Educational community gardens in Bay County

Director of Capstone House, Meda Arbour, said this is an exciting partnership for the metaphysical and spiritual learning center.

“We are so thrilled to have an opportunity to have an educational garden because everything we do is about learning,” she said.

Arbour encourages the community to visit the garden after it is planted on Saturday, September 12.

“A sort of labyrinth themed path with seating for an outdoor meditation space, and people are welcome to come, they will be able to learn about the plants. Have some quiet time in a nice little green space,” she said.

Founder of ‘Living Healthy. Simplified.’ Samantha Mello said the organization aims to plant more of these community gardens across the area using a lottery-style selection of locations that have applied for a garden.

“Capstone House is our first garden and it is a public one. We are trying to make it educational, medicinal, edible, pollinator plants, to be able to show people a different aspect of what can be created,” she said.

She said gardens like this would be incredibly beneficial in neighborhoods that may not have a grocery store nearby and whose residents may not have easy access to transportation. The group hopes to educate the people in the vicinity of a garden on maintenance and teach tasty recipes using produce from the garden, she said.

Establishments can apply to have a community garden planted for free on their property, she said.

Living Healthy. Simplified. also visits the Downtown and Callaway markets monthly as a place to answer questions on gardening specifics, she explained. She said that is not the only thing they do while in attendance.

“So while we are at the markets we do a grow your own seedling event. So whether it is beginners, intermediates, kids, if you are interested you can come out and visit us. With our grow your seedling event we take recycled yogurt cups and we put seeds in them and send them home with instructions for anyone who wants them,” she said.

Mello said they welcome volunteers to help plant the gardens and really need someone with a router tool they could use to help make the signs like the one pictured above.