Each of the past two years, the Catherine McAuley Center Gateways Garden has produced over 800 pounds of food from their community garden. This year, they were featured as one of two community gardens in the Linn County Master Gardeners Garden Walk 2017 that was held on July 8. Chelsea DeLarm, Support Services Coordinator at CMC and master gardener, said there were over 200 people who visited the CMC garden that day.

“It was a very long day, but it was an amazing day and the garden was looking beautiful,” said DeLarm.  The garden features food such as cucumbers, squash, green beans, onions and more, and sits on 12 raised 4×8 beds. It even has a pollinator garden with plants that attract Monarchs and other butterflies and bees.

DeLarm stated that the garden shows off all the hard work the women in the CMC transitional housing program have put into it and that the work done in the garden has enhanced the program and become a landmark in the community. “The garden is just this awesome place where people feel really connected to each other, and I hear residents say, ‘I just love being in the dirt,’” said DeLarm.

Upcoming activities for residents include harvesting and preservation projects. The women will get to cook a lot more with the fresh produce from the garden and try different things out.