District 622 Community Education to Hold Plant Sale

District 622 Community Education is partnering with the Century College Horticulture Department and Our Community Food Projects to offer garden plants for sale starting Wednesday, May 1, at the Harmony Learning Center in Maplewood.

In 2012, Community Education teamed up with Our Community Food Projects to start an immigrant garden program at the Harmony Learning Center as a way to “provide land and related support for immigrants to grow culturally specific foods for their families,” according to a release.

The plants were started at Century College and will be finished at the new greenhouse at Harmony Learning Center later this month.

The plants include vegetables and flowers, and will be sold in four-packs and 3.5-inch pots, with some specialty six-packs for sale, as well. People can order plants online at the Our Community Food Projects website.

Orders can also be taken by phone: call Megan Buchanan at 612-423-0707. Plants can be delivered to groups with orders of 10 or more flats. 

As part of the immigrant garden program, 35 people gardened together last summer. Brian Schlottman, an instructor in the Horticulture Department of Century College, helped develop a plan to build a solar greenhouse at the Harmony Learning Center so that gardeners could grow their own seedlings.

The Century College Foundation agreed to fund this project, and staff and students created a customized training program called “Greenhouse Growing Skills.”

Profits from the plant sale will go toward expanding the greenhouse/garden program at Harmony Learning Center, located at 1961 County Road C in Maplewood. The greenhouse, which was donated by Century College, will also provide internship opportunities for Century College Horticulture students, and give community members “an opportunity to explore careers and further their education in horticulture,” reads the release.

Each year, the Harmony Learning Center, through District 622 Community Education’s Adult Basic Education program, serves about 800 adult English language learners/immigrants and 400 students working toward their GED.

To learn more about the Harmony Garden and Greenhouse Project visit:

• www.ourcommunityfoodprojects.com
• www.isd622.org/communitygarden

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