Juvenile Detention Center (Denton)

Early in 2003 the Juvenile Detention garden project began.  With no place to
construct beds and no money, but lots of enthusiasm, it was decided to create a container garden on a seldom used basketball court.  With generous donations from Master Gardeners, employees of the Juvenile Probation Department and members of the community, we were up and running.


In the spring of 2004 the County decided it was necessary to remove the
basketball court and offered to install a "proper" garden with beds in the
ground.  During this construction our gardening efforts were limited but did
continue.  The new garden was completed and ready  for use in the Spring of 2005, but there were some challenges adjusting to planting in beds instead of
containers.  There were also drainage problems, but we worked around those to
have a rather successful year.  The gardening year of 2006 has been by far the
most successful with bumper crops of tomatoes, egg plant, peppers and herbs. 


Each year we have gardened we have participated in the County Fruit, Vegetable and Flower show, and each time we have won many ribbons for the fine produce we enter.   In 2003 we entered pickled beets in the North Texas State Fair and won a blue ribbon.   This is great feedback to the residents and allows them to be involved in something that they never would think of without this project.

During the summer of 2005 and 2006 the Denton Independent School District made it possible for the gardening participants to earn up to one high school credit for their gardening activities.  This is a great benefit to the residents since many of them are behind in earning high school credits due to poor school
attendance before they entered the program.  The credit earned in this class has literally made it possible for some residents to move up a grade or graduate from high school with their class.