Suffolk Church Grows Produce Indoors And Gives It Away Free

By Rosaland Tyler
Associate Editor
New Journal and Guide

Lettuce, collards, basil, and cucumbers are among the many vegetables that Suffolk’s Greater Works Community Outreach Ministries grows and gives away for free, in an area that is considered a food desert.

To fight food insecurity and to grow fresh produce, they use a growing method called aeroponics in the “Garden of Eat’n.” It is a vertical indoor farm. Twenty gallons of water and nutrients sit at the base of each tower, flowing upward and directly onto the roots of the plants.

“There are holes or a pipe that goes up the middle of the tower and it goes into the rain cap, and the water rains down on the roots of the plants, the plants don’t get wet but it goes directly on the roots,” Valerie Baker, a minister and first lady at Greater Works Community Outreach Ministries, told WTKR in a recent interview.

Baker said the vertical system uses 90 percent less space and 95 percent less water than traditional growing methods.

“That’s why we can get so many more plants with the space that we have, they’re 28 pods in each garden so we can have 28 plants in each one and we have twelve,” Baker said.

With 12 towers and 28 plants each, the church harvests every three weeks and replants immediately to keep up with demand.

“We’re in a food desert, a lot of people don’t have access, they don’t have cars… food is so expensive and it’s more expensive to eat healthy,” Baker said.

The church also operates a food pantry. The Garden of Eat’n is open the first three Wednesdays of each month, alongside the church’s “House of Bread” program. On third Saturdays, the church also hosts a drive-up mobile pantry.