The first community garden in Florida to arise through the cooperation of the University of Florida and a local municipality, Dade City Watson Park Community Garden is off to a great start and destined for abundant success. Just a month after the garden was approved by the City of Dade City, City Commissioners, the garden has a brand new fence, water lines, and spigots installed through the financial support of the city. The UF/IFAS Pasco County Extension Office, Community Gardens Program, in charge of gardens development, has installed 4 wheelchair and senior accessible raised beds, created a compost bin area, and will soon create a seed bank. Figure 1: Master Gardener Volunteers, Bill Rollins and Leonard Daszkiewicz, help build raised wheelchair accessible garden beds at Dade City Watson Park Community Garden.

The Community Garden Program will continue to develop the garden by adding pollinator and sensory gardens as well as teaching classes on the premises on topics such as gardening skills, food safety, eating on a budget, and healthy eating. Local community members have already showed interest and four of the garden plots have been leased out.

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