Blue Barringer loves working in the garden outside the senior center in Ava, Missouri. There are four large raised beds filled with vegetables and flowers.
The garden was made possible by a grant the Douglas County Council on Aging received last year from the Community Foundation of the Ozarks. The money came from the Coover Regional Celebration of Public Spaces Grant Program.
The Ava Senior Center’s director, Hannah Tate, said she wanted to put in a garden to make their entrance more welcoming, but it was much more than that.
"A lot of our seniors come from rural areas where they had gardens growing up and even as adults and throughout their lives, so to have — a lot of them can't participate so much in the gardening, but they watch it," she said, "and every time they come to eat or come to an activity, they look at the garden, they comment on the garden, they offer their advice and their opinions, and they really do get involved in that way in the space, and I wanted something that they could feel a part of."
This is the second growing year. Barringer put a cover over one of the beds and grew a winter crop of lettuce, cabbage and spinach.
"It did great," she said. "We had lettuce all winter."
Berringer, a young senior citizen herself, came to the Ava Senior Center through the AARP Foundation Senior Community Service Employment Project as a cook and eventually moved into her current role as unofficial gardener. She plants and tends the raised beds.
"Our first experience, our first year, was pretty thrilling," she said. "We didn't really know what we were doing. We ended up with indeterminate tomatoes in this particular bed that ended up being almost 11 feet tall, which is why this year I'm going with determinate tomatoes. We mostly — we don't grow large-scale tomatoes here. We grow the cherry tomatoes because we use them inside for lunches."
This year, she’s trying some different things, "new types of lettuce," she said, "never grown Swiss chard before or kale, but the most fun thing I've planted this year, frankly, has been the radishes."
The radishes have flourished. Barringer cuts them up and makes them available to the senior center’s visitors at lunchtime. She also offers up swiss chard and mixes merlot lettuce she’s grown into the salad that’s served.
"Just being able to offer our own produce that's grown here organically to our people, it's — I love being part of the food cycle, and this is a small way to do it," she said.
The gardens also contain bush cucumbers, peppers and flowers – to support the pollinators, Barringer said.
She’s grateful to have a space where she can continue pursuing her passion – growing things.
"As we age, raised bed gardening and gardening in containers is accessible to you even when you're older," she said. "These are the easiest beds I've ever worked."
Most plants that are in the garden this year, Barringer grew from seed. She’s growing herbs indoors as well.
She believes gardening is one of the healthiest things a person can do, even as they age.
"You get out in the early morning, and you work with your plants," she said. "It's a reason to get up, you know, 'look, look it's grown another foot! Oh my gosh, I have blossoms!' I find pure joy in this."
She likes feeding people and said it’s thrilling to be a part of bringing people organic produce grown right outside the door. Tate feels good about that, too.
"Obviously, we can't supplement all of our produce with our garden," she said, "but just to have a little bit that we can feed our seniors — because a lot of them, the reality of their situation is they're on a fixed income. Cheap food is not healthy food and so a lot of times they're not eating the best at home and so we try as best we can with the limited resources we have to be able to give them nutrition and deliciousness...and beauty."
Tate said, having a garden near the entrance to the Ava Senior Center takes people back to when they had a garden or their parents had a garden. It makes them feel a part of something, she said.
And she describes Barringer, who has a knack for making things grow, as having not one but two green thumbs.
Many of the plants inside the Ava Senior Center are Barringer’s, including a coleus she dug up from the garden last year and brought into the building. It sits in a burgundy pot just inside the front door of the center and is thriving.
She said greenery, both inside and outside, makes people happy.
