Overton County 4-H Installs Inclusive Garden Planter At Fairgrounds

Overton 4-H has installed an inclusive garden planter designed to involve special needs youth at the Overton County Fairgrounds.

Overton County Ag Extension Agent Alyssa Anderson said the planter was built on a diagonal with height requirements to make it wheelchair accessible.

“The thought process was to build a planter that would be used during the special needs day at the fairgrounds to enrich those youth that included sensory plants and those types of things.”

Anderson said the plants were selected to engage more people through color, texture and, in the case of edible plants, taste.

Anderson said kids from 4-H Garden Club and Future Farmers got experience from project planning to coming up with solutions while working on the container garden project.

“And one of those things was the garden is watered from a rain barrel with a timer that allows a certain quantity of water to be disbursed.” Anderson said. “So they had some trial an error working with that.”

Anderson said the garden will be on display throughout the fair and members of the garden club will have posters up explaining the story of the planter.