COUNTY NEWS
Photos by James Wessels Boone County answers the question... How was your garden this year?
Good weather, rain, fertilizer and bugs have become new concerns for Boone County Sher- iff Danny Hickman. His department imple- mented the Boone County Jail garden in 2009 starting with one-half acre. Tis first garden produced enough vegetables to save the county about $3,000 last year in food costs. Tis year the garden was expanded to a full
acre, thanks to Ron and Karen Moore who loaned the Sheriff’s Office another half-acre to use. A local farmer donated and spread fertil- izer, and the Valley Springs FFA donated the tomato, cabbage and pepper plants. Te garden has 90-foot-long rows divided up
into green/snap beans – 14 rows; sweet and field corn – 52 rows; bell peppers – 2 rows; banana peppers and other various peppers – 3 rows; sweet potatoes – 1 row; cantaloupe – 3 rows; watermelon – 4 rows; tomatoes – 6 rows; okra – 3 rows; lettuce and various different types of greens – 3 rows; cabbage – 3 rows; zucchini and yellow squash – 4 rows; carrots – 1 row; beets – 2 rows; and cucumbers – 3 rows.
Green/snap beans Cabbage Carrots
402 lbs
130 heads 119 lbs.
Act 309 state inmates and those charged with misdemeanors tend to the garden and help in the kitchen putting up this produce, can- ning 200 quarts of tomatoes and freezing the rest. Enough squash, corn, beans, peppers and okra were frozen to completely fill a 30-cubic- foot freezer and the department’s large walk-in freezer. An appeal was put out on the local radio station that resulted in the donation of canning jars and some canning equipment. Any extra produce that will spoil quickly and
can’t be used right away is donated to Share and Care, a local food distribution agency for folks in need.
By mid-August the garden had produced an estimated $14,000 worth of fruits and vegeta- bles to supplement inmate meals (and many of the varieties were still producing): Cucumbers Okra
Cantaloupe Bell Pepper
Banana Pepper Lettuce Corn
Squash Greens Beets
Watermelon Tomatoes
COUNTY LINES, FALL 2010
1928 lbs. 247 lbs. 529 lbs 155 lbs 813 lbs 215 lbs
3429 ears 2126 lbs 669 lbs 179 lbs
255 melons 2433 lbs
Te department replanted a fall garden along with what is still producing – 10 more rows of green beans, 17 rows of sweet corn, squash, some cabbage and 3 more rows of greens. “We anticipate the food cost-savings to be approxi- mately $600/month totaling $7,200 for the year,” according to Sheriff Hickman. “Tis number will go up when we get the final num- bers from the fall garden harvest.”
2009 food costs: $4879.67 per month with
average 62 inmates per day; 88 cents per meal based on three meals per day, keeping in mind that we had to initially stock our kitchen hav- ing just built the new Sheriff’s Office/Jail and moved in March 2009.
2010 food costs to date: $4795.04 per month with average 84 inmates per day; 64 cents per meal based on three meals per day.
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