Chefs at Covenant Woods create healthy and delicious meals for seniors at the continuing care retirement community, and they don’t have to go far to find fresh ingredients, thanks to their Farm-to-Table program, a collaborative effort with the Virginia Cooperative Extension (VCE) program at Virginia State University (VSU).

Farm-to-Table programs ensure direct access to locally-grown food without going through the complicated food supply chain involving a store or distributor.

Alinda Uzel, who lives at Covenant Woods in Mechanicsville, Va. and served as chair of the Dining Committee for three years, said there was an attempt to start a farm-to-table program in 2017. “However, it really wasn’t as productive as anticipated. There were lots of tomatoes, but little else.”

Fast forward to 2019, and the community garden at Covenant Woods is thriving with a vast array of fruits and vegetables, including kale, cucumbers, Swiss chard, strawberries, onions, squash, tomatoes, peppers, beets, lettuce, figs, eggplants and collards, as well as herbs, such as basil, sage, rosemary, lavender, parsley and chives.

All of the fresh fruits and vegetables are used to feed about 375 independent living and assisted living residents in Covenant Woods’ five dining venues. Through its multi-disciplinary collaboration with the VCE at VSU, the garden has grown from 5,000 to 8,000 square feet this year, with plans to double its size in 2020.

The collaboration began when Uzel, a retired Extension agent at Virginia Tech and a VSU alumnus, reached out to friend and colleague Dr. Novella Ruffin, a family and consumer sciences Extension specialist at VSU. Through the years, the two worked together on many partnerships in the community. After the first attempt at a community garden fell short, Uzel said she knew they needed help making the garden sustainable, and VSU could help in that endeavor. Uzel got approval from Covenant Woods chief executive officer, John Dwyer, and director of dining, Mike Scheff, to reach out to VSU for assistance.

“I called Novella … and told her that we would like some directions,” Uzel said. Ruffin put her in touch with Dr. Leonard Githinji, VSU sustainable and urban agriculture Extension specialist, who is known for his work with community gardening.

Soon the garden became a labor of love for everyone involved in the partnership.

Githinji helped develop a proposal to expand the garden, add irrigation and create a planting schedule that would allow the garden to produce crops during all planting seasons.

Ruffin said she enlisted the help of Githinji because she collaborated with him on other projects and knew of his efforts to form partnerships and programs to teach the public about all aspects of agriculture, especially in urban areas. “I know that’s his specialty, and he’s a wonderful person to work with,” she added.

Githinji reached out to VSU’s Small Farm Outreach Program (SFOP), which provided Covenant Woods much-needed assistance in laying down the plastic mulch and irrigation drip lines that helped the project extend the growing season. The project received additional assistance from six students from Githinji’s Sustainable Urban Agriculture Certificate Program, a 12-week intensive course that teaches multiple aspects of urban agriculture. In addition to coursework, students in the certificate program must complete an 80-hour internship in several of 25 urban agriculture sites across the state, including the one at Covenant Woods. Two students, Irene Scott and Tonya Clarkston, helped with laying down the irrigation system, as well as planting and tending to the plants.

Scott, who began helping at the garden when its collaboration with VSU started, said that for her, working in the garden is an important extension of her classroom learning. “Physically working [in the garden] … it’s where I get the majority of my learning from,” Scott said. The hands-on experience helps to reinforce what she learned in the classroom.

The schedule that Githinji proposed includes early, mid and late season plantings to maximize the use of space. “We developed a planting calendar so we’d match the crops with the prevailing weather system … to make sure that everything in the garden would be productive all year round,” he said.

The fruits and vegetables grown in the community garden were planted based on recommendations from Covenant Woods’ chefs who plan menus around what is in season.

Githinji said the fact that Covenant Woods is using the produce in its dining venues for its residents is what really makes the collaboration unique. “A lot of times we just teach people or show them how to produce food and maybe sell at a farmer’s market,” he said. “But not how to utilize the food, so we thought that this would be a very good opportunity to serve as a model on how you can actually grow farm produce that goes directly to the dining table. It is a concept that is currently gaining a lot of popularity.”

One of the important aspects of the program is that the food doesn’t need to be shipped, and can be utilized where it is being produced, which gives residents access to fresh, healthy, homegrown produce.

Ruffin said that the program is also unique because of the added value it brings to seniors living in the residential community. It provides an opportunity for them to come out to the garden and get physical activity, socialize and enjoy the beauty of nature. In June, about 75 residents attended a meet and greet at the garden.

With the impending expansion, Covenant Woods hired Master Gardener Jennifer Alexander to be onsite to ensure the gardens’ sustainability.

Alexander said she visits other gardens to get more ideas and also collaborates regularly with VSU experts to address garden issues that she encounters, such as how to deter squash beetles, rabbits and squirrels who find the fresh vegetation as tasty as the residents do.

All of their efforts are paying off, and Uzel said she’s been invited by other senior communities to share how they made their garden grow so well with the help of their partners at VSU.

“The success of the garden benefits everyone involved,” Githinji said. “It’s a two-way, win-win, situation.”

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