CHRISTIANSBURG, Va. (WDBJ7) The farmacy garden was first built in 2012 as a way to teach clients of the New River Health District about health education and give them access to fresh produce.

“But then we wanted to open it up more and open it up to all community members,” Dr. Pam Ray said.

She’s the Population Health Community Coordinator and explained that the farmacy uses a holistic approach to health and wellness.

“Not to replace medication at all, but to simply compliment it and to improve health in a more natural way,” Ray said.

Megan Pullin is the garden coordinator and teaches the gardening process from seed to harvest. She notices that people, and kids especially, often have a sensory experience that they’ve never had before.

“You know, walking around and being able to pick up herbs and being like, ‘what does that smell like?’ And seeing their facial reactions,” Pullin said scrunching her face. “And offering them a ground cherry for the first time. Some kids are like, ‘oh this is awesome.’ And some kids get that look where they’re like, ‘ew, no. Never again.’ But that’s okay.”

Right now it’s harvest season. One day, the Linkous-Myers family came out to help.

“That’s going to be really sour,” Pullin laughed as one of the kids picked a vegetable that wasn’t quite ripe.

“I’m keeping this,” one boy said holding up a giant cucumber.

Harvesting is the rewarding part of months worth of hard work. The garden is a community effort and relies on volunteers to keep the garden flourishing.

“It’s really empowering to be able to be in this space and plant something and watch it grow and take care of it.”

But unfortunately, the number of volunteers is low as gardening becomes a lost art in today’s day and age.

“I think it has a lot to do with our culture, honestly,” Pullin said. “There’s a lot of screen time that we’re seeing and I think that kind of turns people away from the outdoor spaces.”

“We found that, in our evaluation we did this past summer, that people talked about the garden as, ‘oh yeah, that was great to play in the dirt, learn how to grow things, and take stuff home and eat it, but we found friends here. We found community.We found balance,” Ray said.

Pullin says this is a way for families and strangers of all ages to come together, from the littlest ones to the older generation.

“I love the social interaction because I’m retired,” one of the volunteers, Bob Herrick said. “I come here and I meet young people mostly, but all kinds of people.”

And the learning doesn’t just stop with gardening. Family nutrition intern, Elly Haden, also teaches people what to do with the vegetables after they’ve been picked.

“A lot of the recipes I work with are very simple, have very few ingredients,” Haden said. “And people are always shocked by how good it can be.”

Pullin teaches yoga and wants people to bring their art and music to the garden.

The health district is working with healthcare providers to write prescriptions for wellness.

“It might be nutrition. It might be activity. It might just be getting outside and be exposed to a less stressful area of their life,” Ray said, describing the types of prescription doctors can write.

She wants people to come together as a community to achieve their goals together.

“We found that people get excited about, ‘I’m going to the garden on Tuesday and we’ll be able to work together.’ And then to share that throughout the neighborhood.”

The Christiansburg garden is one of three community gardens. There’s also one in Floyd and one in Pulaski. Eventually, Ray wants those to also become part of the farmacy program.

Healthcare providers who want to become a part of the farmacy program can reach out to Dr. Pam Ray at the New River Health District. Her email is: pamela.ray@vdh.virginia.gov.

GARDEN HOURS:
Monday: 7-11 a.m.
Tuesday: 5-7 p.m.
Wednesday: 7-11 a.m.
Thursday: 5-7 p.m.
Friday: 7-11 a.m.