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In This Issue:
Becky Reed and Victoria Hill tend to the garden.
Each day on her way into work, Becky Reed, NP, RN, walked by a nearly vacant patch of land outside the entrance to the Brookside Community Health Center, until one day she realized its potential. Now in its second season of growth in that once empty spot, the Brookside Garden is flourishing as the product and pride of a community of employee gardeners at the Brookside Community Health Center.
“The whole purpose of the garden is to demonstrate what people can do with even a little bit of land and to help patients see how good fresh vegetables can be,” said Reed.
Yielding vegetables including eggplant, zucchini, snap peas and broccoli, the garden’s produce is shared among employees and patients and raffled off when the supply is limited. “Seeing the garden and getting samples has inspired people to not only eat fresh veggies more often, but to also start little gardens or pots of herbs of their own,” said Hilda Gallegos-Dargon, RN, diabetes educator at Brookside.
When Reed asked patients what vegetables they ate at their previous meal, the answer was all too often, “none,” she said. “With the garden, we’re able to educate patients and introduce fresh vegetables to people who may not have tried them. We even have patients asking for the vegetables now.”
It takes a whole clinic to tend a garden, said Reed. In addition to her expertise in gardening, security guard Nilton Cardoso shares lessons and tips from his experiences gardening while growing up in Cape Verde. With administrators and financial counselors watering the plants, nurses weeding and security guards lugging watering cans, the garden maintenance is truly a group effort and enjoyment.
“As busy as we all are, we try to make at least a little time to come out and tend the garden,” said Gallegos-Dargon.
She added, “Gardening immediately puts you in a different mindset because it forces you to slow down. You can’t rush a garden. You have to do it slowly, and you slow down because of it.”