GENTRY -- One Gentry businessman took a different approach to keeping the lawn in front of his business mowed and trimmed. Instead of mowing it, he put in a community garden and shares the produce with area residents.
Tom Krein, owner of Krein Knives on Main Street in Gentry, was tired of growing and mowing grass in front of his shop. He dislikes it so much that he used to get warnings from the city when things got too long.
So he built raised gardening beds -- seven of them -- brought in some soil and planted garden crops -- spinach, onions, peppers, tomatoes, okra and squash -- and the produce is free for the taking, Krein says.
"All I ask," Krein said, "is that people take only what they can eat and eat what they take."
"I decided to grow food instead of grass," Krein said. "And it's really pretty easy to grow food," he added. "You can grow a lot of food in a small space."
Krein demonstrated that with his garden this year. He built three 4-foot by 10-foot garden boxes, two 4-by-8 boxes and two 4-by-4 boxes. In that space he's already harvested about 800 onions, and bunches of spinach. The tomato plants are now full of ripening cherry tomatoes. And he's got cayenne and jalapeno peppers, yellow and zucchini squash ripening.
The gardening season won't be done when those plants are finished. He's planting green beans in the beds where his other crops have been harvested.
Krein isn't growing the produce for himself. He says he has a garden at home which keeps him well supplied. He's growing the food for others and hopes his gardens might inspire others to try gardening for themselves.
Krein says he'd like people to see how easy it is to grow their own food and says it's becoming more and more important for people to grow their own fruits and vegetables rather than buying produce treated with chemicals and shipped in from around the world. He considers it part of going green because it removes the need to ship in vegetables from other far-off places.
"Most of the fruits and vegetables you buy at the store are treated with GMOs [genetically modified organisms] and pesticides," he said.
That's not the case with Krein's community garden plots. While he won't go so far as to say everything is organic because of all the requirements in using that term, he said he uses no sprays or chemicals in his gardens and says it's really not that hard to grow gardens without chemicals if you spend a few minutes a day and pull weeds and remove bugs.
Krein said it's really not that expensive to do. He said he got everything locally. He bought the lumber for his boxes from Parks Lumber (a block away), the soil from Heritage Soils (just a few miles away), and most of his plants from Janie's Greenhouse (just behind his knife shop).
"The plants I bought from Janie's Greenhouse were the best ones around. They did awesome this year," Krein said. He said he also bought some of his plants from Alan Hale and from the Sleepy Hollow store rather than from big chain stores and far-off places.
Krein said many cities offer mulch to residents for free, or at very low cost. He said Siloam Springs allows people to pick up mulch for about $1 per pickup-truck load.
Of course, making compost with organic waste is also an option for creating and enriching gardening soil.
Though many municipalities do not allow people to raise chickens or livestock, Krein would like to see cities allow their residents to raise small flocks of chickens for food. He says being able to raise one's own food is both healthier and a wise thing to do so that families are not totally dependent on others to raise their food and ship it in.
The community garden has become a big hit. People are reaping the benefits by picking and eating the fresh fruits and vegetables. Others are following Krein's example and putting in raised-bed gardens of their own.
To help promote his garden and share ideas on home gardening, Krein started a Facebook group for Gentry Community Garden. There, not only information on the garden is shared, but gardening tips and food recipes for home-grown produce. It's become a popular place with 48 members and many more visitors.
Why, Krein asks, would a person spend money and time to grow grass when you could be growing your own food?
General News on 08/27/2014