CHEO Garden Expands Mission of Food, Learning and Community

As spring approaches, volunteers behind the CHEO Garden are preparing for another busy growing season, one that organizers say will bring more food to local families and more opportunities for the community to learn about gardening.

CHEO stands for Citizens Helping Each Other, and according to organizers, that simple idea continues to guide the project.

“That is what our goal is,” said Fern Vazquez, who helps coordinate the garden. “Citizens helping each other.”

The garden, now operating as part of C-CAP (Concerned Citizens Assistance Program), began in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic to address food insecurity. What started as a small effort has grown into a community project that supplies fresh vegetables to local residents and serves as an educational space.

Joanne Koszyk, head of C-CAP, said the garden plays an important role in the organization’s partnership with the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank through its Healthy Pantry initiative.

“This is our third year partnering with the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank,” Koszyk said. “Part of that is to provide fresh produce to the community, but there’s also an educational component.”

Through that program, children and families visiting C-CAP also learn about healthy eating.

“The Cooperative Extension has provided us with games and activities for the kids during the summer,” Koszyk explained. “One of the things they do every summer is a vegetable scavenger hunt. We hide plastic vegetables around, and the kids go find them and identify them.”

The goal, she said, is simple: help families become healthier by eating more fresh food.

“With the garden being as prolific as it was last year, we didn’t lack for produce,” she said. “It was really wonderful.”

In fact, organizers estimate the garden produced more than 1,000 pounds of vegetables last season, including green beans, tomatoes, and leafy greens.

Fresh produce is especially important now as grocery prices remain high.

“That stuff is really expensive right now,” Koszyk noted. “So having fresh produce available really helps families.”

This year, the project is expanding through a partnership with the Virginia Cooperative Extension Master Gardeners program. Master Gardener volunteers will work alongside community volunteers and provide guidance on planting, planning, and maintaining the garden.

Susan Matyut, a Master Gardener volunteer, has been heavily involved in the planning process.

“She has been an immeasurable help this year in terms of planning,” Vazquez said. “I’m so excited about the garden this year. I just want to see how it turns out.”

One unique addition this year is the use of artificial intelligence tools to help design the garden layout.

“We used AI to plan the garden,” Vazquez explained. “So we know where the plants are going to be. We know exactly which plants we’ll have. We know how many bags of dirt we need.”

She credited the Master Gardeners for helping solve several challenges.

“When I met with them, I said, ‘Here are our challenges. How can you help us resolve some of these problems?’ And they just stepped right up.”

Another focus this season is education. The partnership with Master Gardeners will allow volunteers and visitors to learn gardening skills while working directly in the garden.

“We’re going to have educational opportunities for the public,” Vazquez said. “Volunteers can come in and work alongside the Master Gardeners while we’re volunteering in the garden.”

Weekly volunteer workdays are scheduled for Wednesdays from 9 to 11 a.m. Master Gardeners and volunteers will maintain the garden together during those sessions.

The group will also host four Saturday “Tent Talks and Workdays.” Each session will begin with a short talk from 8:30 to 9 a.m., followed by hands-on work in the garden until 11 a.m.

The season begins with Garden Prep Day on March 24 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., when volunteers will help prepare the soil and beds.

“We need people who can bring rakes, wheelbarrows, shovels, and gloves,” Vazquez said. “And we’ll put you to work.”

Additional educational sessions planned for the year include “Growing in Grow Bags” on June 20, “Harvesting” on August 1, and “Winding Down in the Garden” on October 3. Organizers may also schedule an extra workday in early April to plant cool-season crops.

Several new techniques will also be introduced this season.

One major addition is grow bags, which will allow crops like potatoes and carrots to grow in containers rather than taking up valuable garden rows.

“In the past, potatoes took up a lot of space,” Vazquez said. “But with grow bags, we can put them around the edges of the garden where we wouldn’t have a row producing anything anyway.”

The garden will also use black plastic to help control weeds and retain moisture.

Another experiment will be a no-dig garden bed, using methods known as Hugelkultur or lasagna gardening. These techniques layer organic materials into the soil to improve it without heavy digging.

A compost area will also be added to recycle plant waste and strengthen the soil.

Beyond growing food, organizers say the garden has become something even more meaningful.

“It’s really an outreach into the community,” Vazquez said. “If you want to find a place where people who might not normally cross paths can come together, the garden is that place.”

Volunteers often work side by side, picking vegetables or pulling weeds, while sharing stories and having conversations.

“When you’re picking green beans, you’re really not talking about the things that divide us,” she said.

The space has also become a place for families and children to experience gardening firsthand. One volunteer even brought her infant son to the garden while she worked.  “She set him right there in the garden, and he was just playing in the dirt,” Vazquez recalled. “That’s what kids should do.”

For organizers, those moments matter just as much as the harvest itself. Watching a small seed grow into a healthy plant, and eventually into baskets of fresh vegetables like green beans, reminds volunteers why the garden is worth the effort.

And for a project built around neighbors helping neighbors, that simple act continues to grow something much bigger than vegetables.

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