Ready, set, grow: Gardeners compete to get the most out of urban food plots in San Antonio

Twenty participants are registered for the competition, including school gardens and community gardens, as well as individuals like Batsche.

By Jennifer Norris
San Antonio Report
April 11, 2022

Excerpt:

Jeremy Batsche is an X-ray technologist at The Children’s Hospital of San Antonio and a busy dad who spends his evenings chasing his three active young sons. He spends what little free time he has growing food for his family in just about every square inch of his small backyard in the Dignowity Hill neighborhood.

His love of gardening got started in 2013, and in less than a decade Batsche has gone from experimenting with a few fruit trees to having four chickens, 14 fruit trees and three 4-by-8-foot raised garden beds that produce hundreds of pounds of fresh produce for his family’s table every year.

“We’re growing on a 5,500-square-foot lot,” Batsche said. “We’re working with such a small space we’ve got to be strategic, so a lot of the things I grow outside the vegetable garden, they’re ornamental, they’re pretty, but they also offer food.”

Last year Batsche’s gardening excellence earned him first prize in an annual gardening competition hosted by Gardopia Gardens, a community garden on the East Side. His prize was a $100 gift card to Lowe’s, a plaque and a seat at an awards gala.

Read the complete article here.