Trammell Street Community Garden Opens For Cultivation

Friday, May 16th, 2025

Last summer, the City of Dalton planted a seed with the acceptance of a federal grant to create a new community garden. On Friday, the City harvested the result as community members and students from nearby Westwood Elementary School gathered for the Trammell Street Community Garden's grand opening celebration. The new garden at the intersection of Trammell Street and Clark Street features 30 beds including 7 which are ADA accessible. 

"This is going to give people a place and the opportunity to come out and garden and be together," Mayor Annalee Sams said. "There’s enough space to be able to work independently, but the purpose is to get folks to come out and meet one another that they might not otherwise have had an opportunity to come in contact with."

Caption: Community garden specialist Allison Mitchell handed out seedlings of herbs and vegetables to students from Westwood Elementary School Friday during the grand opening of the Trammell Street Community Garden

The garden was made possible by a $150,000 grant from the USDA which the City accepted in June 2024. The grant included money to create the park's raised beds for gardening as well as funding for the salary of a gardening outreach coordinator for two years. Dalton's Public Works Department worked together with staff from the Parks and Recreation Department to perform all of the construction for the site, including site work to level the ground and install mulch and creation of the raised plant beds. 

All of the garden's beds have already been reserved by community members following an announcement by the Parks and Recreation Department earlier this month, and there's a waiting list for new garden members. The beds cost $15 for the season. Community garden specialist Allison Mitchell pointed out that there are still gardening beds available at the Lakeshore Park Garden for those who want to get their hands into the dirt sooner. 

"We're on a wait list, so that just goes to show how enthusiastic this community is about this project," Mitchell said. "We are starting cultivation (at the Trammell Street site) today... and we're going to be starting workshops next week. Those are open to everybody. You don't have to be a community garden member, we encourage everybody to show up. That way, we can have more collaboration and cross pollination. between the community members."

Westwood Elementary is a short walk from the Trammell Street garden site, and students from the school were the first to dig in to the new plant beds. After picking out different herb and vegetable plants, they worked under the Mitchell's direction planting the seedlings. They'll be able to return to the garden throughout the summer to watch as their plants grow. The garden will be a resource for science learning for the school. Space is also reserved for nearby City Park Elementary School. 

"I'm so glad the students are here, and I know they're probably going to have the best looking garden," said Mayor Sams. 

Caption: Students from Westwood Elementary School listen as Mayor Annalee Sams welcomes them to the Trammell Street Community Garden

"This was an underutilized space," Mayor Sams said of the City-owned lot that now hosts the garden. "This is a higher and better use of City property, and we could not be more proud to see this come to fruition."

Anyone interested in joining the wait list for space at the community garden can click here to apply. For information about upcoming gardening workshops or reserving a garden bed at either park, contact Allison Mitchell at amitchell@daltonga.gov. Information about gardening workshops will also be posted to the Dalton Parks and Recreation Department's Facebook page at facebook.com/mydprd. 

For more pictures from Friday's grand opening celebration, click here to visit a photo gallery on the City of Dalton's Facebook page.