Attack of the killer tomatoes and other veggies

Girl Scout troops plant community vegetable garden

FIERCE FARMERS—The girls plant this vegetable garden at Hillcrest Villas, a Many Mansions community. From left are: Delaney Rodriguez, Brooke Flemming, Demi Wedgworth, Jaidyn Porter, Alina Tong, Jaya Peruvemba, Hunter Ross, Kylah Kennedy and Kaylee McLeod.

FIERCE FARMERS—The girls plant this vegetable garden at Hillcrest Villas, a Many Mansions community. From left are: Delaney Rodriguez, Brooke Flemming, Demi Wedgworth, Jaidyn Porter, Alina Tong, Jaya Peruvemba, Hunter Ross, Kylah Kennedy and Kaylee McLeod.

Tenth-grade Girl Scouts from Troop 60497 and 60228 recently installed a large community vegetable garden at Hillcrest Villas, a Many Mansions community.

This was a community service Take Action project for the girls, supporting what they learned from the Sow What? Journey, a program about how and where food is grown, harvested, processed, distributed and consumed, and why it matters.

The garden plantings included tomatoes, bell peppers, eggplant, Swiss chard, jalapenos, cantaloupe, cucumbers, artichokes, acorn squash and dwarf lemon and lime trees.

The vegetables were purchased with money earned from selling cookies.

The garden has grown rapidly in three months and the residents are beginning to harvest some of the veggies.

The girls attend Westlake, Oaks Christian, Newbury Park, Thousand Oaks and Moorpark high schools.