BATH

After six years as a destination for Regional School Unit 1 field trips, an outdoor classroom and a supplier of Harvest Dinner produce, Bath’s LOCAL garden has a newly expanded mission: to serve as a nearly year-round demonstration garden, with projects and programs to benefit adults as well as children.

The larger mission and longer calendar fit the garden’s acronym, “Leading Our Community in Agricultural Learning.”

Management of the garden, located at the corner of High and Lemont Streets, passed to the Kennebec Estuary Land Trust in the spring. Private donors made the land available to RSU 1 in 2009.

The garden includes 42 raised beds and a largely volunteer labor force.

KELT’s management of the site supports the activities of two paid, part-time Garden Coordinators, Laurie Burhoe and Dennis Doiron. Burhoe and Doiron maintain the beds and teach visitors how to do the same in their own gardens. Others instructors, including members of the Sagadahoc County Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association, lend their expertise as well.

In June alone, 298 students in 14 school field trips visited the LOCAL garden, learning more about where their food comes from while getting their hands dirty. “Planting potatoes with elementary kids is fun for everyone,” said KELT’s Program Director Becky Kolak.

In the past, students from Bath Regional Career and Tech Center through the guidance of teacher Emily Dittmann have used LOCAL garden produce when helping to prepare RSU 1’s annual Harvest Dinner each October. This year, the garden will be in production all summer, its harvests destined for summer meal programs in Bath.

One recipient will be the Bath Area Family YMCA’s Free Summer Meals for Kids and Teens, which provides breakfast and lunches from June 20 through Aug. 26. The crops grown in the garden this summer are among those most needed and wanted by patrons of the Y, the Bath Area Food Shelf and the Bath Area Soup Kitchen. Nearly all the crops were planted by student visitors to the garden.

For the past four years, KELT has collaborated with the Brunswick Topsham Land Trust to protect farmland in Sagadahoc and Androscoggin Counties. Both groups helped to launch the Merrymeeting Food Council which supports local production of healthy, nutritious food, and efforts to make it available to everyone in the region.

The Food Council created and maintains an inventory of the state of local food in the communities around Merrymeeting Bay, the Food, Farms, and Fisheries Assessment.” According to that assessment 13.4 percent of Bath residents are at risk of hunger or food insecurity — a significantly higher percentage than in surrounding cities and towns.

According to KELT Executive Director Carrie Kinne, KELT’s support for Bath’s LOCAL Garden is a logical extension of its goal to protect agricultural land in the face of this acute need.

“We already participate vigorously in regional efforts to safeguard the future of local agriculture,” Kinne said, “and we feel it’s important to focus on Bath given the community’s needs. KELT’s year-round involvement can help ensure that the LOCAL garden will continue to produce food, educational opportunities, and community engagement for years to come.”