhouse by this Thanksgiving!

Some of the tomato plants are over ten feet tall!

After seedlings from the greenhouse are planted, they are watered by hand.  Each inmate has his own watering can and according to Mr. Tuten, there is some serious competition over whose seedlings are doing best. The local fire department donated old fire hoses to use when the seedlings are old enough to hold their own. (Support for the garden program from local groups such as the Fire Department and Irrigation Mart was heart-warming and made me glad again to live in such a great little town as Ruston.)

After listening to Mr. Tuten's informative and inspiring presentation, the Master Gardeners toured the garden and greenhouse.  We also peeked inside the carpentry shop where inmates build a variety of  items for sale as well as display cases for a wholesale jeweler.

Jean McWeeney and Cheryl Maxwell, who also serve on the board of the Farmers Market, consider inmate built picnic tables as a possible purchase for the new Farmers Market building.

So there you have it, a garden that is changing the lives of the people that work in it, giving them something to belong to and be proud of.  And as to the question in the title of this post, we had a great time at our meeting and always do, so if you're not having as much fun, you might be hanging out with the wrong people!!!! Sign up for the Master Gardener class which begins January 13th and hang out with us.  We'd love to have you!!!!  Call the AgCenter (251-5134) for more information.

Love ya'll.

Shelli