CRESTONE – Crestone held its annual Community Garden Festival on Saturday, May 18.
The event took place next to the community gardens area outside of Little Shepard Church. There were multiple vendors selling all types of plants, including tomatoes, basil, lavender, and other garden plants.
There were fresh plant starts available for purchase and some were being given away.
Multiple speakers spoke on different subjects including permaculture, gardening, and plants. There was also a community potluck inside of the Little Shepard Church, and many people were walking around with bowls of fresh greens and other edible plants, munching on their food and enjoying the day.
Crestone Community Garden Project posters were for sale at the event, that featured a picture of the entire garden project.
Jenny Ducale, director of the Crestone Community Garden, spoke about the garden and how the garden helps the community.
“We are a community garden. The garden is grant funded. We serve the food bank. We grow the food and give it to the food bank. We have volunteers that come and grow with us, and they also harvest food. Town hall has also given us the use of their greenhouse, where we are also able to grow seedlings for the garden, and to sale to the community. Our garden supports the community, for the things that they may have to go all the way to Alamosa to get or that they can’t get here such as straw. I also have bags of soil and compost and plants,” she said.
Ducale explained that the event takes place once a year.
“Today is the day. The proceeds will go to next year’s event. We save the money that we make for that. We have to buy the seeds for the plants, the soil for everything that we have at the festival. If there is money left over, we save it and use it next year for the festival,” she said.
Ducale explained that at least a third or half of the people at the festival sell plants from their gardens at the festival.
“They have their own starts that they bring from their own gardens. Some people come and give stuff away and some people sell it. This is a day for the community to come together to either sell, tell, or share.”
