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On a sunny April afternoon, a few volunteers gather to thin rows of radish plants and pull up weeds.

Two or three times a week, university students and local residents gather to tend the Elon Community Garden.

“It’s kind of therapeutic,” said senior Daniel Jennings, 22. “It’s nice to be out in the sunshine.”

Freshman Anne Lukens, 19, crouched beside him, and they pulled coarse wire grass from the newly tilled ground where the garden will be expanded.

“It’s just a relaxing way to spend your time,” Lukens said.

Three years after its creation, the garden on the Elon University campus is thriving and expanding. Herbs, vegetables and flowers grow in the garden in a side yard of the Truitt Center.

The garden is grown without the use of artificial chemicals and with the long-term health of the soil in mind. The gardeners use cover crops, companion planting and other earth- and health-friendly methods.

Senior Breanna Detwiler, 22, and junior John Hitchcock, 20, both majoring in environmental studies, manage the garden. Money from student organizations pays for some expenses, but the community takes care of most needs.

“We have garden fairies,” Detwiler said. “People just drop things off like lumber, extra seeds.”

Many plants are grown in the greenhouse behind the McMichael Science Building and transplanted into the garden. The harvested vegetables go home with volunteers or to a local homeless shelter.
But the fellowship the garden creates is just as important as the food itself, Detwiler and Hitchcock said.

The garden provides “that safe place in the community where people from all walks of life can meet one another,” Hitchcock said.
Volunteers include Alamance County residents. Some can help out only occasionally, which is fine, Detwiler said.

“We love it when it’s people who don’t get down here a lot,” she said.

When the semester ends, volunteers will heavily mulch the garden to help suppress weeds and retain moisture during the summer.

Elon Academy students will help to take care of the garden for four weeks this summer. The academy is a residential program for academically talented high school students in Alamance County with a financial need or no family history of college.

Any volunteers who want to help tend the tomatoes, cucumbers, sunflowers, beans and other summer plants are welcome.

The garden managers hope eventually to get a small yearly allowance from the university to expand the garden into the open area behind the Truitt Center.

For information about work days or to get on the garden’s listserv, e-mail John Hitchcock at jhitchcock@elon.edu.

Contact Jamie Kennedy Jones at jamie.kennedy@news-record.com or 449-4610