HONESDALE, PA — It is late summer. The sun is shining through rows of cornstalks and plump cobs are starting to form. Giant orange marigolds border flowering eggplants, pink cosmos wave above asparagus ferns, and sweet potatoes are vining. 

The guard uses her key to turn the water on and one of the khaki-clad inmates gently waters the newly seeded buckwheat cover crop, while another collects bright orange cherry tomatoes for the kitchen to put in today’s salad. 

We are at the Wayne County Correctional Facility (WCCF) garden, and it is calm and productive in this moment.

Our county jail

The WCCF is a small county jail that can house up to 200 inmates, mostly area residents, the majority of whom have not yet been tried or sentenced. Most are in for misdemeanors and drug-related crimes. Many are repeat offenders because of mental instability or crimes related to illicit drug use.

Roughly two million people are confined in the United States. About 550,000 are in local jails; the majority are awaiting trial because they cannot afford bail. Nonviolent offenders make up more than half of those serving time behind bars. One in four people who go to jail will be arrested again within the same year, often those people dealing with poverty, mental illness and substance use disorders. Research shows that incarceration can perpetuate those same factors and lead to more crime.

The garden

The WCCF organic vegetable and flower garden is an attempt by corrections facility staff and the Wayne County Master Gardeners to counter the negative effects of incarceration.

Lieutenant Justin Rivardo, lieutenant of records at the WCCF, is an avid home gardener and knows firsthand the value of creating and nurturing a garden. He started the original WCCF garden in 2013 when he was serving as director of inmate service, in collaboration with the jail’s chef Michael Dadig and head of maintenance Jason Newbon. The garden thrived for almost six years. 

Last spring, at the beginning of the gardening season, Penn State Master Gardeners (MGs) placed a call to Jennifer Geyer, the current director of inmate services, and the proposed project of reviving the moribund garden was quickly and enthusiastically taken on. 

Within two weeks, volunteer MGs were working side by side with inmates, restoring the neglected beds, taking soil samples and planning which vegetables to plant. 

MGs solicited and received seedling donations from local greenhouses. The next week, the MGs came back to find the beds had been tilled, and along with the inmates they planted seedlings, asparagus slips, strawberries and rhubarb, with a few bales of straw for mulch. 

The renewed jail garden took off in time for the growing season and has been thriving. Recently, MG volunteers worked with inmates to build a three-bin compost system and gave a composting workshop to inmates.

Jailhouse gardeners

WCCF inmates who have volunteered for garden duty and the officers who work with them have embraced the garden full on. All the inmates who have worked in the garden said they love being outside, planting, observing, tending, and most of all snacking on the produce that they planted with their own hands. 

One inmate told us, “It’s a time to slow down and be OK with myself.”

Another said, “It helps me to cope in a place where it’s hard to focus.”

An inmate who recently was released after two years told us he loves the garden. “Everything I learn in the garden is relatable to my life. When I’m in the garden I am interactive with everybody and everything around me.”  

Many have expressed interest in starting gardens when they are released. “Learning to grow vegetables and flowers is also good for me to pass on to my family,” an inmate said.  

 Prison staff also have positive things to say about the garden, including the head of food services, Chef Dadig. His kitchen crew goes out in the evenings to pick, or the garden detail inmates bring in buckets of ripe vegetables. He features the produce in his meals whenever possible.

Officer Justin Thorpe often goes out to the garden on his break, “It brings nature to the prison. It’s beautiful to look at what we have made. I like to observe how the crops are doing.”

Officer Bradley Mehelz describes the impact of the garden that he has observed, “Tending the garden gives the inmates a purpose while they are here. It is something to look forward to—getting outside, interacting with volunteers, eating tomatoes in the garden. They get a sense of pride in the garden.”

Next season, next year

To accommodate more inmate participation, Warden Randall Williams is making plans to expand the garden space and reconfigure the area’s security fence to safely allow more inmates from the jail’s general population to work in the garden.  Expanding the garden would also allow for a shed and a greenhouse. 

All this poses funding, staffing and administrational challenges, but it is clearly a program that has momentum. Officer Mehelz has enrolled in the Wayne County Master Gardener Program with full support from the jail administration and looks forward to helping with garden coordination. 

It is getting cool in the evenings now as fall is approaching. The strawberries are still producing a few ripe berries. Spent garden plants are being composted, and cover crops of buckwheat, oats, peas and clover are being planted to replenish the soil for next spring’s crops. Plans are made for a full bed of donated garlic and more strawberries. Other crops will be planned with input from Chef Dadig.

The WCCF garden’s swift and successful first season was due to heartfelt effort on everyone’s part. Jennifer Geyer was the garden’s biggest advocate and coordinator. She told us, “Everyone at the jail is interested in the garden, just to get outside, to touch grass, to eat fresh food, to have that to look forward to. It’s so important for everyone to have something beautiful to look at, something meaningful to do.”