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Community comes together to support Houston Garden
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By Courtney Gran
Argus Student Intern
It is always a wonderful thing when a community can come together to support a cause. It is even better when a community can come together to support not only a cause, but better themselves in the process.
The small town of Houston is doing just that by creating the Houston Community Garden, located just west of the nature center and ponds. The Houston Community Garden is an idea that was planted in the heads of a few local Houston residents over a year ago. Those few key people worked with the city last fall and were able to obtain a grant for the project.
The Houston Community Garden is a grass-roots initiative and a project of the Friend’s of the Houston Nature Center.
The mission of the Houston Community Garden is to create a model for community wellness and intergenerational connections while promoting healthy eating habits for all residents of the Houston area. The goal is to provide fresh food to the Houston Food Shelf, Valley View Manor, garden volunteers and other residents and promote gardening as a healthy lifestyle and a smart economic choice.
Coordinator of the garden and health counselor Audrey Alfson is a big driving force behind the garden for a very specific reason. She believes that our food is making us sick.
“We need to get back to eating real food - good fresh food. With all of the nutrients in organic food, it just makes you feel better all around.”
All of the food at the Houston Community Garden is grown in a manner consistent with organic practices and ecological standards. Another goal of the garden is to get people educated about the benefits of freshly grown food. As the garden begins gaining interest the organizers of the project have began brainstorming ideas for educational opportunities.
“We want this project to become a full-circle project. We want to educate people are about not only growing but harvesting, preserving, saving for later. These things really have become a lost skill,” Alfson said. “We want to have classes to educate. Maybe about preserving food or maybe host a cooking class.”
In the mean time, Alfson says she is just hoping for the best. The project has been a sort of underground movement but she thinks the community is beginning to see how beneficial it can be.
The land for the garden was donated by the City of Houston and is supported through a grant and individuals and businesses from the Houston area. The garden is kept up strictly through volunteers such as a local church and 4-H group.
One such volunteer is Arnie Mindrum. Arne heads out to the garden every morning to water it. Arnie says he was just at the garden visiting one day and noticed that some of the plants were dying so he asked Audrey if he could water them.
“I’m retired so I have some time. And you know, I think I even saved some of them,” Arnie said with a proud smile.
As Arnie showed this writer around the garden, pointing out some of the different vegetables grown he was asked some basic questions like how did they decide what to grow and when certain veggies will be ready to take home to eat. His response, “Don’t know. I just water them.”
But even though he only water the plants, you can tell he is proud of the progress the garden has made. Every once in a while he will throw a nonchalant “I take my hat off to these people” comment into the conversation and even once compared the vegetables to humans saying you don’t want to take too good care of them or they get lazy as he bent down to pull a few weeds.
But even with Arnie’s “I just water them” mind set, you know it is the people like him, the ones who do it for the love, that have made the Houston Community Garden a success.
The Houston Community Garden can be accessed by walking the trail from the nature center or by parking on North Jefferson and walking in.
If you are interested in supporting the Houston Community Garden, you can contact Audrey Alfson at 507-894-3713 or
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