Tomatoes and peppers ripen in the organic garden of the Bloomington Fire Department on Fourth Street. Matthew Hatcher | Herald-Times
A typical day at Bloomington fire department headquarters starts with morning roll call, followed by daily assignments and routine housekeeping. In the past two years, an additional responsibility has become part of living at the station, although the firefighters don’t see it as a chore: watering the organic raised-bed gardens that face Fourth Street behind the building.
“It just kind of fit into their morning duties,” said fire Chief Rodger Kerr.
Organic gardens at fire stations have sprouted up across the country, including in Atlanta, Georgia, Santa Cruz, California, and Elizabeth, New Jersey. But Bloomington can boast of being the first city in the nation to have organic gardens at every fire station. In April, the final garden was installed at Fire Station 2 on South Yancy Lane.
“It’s taken hold and grown more than I even expected when we started two years ago,” Kerr said of the garden at headquarters on Fourth Street downtown, which was planted in 2012. “It’s been a good team effort.”
Now, the station gardens produce tomatoes, cilantro, basil, peppers and radishes, among other herbs and vegetables.
“After two years, they know what’s popular and what they should plant and re-plant,” Kerr said. “I think they realized it doesn't take quite as much space as they thought to have quite a nice garden.”
The fire station gardens are the brainchild of Abundant Harvest Farms’ founder Ferrol Johnson, of Bloomington, who saw the project as a way for firefighters to offset the cost of providing their own meals while on duty.
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