Families offered space to grow their own food

Antonio Fabian, left, spreads fertilizer in the Carrboro Elementary community garden. DTH/Tyler Benton

As Masiel Bautista helps tend her family’s plot of basil, parsley and cherry tomatoes, she doesn’t need words to relate to the other gardeners.

Bautista, a McDougle Middle School student, has a grandfather who came from Mexico.

“He liked gardening,” she said. “This is my first gardening experience.”

Bautista’s family is one of about 30 who participate in the project, now in its second year, which aims to educate lower-income families about healthy nutrition by having them grow their own food, said Patrick McIntyre, community development director for the Orange County Partnership for Young Children, which sponsors the garden program.

Families from Myanmar and Central and South America share space at garden plots as part of the Orange County’s Growing Healthy Kids Project, said Maria Hitt, community garden coordinator.

Each family who applies and is approved to use the garden space receives their own 10 foot by 10 foot plot to plant and tend to crops.

Ellie Morris, garden coordinator, said working side by side with families from such diverse backgrounds allows her to get to know them and watch them change.

“The gardens are places where people can communicate with each other without speaking,” she said.

“Families will help each other with weeding without having to say a word.”

Morris said the program has solicited a positive response from the community.

“A number of families come from an agricultural background,” she said. “They find it important to share that background, which isn’t always possible when they live in an apartment complex.”

Originally from Myanmar, Tin Tun said she became involved in the garden because her children attend Carrboro Elementary, one of the garden sites.

“My daughter likes the carrots, and my son likes the tomatoes,” she said.

Tun said she grows traditional Asian foods like cabbage, lemongrass and squash in the garden, as well as chimmaoua, a popular Thailand vegetable not widely available in the U.S.

“They like to eat the stuff that they help grow,” she said. “However, my son likes to help me dig and plant, but he doesn’t like to eat the vegetables.”

The program’s three gardens are located on Hillsborough Street in Chapel Hill, at Carrboro Elementary School and on James Street in Carrboro, McIntyre said.

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