The vegetable and herb demonstration garden is located within the Beaver County Senior Gardens at 1155 Western Avenue in Brighton Township.
Photo by Penn State Master Gardeners of Beaver County
The design of the garden educates about the interrelationships between families of vegetables and herbs. For example, bamboo teepees illustrate how pole beans and squash complement each other during the growing season leading to an abundance of produce. Tomatoes and other nightshade vegetables, such as peppers and eggplant, benefit from being close to basil. Native perennial plants attract pollinators of all kinds (bees, lady beetles, and hummingbirds, to name a few) to the garden.
To help visitors understand these relationships, the Master Gardener team offers a self-guided tour booklet with pages of evidence-based information about plantings in the various sections of the garden. Volunteers work on Wednesday evenings to plant, mulch, weed, and harvest. They are more than happy to give an impromptu tour and answer gardening questions.
In 2019, MGs donated over 300 pounds of produce from the demonstration garden to the New Brighton Soup Kitchen and to Circle of Friends Senior Center.
