Community garden proposed for former Seagren's space

Talk about it

Flowers won’t be the only things blooming in Two Harbors this spring.

A proposed community garden in town hopes to start growing soon in the former Seagren’s lot on Waterfront Drive. Lake County Commissioner Paul Bergman says his fellow commissioner, Dr. Thomas Clifford, originally thought of the idea.

“I wish I had thought of it,” said Bergman.

Bergman said the plan right now is for volunteers from the Harbor Center—also located on Waterfront Drive—to plant and tend the garden.

“We’re moving as fast as we can so it’s ready for planting time in northeastern Minnesota,” he said.

Harbor Center Peer Helper Karen Saari says the Harbor Center volunteers are excited and can’t wait to start gardening and planting flowers and vegetables. She says they have already planted outside the Two Harbors Community Center and tend the two flower boxes outside the News-Chronicle’s office, which is next door to the Harbor Center. The Harbor Center community garden volunteers number about 14 to 16 people. Saari says the Harbor Center volunteers like to volunteer in other ways too like shoveling snow and mowing lawns for other Two Harbors residents.

“My crew loves to help out other people,” she said.

Director of Lake County Public Health and Human Services Vickie Thompson thinks the garden is a great idea.

“We have an interest in growing more food locally from a healthy eating perspective,” she said. “It all goes to eating healthy and fresh produce.”

Thompson said she’s been focusing on donations of supplies to the garden for the last two weeks and says she thinks the county will be donating soil and transporting it to the site while the city will be donating mulch for the garden’s walkways. Thompson says if anyone wants to donate park benches or landscape fabric for the garden, she’d be happy to talk to them.

Thompson cautions that ideas for the garden are still in infancy stages so plans and costs have not been finalized. She says the plan is to hopefully be able to decide by the end of the month whether or not the county board is able to provide funding for the garden. Another concern is how to water the garden, since no water source has been found at the site. But she says everyone who has talked to her about the proposed garden is supportive of the idea.

“The individuals who go to our drop-in center have so much energy for it,” Thompson said. “They have gardening experience so it’s a perfect fit.”

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