The Chittenden County
Lawn To Garden Contest Is Finished!
The Chittenden County Lawn to Garden Campaign is pleased to announce the winners of the “Turn My Lawn Into A Garden” essay contest. A total of 113 entries from all over the county shared an inspiring mix of thoughtful rhetoric, personal stories, and garden plans. Fifteen judges reviewed the essays and awarded prizes to those entrants receiving the highest average scores.
Meg Wallace of Washington Street in Burlington is the Grand Prize winner. Meg wins everything she needs to install a vegetable garden at her home, including compost from Intervale Compost Products, seeds from High Mowing Organic Seeds, transplants from Red Wagon Plants, a garden cart from Gardener’s Supply Company, and a Lawn to Garden crew to help install the garden!
Meg wrote about how she has strengthened her Old North End neighborhood by installing greenbelt flower beds and wished she could afford to build a raised bed vegetable garden to grow food for herself and her tenants:
“… these projects [will] benefit not an individual, or even an individual family, but tenants, who as a relatively transient population are rarely able to access safe gardening space in the Old North End, and the greater good of the entire neighborhood, with visible long term and lasting positive effects through many years and growing seasons. How could this not be a good thing?” Read Meg’s entire winning essay.
The second-place winner is Brian Bixby of Cedar Street in Burlington. Brian wins everything in the Grand Prize, except for the Garden Cart and installation. Brian wrote about the joy and he gets from growing food for his family:
“Planting, watering, and watching things grow brings me a sense of peace, and gives me pride that I didn’t know I could have. Simply put, I am a better person when I grow tomatoes. I feel like the more I learn how to grow, well, the more I am. … and every time I cook something for my family that I grew, there is no way to explain the payback I get.” Read Brian’s entire essay.
The Tucker Family of Shelburne took third prize. By transforming their suburban lawn into a productive vegetable garden, the Tuckers hope to ensure that children in their neighborhood will have the opportunity to know the joy and satisfaction that comes from growing food:
“I grew up in Waitsfield and spent my summers and school breaks working for my parents who owned a garden center there. Now that I am an expectant father, I look back at my days working at the garden center and hope that my child will be able to work in the dirt in some meaningful way, the way I did as a child. Four of my neighbors … have children ages 1 to 8 who already ask if I have jobs for them. This new garden would let me give them the “character building” that was administered to me as a child, and it would give my child (due this fall) a garden to play in.” Read the Tucker family’s entire essay.
The Chittenden County Lawn to Garden Campaign is an Intervale Compost Products initiative in partnership with Chittenden Solid Waste District, Burlington Permaculture, Grow Team O.N.E., Gardener's Supply Company, High Mowing Organic Seeds, and Red Wagon Plants. For more information about transforming your lawn into a garden, or to be part of grand prize winner Meg Wallace’s garden build, go to the Lawn to Garden page or call 660-3138. Find the Chittenden County Lawn to Garden Campaign on Facebook.
