This story starts with a veteran who liked to garden.
The East Orange Campus of the Department of Veterans Affairs New Jersey Health Care System (VA NJHCS) practices a patient-centered approach to health and healing. When a 71-year-old veteran was undergoing outpatient treatment for substance abuse, his recovery was enhanced by becoming a Rutgers Master Gardener. A seed was planted that led to healing, stress reduction, and innovation—and touched the lives of many other veterans and staff.
The recovery was fortified by a psychologist and work restoration coordinator who integrated gardening and vocational rehabilitation into recovery treatment. Additional partnerships were forged when the veteran, an urban gardener, the psychologist, and work restoration coordinator envisioned partnership with the VA’s Planetree staff as a way to enhance recovery and a healthier VA community. Funding was identified and a compensated work therapy (CWT) program was established to provide veterans with gardening and ground maintenance employment opportunities.
In addition to gardening and a Master Gardener program, Jan Zientek, senior program coordinator, Rutgers Cooperative Extension of Essex County, and Kurtis Hanscom, MPA, COTR, coordinator of the Work Restoration Program at VA NJHCS, also developed a landscaping technologist certification course for veterans.
Training includes soil science, propagation, disease management, and pest control. Veterans benefited from the landscaping technologist course and one started his own landscaping business. The group instituted gardening on campus, growing their own tomatoes and herbs. They used 20-by-50-foot plots and harvested more than 1,000 pounds of produce in the summer of 2010. The Foxhole Café restaurant at one campus uses vegetables and culinary herbs provided from the garden. The first group of eight veterans received their landscaping technologist certification in October 2010. The second group of eight veterans began the program in May 2011.
In addition to the landscape maintenance training, Amy Rowe, PhD, environmental and resource management agent–Essex and Passaic counties, Rutgers New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station, has expanded the curriculum for one course, which also will provide veterans with education in storm water management. The veterans will learn about storm system disconnection, water conservation techniques, and how to build rain barrels for capturing roof runoff that will be used to water the gardens that have been planted around the property.
Participants also will learn how to design, install, and maintain rain gardens that will reduce erosion and storm water issues at the facility. Finally, the veterans will receive training in the concepts behind and designing of permeable pavement, which is a porous surface that allows water to infiltrate to native soil and, therefore, reduces flooding and ponding of storm water in trouble areas. The classes will have hands-on components to them, such as installing rain gardens and participating in the installation of the permeable pavement.
Greenhouse for year-round gardening
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