Friday, January 3

SU Ag Center, Zachary Men’s Club invite residents to harvest from garden

Club members, Charles Duplechain, and Floyd Pelichet harvest cabbage

SU Ag Center staff, Mila Berhane and Stephanie Elwood take soil samples
Baton Rouge, La – Southern University Agricultural Research and Extension Center helped the Zachary Men’s Club establish a garden a few years ago. Mila Berhane, senior research associate, and Stephanie Elwood, horticulturist and extension associate, are both involved in promoting urban agriculture for the Southern University Ag Center.  Now, the club invites people from the community to harvest what they need from the garden.

“We got with Southern when we first started the garden,” said Floyd Pelichet, who is retired from Vulcan. “Southern helped us treat the soil and get ready for the garden.”

Berhane started working with the club in 2010. “They approached us to give some assistance,” she said. “We did some training in land prep and irrigation, and we grew seedlings for them in the Southern University greenhouse.”

The Zachary Men’s Club is a nonprofit organization that has served the Zachary community for more than 50 years. Most members of the Zachary Men’s Club are retired, but they work for a good cause almost every day in the club’s acre-and-a-half community garden.

“Being retired doesn’t mean you go out to pasture,” said Charles Duplechain, who had a career in the military.

The garden is a year-round project for the club, which raises money to support it. “We let people come from the community and pick, and we donate food to the Zachary Food Pantry,” Pelichet said.

“The whole city, the mayor’s office, local businesses and Lane Hospital are all involved with the Food Pantry,” said Pelichet, who is president of the Men’s Club. “We do the garden and help out when we can.”

SU Ag Center’s Elwood works with school and community gardens. She preaches the importance of gardening in the urban environment and teaches weekly gardening classes at Scotlandville Magnet High School, Scotlandville Middle School and the Southern Lab School.

“We build gardens from the ground up,” she said.
Many urban dwellers have no gardening experience, Berhane said.
The Southern Ag Center is focused on teaching sustainable agricultural practices that are economically feasible, environmentally friendly and socially acceptable.

Photo and story courtesy of the Advocate. To read the full story, visit the Advocate at: http://theadvocate.com/features/people/7629167-123/zachary-mens-club-invites-residents

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Contact:
Bridget Udoh
(225) 771-5714

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