By Staff
INMATE GARDENS Lauderdale county trusty Raymond Hill rakes a pile of watermelon seeds planted in the gardens at the Hilltop House. Hill, one of the six members of the camp support, is responsible for the gardens, laundry and general maintenance of the Hilltop House. Photo by Carisa McCain/The Meridian Star
By Steve Gillespie / staff writer
April 28, 2003
After picking up trash all day along the highway, some Lauderdale County jail trusties still can't wait to work in the gardens where they live at the inmate worker housing unit.
Densmore said watermelon is his and other inmates' favorite food to grow in the garden.
Inmates planted a little more than an acre of vegetables and melons this spring at the former Hilltop House on Highway 39 North. The crop includes watermelon, cantaloupes, corn, purple hull peas, cucumbers, okra, tomatoes, butter beans, onions and squash.
Weather problems
Excessive rain earlier this month washed away potatoes that had been planted at Hilltop, as it's still called. Flooding also prevented the trusties from working about 4 acres of land at Q.V. Sykes Park.
Mickey Ables, assistant jail administrator, said he hopes a work crew will be able to start preparing the soil at the park soon.
Ables said the gardens started with inmates about three years ago and have expanded every year. This summer, the trusties plan to open a vegetable stand near the highway.
Last week, Lauderdale County supervisors approved Sheriff Billy Sollie's request to spend $1,000 for seed and fertilizer this year. The cash will come from money inmates raised with the garden last year.
Last year, $230 was spent on seed and fertilizer and $4,000 was raised from the sale of produce inmates grew. Food was sold to county employees and ABL, the company contracted to feed the county's prisoners.
Public sale
Sollie said his department doesn't have adequate storage space for all the produce it grows, so a vegetable stand would be used to sell the excess and make more money for the program.
Sollie said the amount of produce to be sold to the public would be small.
Ables said money raised from the sale of vegetables will go back into the gardens to buy more seed and fertilizer next year, as well as gardening tools and, hopefully, a small tractor.
He added that in the past some of the food grown by inmates was donated to Hope Village for Children, a local home for abused and neglected children, and LOVE's Kitchen, a local ministry that feeds the hungry.
Ables said the inmates show a lot of pride in their work with the garden. He said they come away from it with a sense of fulfillment.