We have gorgeous gardens at the prison. In the fall the skills learned are mostly fine gardening; pruning, dividing and transplanting fruit and perennial flowers, pruning roses, lifting and storing dahlias tubers, saving seeds and other similar November jobs. The hope is for the students to acquire serious gardening know how so they could work as “fine”gardeners one day if they like.
The more they know about how the plant grows, how to propagate and how to put plants to sleep for the winter, the more likely they are to get a job that requires a higher set of skills than just being on a landscape crew.
This past week we divided the strawberries and saved cosmo seeds and divided the peonies. All crops for next year.
Usually the men men moan and groan about working on plants that they will not see come to fruition, but one man said to me in Spanish, “I unos siem bran y otros comen de so cosecha!”
“Some plant and others eat of it.”
Now THAT is “fine” gardening.
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