Toad Hill

Garden Site

Toad Hill is on a lot owned by the Macon County Health Department. In the summer of 2009, Jo Caulkins, director of the Macon County Community Health Foundation and a DIGG member, suggested DIGG start a garden on this space.

She was multitasking: DIGG could grow veggies, she thought, and preschoolers attending the nearby Wee Folk day care center could visit the garden as part of the Walk the Talk program. That program, funded through an Illinois Public Health Institute grant, promotes exercise and healthy eating and encourages interaction between youngsters and seniors.

Walk the Talk was a big hit with the preschoolers, who decided they liked the walk and picking out their own veggies.

Meanwhile, an older set of young people were working and learning at Toad Hill. Another grant, this one through the Health Foundation, went to pay three young women who were clients of Reasonable Service (a faith-based non-profit assisting teens and others). Amanda, Tamara and Iyesha worked several weeks at Toad Hill, planting, weeding, watering and cleaning up. They learned to appreciate freshly grown produce and to cook with it (at a pizza-baking session taught by another DIGG member).

By the way, Toad Hill got its name from a toad who hitched a ride on Mike Irwin’s pickup truck. Mike and others were transporting composted wood chips from Hess Park to the garden when the toad was discovered onboard. He (or she) was carefully placed under a mulberry tree near the garden and given a bowl of water and a little rock toad house. We don’t know if the toad is still there – but we’re grateful for his/her part in Toad Hill history!

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