Marissa shows off the bountiful harvest of cabbage in Eagle Butte's community garden. Photo by John Phillips

It was a hot, sultry June morning in Eagle Butte, S.D. The spring in western South Dakota had been unusually bountiful with moisture–and weeds that threatened to choke out Eagle Butte’s Community Garden. One volunteer sharpened a hoe, another picked potato bugs off struggling young plants while a third attempted to start an old rotary tiller. And so the morning went—weed suppression, cultivation, and bug picking.

Gardening is not a longstanding tradition with the Lakota of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe of western South Dakota. Known in the past as a proud nation of mounted warriors and raiders, their descendants have taken slowly to the planting and cultivation of the earth. But this is changing thanks in part to a series of grants from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Cooperative State Extension Service and the efforts of John Phillips. He directs the Cooperative Extension Outreach Project at Si Tanka College (formerly Cheyenne River Community College) in Eagle Butte, S.D.

Phillips had two main objectives when he initiated the project he refers to as “cultivating generations.” The first was to provide health and life skills education to youth. The second was to improve the health of the residents of Cheyenne River Indian Reservation by promoting nutritious, locally grown foods and exercise.

With his mantra of diet, nutrition, and health, Phillips began planning his project in the fall of 1997. During the winter of 1998 he cultivated a network of support groups in Eagle Butte including the elderly, the local nutrition board, and youth organizations. He was beginning to visualize the garden as a vehicle not only for human health and development but as an opportunity for people of all ages to mingle and grow together with a positive common purpose—where both plants and multi-generational relationships might be cultivated.

His first goal was to attract youth to gardening to foster responsibility and nurturing. Gardens need attention particularly in the early stages if they are to grow, flourish, and produce. His second goal was to educate gardeners about proper diet while growing nutritious food for household consumption. Gardening increases physical activity and burns calories. Growing organic food instead of depending upon pesticide-laden, store-bought food provides a sense of accomplishment and self-sufficiency. A productive, organic garden can be an excellent source for calories, proteins, vitamins and minerals (i.e. dark, leafy vegetables provide calcium, zinc, riboflavin, folacin, vitamins A and D and protein.) With the snap and crunch of fresh, homegrown organic vegetables, they taste better, too.

After months of laying the groundwork, Phillips began Eagle Butte’s first community garden in the spring of 1998. In late April, volunteer college students helped cultivate an acre and half of earth and prepare the planting beds. Using grant monies, he hired three summer interns who worked full-time planting, weeding, and supervising volunteers. As the garden sprouted and grew, so did the interest. Kids of all ages began drifting in from summer programs, the local neighborhood, and even juvenile detention. Volunteers averaged eight per day.

A six-year-old boy named RJ came around almost every morning to help out. RJ became so enamored with the project that he eventually pressured his mother into putting in a home garden, recalled Joe Garreau, a summer intern in 1998 who later became the Garden Manager. As the first harvest began in August, more people of the community appeared, including the elderly, who mostly watched, due to a host of physical impairments. Phillips described the harvest as a “wild time.” The days were long and hot, and Phillips’ pick-up truck rolled around town usually loaded with corn, onions, carrots, tomatoes, squash and potatoes. The project donated much of the fresh produce to community groups and sold the rest inexpensively at the garden.

Following the successful 1998 harvest, Phillips sponsored a two-day home-canning workshop, which 14 women attended. Half as many more had to be turned away for lack of space. The women canned beets, cucumbers, and peppers and put up their own spaghetti sauce, salsa sauce, chokecherry jelly, and wild plum jelly. Helen Neigel, a 60-year-old participant who has been canning for 40 years, said she learned “a lot of new things about canning jelly and using a pressure-cooker.” She also enjoyed the company and the time spent together.

In the spring of 1999, the Community Garden project was scaled back to slightly less than an acre, but interest in private household gardening exploded. With the help of “Project Grow,” funded by the American Indian Relief Council (AIRC) and Phillips, a tractor crew came up from Rapid City and tilled 56 private home gardens in three days. Phillips hopes to see that number double next spring.

Interest cultivated by the college’s project has apparently transplanted into other areas of horticulture. Sales of bedding plants doubled at the greenhouse run by the FFA (Future Farmers of America) Vocational Agriculture Program at the local high school this year. Home landscaping has increased, including everything from ornamental and shade tree plantings to lawn grass seeding.

In the future Phillips would like to see the evolving community gardening cooperative become financially self-sufficient. The biggest expense is water, which the project buys at cost from the city at $800 a season. On the plus side, AIRC recently donated an $1,800 drip irrigation system and, for each intern who stays and works for the entire summer, $250 for school supplies.

When asked what’s the most important lesson he’s learned after two seasons at the garden, Phillips smiled and said, “You really have to cultivate a community first before you can successfully cultivate their garden.”

Edward Raventon serves as library director of Si Tanka College and holds degrees from the University of Minnesota and the University of St. Thomas.  He has written two books on the natural history of the Black Hills and also works as a freelance writer and photographer.