Gardening & Growth in the Mendocino County Jail
story & photos by Zohar Zaied
On a spring morning inside the perimeter of the Mendocino County Jail, a group of inmates joined members of a volunteer group for a check-in before they started their day. Each member of the circle had the option to share what s/he would personally offer to the group on this day. After check-in, the crew got to work in the 1/8th acre vegetable garden, which provides food, flowers, and some experience to cultivate a better future for the participants. The garden project is one of many programs offered by the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office, which provides targeted resources to assist inmates to interrupt the incarceration cycle.
Though a garden has existed in various forms at the jail, gardening as a component of rehabilitation started informally at the Mendocino County Jail in 2012. Lifetime gardener John Holt, with the help of a crew of inmates, transformed land within the facility’s perimeter into a working vegetable garden.
When he agreed to take on the jail’s garden project, Holt found the grounds were overgrown with weeds, the compacted garden beds were full of rocks, and he recalls that the garden was dubbed “the Stony Jail Garden” by the first group of inmates he trained. The garden has been transformed. Today, the rocks sifted from the garden beds can be found in the borders of some of the flowerbeds which line most of the jail’s secured walkways.
Holt maintained a hand-written record of the fruits and vegetables his crews have harvested over the years. In 2017, the garden crew brought in over five tons of produce, used by the kitchen to prepare meals for the inmate population at the jail and youth at Juvenile Hall. Unconditional Freedom Project volunteer, Marla Moffet, estimates that, under its current configuration, the garden stands to produce approximately 11,000 pounds of produce per year, saving potentially up to $18,000 in food cost.
A more significant savings to the taxpayers, however, comes from the potential to reduce recidivism at the local incarceration level, an effort that lines up with the Sheriff’s Office mission at the jail. In 2018, the weighted average cost to house an inmate at a county jail amounted to just under $160 per day in California, according to a Board of State Community Corrections report. That adds up to over $58,000 per year.
In February of 2021, members of the Unconditional Freedom Project (UFP) teamed up with the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office to formalize rehabilitation efforts for some of the jail’s inmates by way of the garden. “Any gardener can manage the soil, plant starts, and harvest in the fall. The real job [in an incarceration setting] is offering guidance,” said Holt, who was on hand in early 2021 to help transition the garden to UFP volunteers. UFP brings a program to Mendocino County that has already seen success in California’s state prison system through the “Art of Soul Making Program,” a correspondence course which “seeks to repurpose the experience of incarceration from mere punishment to something truly restorative.”
“It’s one of the more positive aspects of being incarcerated,” program participant Aaron Beardslee says. He often sees produce he has planted and grown end up in the jail’s kitchen. “Even though we’re behind a fence, we’re in a garden. You can put your hands on the results.”
“The whole idea is getting people connected to the earth,” Moffet says. “Just like the earth is an ecosystem, we are an ecosystem.” UFP introduces program participants to these concepts through gardening. To further the restorative efforts of their program, UFP has enrolled 27 incarcerated men and 35 women in the Art of Soul Making correspondence course.
Collaborating with UFP is part of an effort by Mendocino County Sheriff, Matt Kendall, to provide rehabilitation opportunities for county jail inmates. Today, inmates at the 305-bed facility access educational opportunities, job training, and other restorative programs during incarceration. The mission is to heal trauma and return incarcerated residents to the community in better shape than they were in when they entered the jail.
California’s oldest operating state prison, San Quentin, was the first in the state to develop a vegetable garden within its walls. According to Planting Justice, the state inmates involved in San Quentin’s garden program have a 10% recidivism rate, thanks to program follow-up and meaningful employment opportunities for inmates upon their release from prison. That number is significantly lower than the national average. A recent Pew Charitable Trusts study showed over 40 percent of inmates nationally return to state prison within three years of their release.
Beyond the benefits to incarcerated individuals at the county jail, an on-site garden represents a piece of relaxation to staff. Every time Mendocino County Corrections Lieutenant Joyce Spears walks from her office in the Sheriff’s Office administration building to the county’s jail, she passes by the landscaping inside the facility’s perimeter. “The flowers are my favorite,” Spears says. Deputies walk through the gardens every time they check the security of the perimeter, often stopping to pick a strawberry or tomato when in season. The garden provides a soft visual contrast to the institutional setting of the correctional facility. The Lieutenant and veteran corrections staffer has watched the garden develop over the past few decades into its current incarnation.
According to Moffet, the current garden crew has already planted over 1,500 starts to populate the project’s summer garden, with more plants coming for a winter garden in the coming months. UFP staff spoke with jail kitchen supervisor, Peggy Luna, to find out specifically which vegetables would most benefit the kitchen. Luna requested tomatoes, squash, leafy greens, eggplants, and cucumbers. Harvests of early season leafy greens have already made their way from the garden to the jail’s kitchen, and from there on to the plates of the inmates who helped to grow them. Hopefully, the experience will provide more options for them when they are outside once again.
Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office
951 Low Gap Road, Ukiah | MendocinoSheriff.com
Unconditional Freedom Project
1275 4th St. #3220, Santa Rosa, CA 95404
UnconditionalFreedom.org
Zohar Zaied grew up in Mendocino County and has been employed with the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office since 2002. He is a regular contributor for Corrections1.com
