UNCASVILLE, Conn.—The greenhouse at the Corrigan-Radgowski prison is filled with about 8,000 seedlings -- tomatoes, peppers, squash, cucumbers-- ready to be planted in prison gardens across Connecticut.
Inmates will plant and tend the gardens, which the state is hoping will save it thousands of dollars each year in food costs.
Corrections Commissioner Brian Murphy wants each of the state's 18 state prisons to find space for a garden this summer. Those that already have gardens are being asked to expand them.
"Any facility that has some green space for this, we want to utilize it," said Andrius Banevicius, a department spokesman. "Some will be bigger than others."
With state's across the nation facing budget problems, prison systems are finding creative ways to do more with less, said Bob May, associate director of the Association of State Correctional Administrators.
A county sheriff in northern Ohio decided last year to make inmates grow their own food to cut costs. But May said he's not aware of another state doing it for that reason.
"There are certainly systems that were already farming, ranching or other things as well as prison industries where inmates manufacture products for sale sometimes for state use and/or for private firms to sell around the country," he said.
Connecticut spent $17.5 million in the last fiscal year feeding its 18,300 inmates, Banevicius said. There is no estimate of how much can be saved by using food from the gardens. But officials say they hope to duplicate the recent success at Corrigan-Radgowski, which reported $5,500 in savings from its garden last summer.
In 2008, the prison produced 5,300 pounds of usable produce, including 50 pounds of spices and herbs, Warden Anthony Coletti said. Last year, a tomato blight and poor growing season reduced that to about 4,500 pounds.
This year, the prison in southeastern Connecticut has two half-acre gardens and hopes to produce about 8,000 pounds of its own food. All the seeds and fertilizer are donated from a local nursery, and prisoners do all the work.
"We also use kitchen scraps for compost," he said. "That is about a ton of waste products we didn't have to dispose of, which saves us up to $3,500."
The prison also grows all the flowers used in its landscaping.
"We don't purchase anything anymore," said Officer Joe Schoonmaker, who oversees the gardens. "We grow it, maintain it, everything."
The main garden is just outside the prison fence, so only minimum security inmates work there. Those serving longer sentences work at a garden inside the fence. Schoonmaker hand-picks his crews, and tries to find at least some inmates who have farming or landscaping experience. Others, he said, come from inner-cities and may have never planted anything before. Those with experience growing marijuana need-not apply.
"Those skills are more hydroponic; they don't really translate," Coletti said.
The prisons plant cold crops, such as peas and cabbage and lettuce in April. The warmer-weather produce, such as tomatoes, are started in the greenhouse and moved outside around Memorial Day.
During the summer, the kitchen uses herbs from the garden, strawberries, even watermelons. But most of the savings come in the fall, when most of the produce is harvested. Inmates then get to enjoy fresh salads, side dishes such as steamed zucchini, and even some fresh main courses, such as eggplant parmesan.
"The fresh vegetables are a total difference," said inmate Wilfred Maynard of Plainfield, who is serving an 18-month sentence for driving while intoxicated and works at the Corrigan-Radgowski garden. "Normally (food) comes in mass quantities and there is no flavor to it at all. But, when you take something out of the ground and put it into a pot, it tastes much better; much, much better."
He also like the work.
"This is the best job in the prison, no doubt," Maynard said. "We get a little taste of freedom out here and we get to utilize our days, and give something back."
The fresh food is stored at the prison, but the state does not have a canning operation and doesn't store any of the produce for the winter.
"Then you are dealing with glass and metal lids and creating security problems," Coletti said. "That type of operation just wouldn't make sense."
What the prisons can't use goes to local food pantries and soup kitchens.
There have been added benefits to the garden, including a drop in violent incidents among inmates who are assigned there, Coletti said. The garden keeps them busy, and therefore out of trouble, he said. It also helps the convicts feel productive.
"They like getting their hands dirty," he said. "They like growing something. And some of these guys haven't seen a fresh vegetable in 15, 20 years."
