KY Inmates plant orchard as part of gardening program

WKMS | By Todd Hatton,

The Associated Press

Published February 25, 2013 at 10:09 AM CST

The Hopkins County Jail has taken a gardening program for inmates to a new level by adding a small orchard. Jailer Joe Blue says inmates enrolled in a Master Gardener program have planted 30 apple trees on a quarter-acre site near the jail. Blue tells The Messenger he decided to try the orchard after a vegetable garden he started for inmates in 2006 showed so much success. He says produce from the garden is used to offset the cost of feeding inmates; anything extra is donated to local charities. Blue says he hopes the job skills the inmates learn in planting and caring for the trees will help them find employment after they are released.

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Todd Hatton

Todd Hatton hails from Paducah, Kentucky, where he got into radio under the auspices of the late, great John Stewart of WKYX while a student at Paducah Community College. He also worked at WKMS in the reel-to-reel tape days of the early 1990s before running off first to San Francisco, then Orlando in search of something to do when he grew up. He received his MFA in Creative Writing at Murray State University. He vigorously resists adulthood and watches his wife, Angela Hatton, save the world one plastic bottle at a time.

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