Garden of Cedar sprouts annex in Scranton

SCRANTON — The Garden of Cedar community lot in South Side has sprouted an annex a few blocks away.

Property owner Frank Dubas, who appropriately dubbed the addition at 921-23 Cedar Ave. as “The Garden of Cedar Annex,” will turn it over free of charge to local members of the Congolese community to use as a vegetable garden and community space for at least the next three years, he said Friday.

Dubas, president of the nonprofit Garden of Cedar community lot at 715 Cedar Ave., has owned the vacant, 7,500-square-foot lot at 921-23 Cedar Ave. for about three years. He previously allowed local Congolese refugees to use the lot as a planting ground, and they did so, despite the formerly rocky surface.

Dubas recently had contractor Jerry Chilewski grade the ground with an excavator to remove rocks and put down topsoil to make for a better, flatter surface for spring planting that should get underway next week.

Half of the $10,000 cost to grade and prepare the annex lot was funded by the Gertrude Hawk Family Foundation, he said.

Scranton’s Congolese community consists of about 100 families who have agrarian backgrounds but tend to live in apartments without any room for gardening, he said.

The Garden of Cedar’s mission is to combat food insecurity, but the original garden in the 700 block was too small to accommodate the Congolese community, Dubas said.

At the annex lot, the Congolese refugees will be able to grow healthy vegetables, fruits, herbs and spices. “My horizon is three years or more,” Dubas said. “Whatever gardening they do here, they can do for at least three years.”