Two Anaconda staples welcoming new addition: community gardens

Both Anaconda-Deer Lodge County Head Start and Smelter City Senior Citizens Center at the Metcalf added tasty additions to their spaces recently in the form of two community gardens.

Mike Noblin, who has two degrees in horticulture has spent a 30-plus year-long career in horticulture, landscaping and agriculture, started developing local community gardens in 2023 when he spearheaded a community garden at Zane’s Park in Philipsburg, and has since been beginning the passion project to Anaconda.

“My philosophy is the more community gardens there are, the more people benefit,” Noblin said.

Noblin said his experience helped him convince the then-mayor of Philipsburg to let him try to develop a community garden.

“I grew up loving plants and growing things in my backyard in Waukegan, Illinois,” Noblin said. “As a young kid, my parents let me dig up the back yard lawn and grow more stuff each year as they saw my passion. Going to SIU Carbondale gave me a unique perspective in learning horticulture in the midwest with plants from both the southern and northern parts of Illinois and my years of practical experience in Florida with tropical and subtropical plants, I am confident I can apply general plant knowledge wherever I go.”

The garden in Philipsburg is 10,000 square feet, and to gather all the supplies he needed, Noblin approached local businesses and asked them to donate materials like fencing, fence posts, soil, and wood for the garden beds.  

In winter of last year, Noblin contacted the director of the ADLC Head Start, Heidi Ungaretti about starting a community garden there, and those conversations came to fruition over the last month or so with some students from Anaconda Job Corps coming by to help.

Noblin made all the garden beds himself and the Job Corps students carried the soil and filled the beds. 

When the Head Start garden is finished, it will have herbs, broccoli, potatoes, tomatoes, carrots, onions, cabbage, corn and pumpkins.

Head Start cook Heidi Johnson said they may start seeing the vegetables of their labor sometime in July, and that the vegetable will be incorporated into almost all of their daily meals – except for breakfast.

Head Start works hard to adhere to a low salt or no salt diet, so Johnson said she relies on herbs a lot to season the food. The fresh ones from the garden will prove very useful in that capacity.

Johnson explained that they have broccoli regularly with their lunches, the potatoes can be used for either mashed potatoes or oven-cooked fries, and the herbs and tomatoes will be used in spaghetti sauces.

“We also have salads a lot, so that would use the cabbage, broccoli, a bunch of different vegetables,” Johnson said.

Johnson also said every Friday after the garden starts producing, she’s planning to leave any remaining fresh vegetables from the garden out for families to grab.

Leah Vandekop, health and community outreach coordinator at the Anaconda Head Start said they specifically requested pumpkin so the kids could each have their own come Halloween, and the kids could have the pumpkin seeds for a snack.

“This way we can introduce the kids to healthier foods you can grow on your own,” Vandekop said. “And we can guarantee they’re getting fresh vegetables from our very own garden.”

The other community garden at the senior center recently had a planting day on Saturday, which had a large turnout despite the rain.

Noblin said the director of the senior center, Leigha Bates, called him up after he started posting on Facebook about the garden at the Head Start, and he readily started the process over again: gathering sponsors for raised beds, donors of fencing materials, fertilizers and manure, and soil, as well as monetary donations.

About 20 community volunteers, including Job Corps students, came to the senior center to help make garden beds and fill them, although Noblin said it was so rainy that they did not finish planting.

“Successfully growing some vegetables is a challenge with random hail storms, early frosts…but it makes it that much better when you beat mother nature,” Noblin said.

Noblin said they had so much help at the senior center’s garden on Saturday that they finished an hour ahead of schedule.

When Noblin originally talked to Leah, he said they planned on the space being large enough to house 24 4x8 garden beds, and at the community planting day they managed to build a fill 20.

The senior center’s garden will have potatoes, broccoli, squash, iceberg lettuce, peas, green beans, and more, Noblin said.

Like the Head Start, the senior center also plans to use the vegetables from their garden in their meals, and put all the remainders on a table for community members to take.

“I love seeing looks on people’s faces when they get free vegetables from the gardens,” Noblin said. “Love to supply free organic vegetables in the community. I see it as payback to God for letting me live.”

Noblin received a cancer diagnosis in 2016 and a serious head injury a few years later, and he said he feels thankful to have lived through it all.

In addition to the Philipsburg garden and the ones at the Head Start and senior center, Noblin has been revitalizing the community garden on Cherry Street and has been giving horticulture advice in his free time.

“I hope the increase in gardens continues and more people become interested and ask for my help in learning,” Noblin said.