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Organic Gardening Growing in East Kentucky County
By
Jeff
Franklin
 MIDDLESBORO,
Ky., (July 25, 2007) – There is a belief in Bell County that if
a person has a good thing going, they should share that idea
with others. That's just what's happening with a community
organic gardening project. Extension agents from the Bell County
Cooperative Extension Service have tapped into one of their
volunteer leaders to help facilitate the project.
Pat Biggerstaff, a self-taught organic farmer, is a firm
believer in the raised-bed garden concept. She lives in
Middlesboro and has approximately 40 raised beds on a corner lot
where she grows a variety of produce including fruit trees. The
4-foot-by-10-foot beds are equal to 50 or 60 feet of a field
row. Because of her success with raised beds, she is taking the
concept to others with the help of the Bell County Extension
Service.
“What we are trying to do is bring folks into Pat’s place, do an
educational program through the extension office and try to get
people to go out and garden on their own,” said Stacy White,
University of Kentucky extension agent for agriculture and
natural resources in Bell County. “We have been doing that for
two or three years now.”
This
year the program has really taken off, with several people
starting raised-bed gardens in their backyards in Bell County
and nearby communities in bordering Tennessee.
 “I know for a fact that there is a garden in New Tazewell,
Tenn.; there is one in Harrogate, Tenn.; there is one over in
Speedwell, Tenn. and there is even one across the street from
me,” Biggerstaff said.
Part of that widespread success is attributed to Biggerstaff’s
organic gardening column which appears in many local newspapers.
Bell County extension personnel and Biggerstaff are proud of the
raised-bed gardens they helped start at the Ferndale Housing
Project in Pineville this spring. With the help of the project’s
maintenance staff, they put in three beds that have yielded
onions, beans and soon tomatoes.
In a fourth bed, started with some left over dirt from the first
two beds, residents planted cucumbers and squash.
 Ferndale
resident Sharon Jenkins is excited about the garden and is
learning from Biggerstaff and others in the Bell County
extension office.
“It gives us something to talk about,” Jenkins said. “It’s just
really been a boost here, it’s been wonderful.”
The project has been a team effort in the Bell County Extension
office. Food Stamp Nutrition Education Program assistants Gail
Brock and Brenda Harris have worked together to teach people
about good nutrition and cooking classes. Rebecca Sharp, Bell
County extension agent for family and consumer sciences, plans
to teach canning classes as more produce is harvested.
Biggerstaff believes people of her generation should pass the
knowledge of gardening on before it becomes a lost art and that
is what she is trying to do with willing participants.
“We have just got to pass this word on now while we can and we
are here to do it,” Biggerstaff said.
An
example of willing participants is Blaine Boatright and his son
Daniel, who put in one raised bed in the backyard of their
Middlesboro home. It was their first attempt at gardening, and
they have successfully grown green beans, which they have
already enjoyed. The Boatrights also have three tomato plants
growing in an old tire in their front yard. Blaine Boatright
said he would not have gotten into gardening without
Biggerstaff’s encouragement.
 “The beans have been mighty tasty and we look forward to having
tomatoes,” he said.
White said the extension service purchased plants that
Biggerstaff started for the project at her home in a greenhouse.
Seed and other plants also were donated.
“We couldn’t do this without Pat,” White said. “She’s got the
know-how and she has done it forever, and she’s willing to give
her knowledge to anybody and everybody that comes along.”
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Contact: Stacy White, 606-337-2376
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of Agriculture, through its land-grant mission, reaches across
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