Citing recent heat and rising water costs, Shiloh Field in Denton is scaling down its crop production and volunteer hours.
One of the largest community gardens in the U.S., Shiloh Field was started in 2011 by the late Gene Gumfory, who had a mission to feed the hungry. The Garden has since donated more than 300,000 pounds of produce to local shelters.
Before his death in 2020 Gumfory founded Friends of Shiloh Garden — a nonprofit with the goal of helping the garden by securing funding and volunteers.
Friends of Shiloh Garden board chair Julie Wright said they’ve reached a critical amount of funds in the bank and plan to make business model changes to get Shiloh back on track by 2024.
“We thought this was sustainable,” Wright said. “But it wasn't.”
Shiloh receives 10%-15% of its funding from donations but relies heavily on grants and did not receive as many as expected this year, which forced the decision to plant smaller crops after the current produce is harvested.
The biggest change for Shiloh is instead of donating food directly to shelters, the board is in talks to sell the produce to Tarrant Area Food Bank, which will distribute to food pantries at a discounted rate. Wright said smaller pantries that can’t afford to purchase the food will still receive produce directly from Shiloh.
Other changes include cutting operating hours, including maintaining fields and allowing volunteers, from five days a week to only Thursday and Saturday.
With the changes in place, the board is expecting the field to be operating at half capacity by October and back to full strength in January. Once the deal with Tarrant Area Food Bank is finalized the garden will also have access to its seed bank.
August is one of Shiloh’s biggest production months, and with most of the harvest already gathered Wright said now was the natural time to begin scaling back. Last year Shiloh produced 53,000 pounds of produce — even with cutbacks going into effect, Wright said they are already ahead of that number.
The garden has two paid staff members and a core group of around 10 volunteers who are there almost daily.
Texas Woman’s University biology professor and lifelong gardener Nat Mills is one of those volunteers. He helps the garden find the best varieties of plants to produce well and makes fertilizer that helps them grow in the local soil.
“It's improving every year and basically we're working on trying to get things that grow better for this area and we're adapting to the heat,” Mills said.
One of the most abundant crops on the field is peppers, which Mills said are good producers and can withstand high temperatures.
Nancy DiMarco was a nutrition and food sciences professor at TWU and serves as the volunteer coordinator for Shiloh. She has been affiliated with the garden for ten years and is the project manager for master gardener work.
“Shiloh is probably one of the most important things that happens in Denton, because our mission is to feed hungry people,” DiMarco said. “And there's a lot of hungry people in Denton County.”
More than 20% percent of residents in Denton County experiences daily food insecurity, according to Serve Denton.
Shiloh Field offers free plots to local families to allow them to garden and grow their own produce and create a local community. Mills and DiMarco both used the plots before becoming more involved with the garden.
Founder Gene Gumfory is quoted on the Shiloh field website as saying: “I think a community garden is important. It brings peoples together.”
Garden manager Dean Urbanek also came to Shiloh for the plots when it first opened and began working closely with Gumfory.
Urbanek said he got more involved because there were just a few people trying to get a lot done, but he believed in Gumfory’s vision. Urbanek talks to the different shelters to determine who needs or wants what kind of produce before delivering the washed and sorted food.
“Being able to supply stuff within 3 to 4 hours after it's harvest it to different food banks and food pantries,” he said. “It doesn't get any fresher than that,” he said.
Wright said despite any hardships Shiloh is currently facing, the future is bright.
“We want the garden to go on forever,” she said. “I want my great grandchildren to be able to come out and work and enjoy the fruits of Shiloh.”