The benefits of gardening are widely known, but there’s one aspect readers may not have considered: gardening can offer a path to sobriety, especially when undertaken with friends. Some members of the Greenfield-based Recover Project are spending time at the town’s Pleasant Street Community Garden through a club called The Garden Path; it’s easy for participants to head around the corner from the RP headquarters at the corner of Federal and Osgood Streets to the garden plots located behind the John Zon Community Center. There, some of the tools that help lead to healing include seed packets, shovels, watering cans and rakes.

Garden Path members recently welcomed this columnist on two occasions: at their second annual Recovery Cafe — an event that celebrates The Garden Path project — and later to a meeting of the club. Staff members are named in full, while other folks provided first names only or asked that their names be withheld.

It’s important to clarify, however, that there are no heavy dividing lines between staff and other participants at the Recover Project. As the very first peer recovery center in Massachusetts — and one of the first in the country — for 23 years the Recover Project has been a leading light in proving that there are multiple pathways to recovery.

Claire McGale, who’s been the Recover Project peer leadership and development coordinator for three years, is no stranger to the recovery process. An energetic, good-humored young woman, McGale carries herself with a remarkable combination of intensity and calm. She speaks knowledgeably about the challenges and gifts of healing, and sees the clinical model as having “both advantages and drawbacks.” McGale, who experienced various modalities in her own road to healing, said, “The Recover Project provides alternatives to the clinical model. The peer-led approach works well because the best people to support someone recovering from addiction are those who’ve already been through it.”

The Recover Project — part of the Western Mass Training Consortium — receives funding from the Bureau of Substance Addiction Services (BSAS), which is under the auspices of the Massachusetts Department of Health. “Because of work we pioneered here, BSAS now funds 39 such organizations statewide,” said McGale. “We collected data and proved that our approaches work.” She was quick to add, however, that “in the recovery process, some people use [12-step programs], some use Buddhist approaches or other pathways. We think of our peer model as, let’s say, beyond AA, without overarching guidelines. We’re community driven, but we always say that whatever works, works!”

A recent Garden Path meeting was attended by a dozen members who excitedly planned their plant sale scheduled for one month from today, on Friday, April 26. The fundraiser will be held both indoors and outdoors at the Recover Project, 68 Federal Street in Greenfield, from 11:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. During the meeting, members shared how their recovery processes have been aided by gardening together; some also recalled gardening experiences from earlier in their lives. Dylan, a tall man in his early 30s, said, “Gardening gets us to slow down, reflect, and focus on grounding ourselves, literally.” Dylan evoked the Recover Project motto: “Participate. Grow. Recover.”

An older fellow who, like Dylan, has been involved since the club’s inception, said, “I worked for many years on local farms. During high school, in the late 1970s, I apprenticed on a Buckland dairy farm. I earned $15 a week for working two hours after school every single weekday and for four-and-a-half hours on Saturdays.” He said that adding horticultural activities back into his life at this point feels like a positive way to continue his healing process.

One member recalled how, when she was a child, “My grandfather had a flower garden on one side of the house, and a vegetable garden on the other side. I helped him pick green beans, and always ate some of the beans as we picked. I helped him pick squash and cukes, too.” She fondly remembered her grandparents’ blueberry patch in Bernardston: “When me and my brother slept over, our grandmother would tell us to go pick berries for breakfast. We loved that.”

Another Garden Path member, Skada, said that, “for me, gardening has been a lifelong journey. My first memory of cultivating something is when I started a pea plant as a kid, and nurtured it like a pet.” Skada went on to garden professionally, and also brought gardening activities to children as an employee at The Girls’ Club in Greenfield. After a serious rock-climbing accident in 1995, Skada reconnected with gardening as part of her recovery. “Gardening helped me recover from the accident and from alcohol addiction, both. It’s a process that unfolds. A seed doesn’t flower overnight — it takes more than that to heal.” Skada said she relates “external gardens to my inner garden. Through gardening, I spread joy, bring beauty to others, and help to heal the planet.”

Mike Hannigan, who’s been featured in this column as the president of Greenfield Community College’s Permaculture Club, recently became the Recover Project’s Garden Path coordinator. While fairly new to the project, Hannigan has extensive experience in food service, agriculture, gleaning projects, and other community endeavors that aim to make nutritious food accessible. In addition to being enrolled at GCC, he’s a student trustee and has volunteered with Stone Soup Cafe, the local meals program that emphasizes mutual respect, personal healing, and community building.

As Hannigan kept the meeting moving along, he mentioned a recurring idea: “We’ve talked about growing the Three Sisters,” he said, referring to the practice of growing corn, beans, and squash together. “I’m trying to get in touch with the Nolumbeka Project to see if they can give us some tips.” The Nolumbeka Project is a local group working to honor northeastern tribal heritage. Later, Hannigan connected with Nolumbeka’s Dorothea Sotiros, whose many interests include Indigenous agricultural practices.

Sotiros told Hannigan that she’s tried to grow the Three Sisters many times, with varying levels of success, and suggested the book “Seven Sisters,” by Fred Weissman, as a great place to start. When reached for comment, Sotiros said that growing the Three Sisters represents cooperation between the three crops: corn provides a trellis structure for pole beans, but is a heavy feeder; pole beans thank the corn trellis for support by providing fertilizer in the form of nitrogen; and squash plants suppress weeds and keep the ground covered, thereby conserving moisture. “And squash plants are spiny, which deters some critters.”

“Soil fertility is key,” said Sotiros. “That, and consistent moisture. My best harvest resulted from the deposit of a few pounds of fish carcasses deep in each mound, about a week before planting time. Also, these three crops can’t tolerate cold, so they shouldn’t be planted until the soil temperature reaches 60 degrees — or when oak leaves are the size of squirrels’ ears.” Sotiros emphasized that “the corn needs to be planted first in order to give the trellising function a head start. When the corn is about six inches tall, you can seed the beans and squash.” She added that the Three Sisters traditionally involved dry corn and dry beans, but fresh corn and green beans can be used.

At the Garden Path meeting, Mike Hannigan commented that — in addition to tending their community garden plot — club members might also turn their attention to the Recover Project’s in-house plants. “Let’s use some of our meeting time to see to it that all of our plants are in good condition,” he said. “Let’s learn about their requirements, and set about doing, not just talking. We could also get some plant boxes going outside,” he added, referring to spaces just outside Recover Project headquarters. “These are living beings,” he said. “Let’s care for them properly.”

Garden Path member Dylan summed up his own reasons for participating: “Gardening teaches patience as we grow plants while also growing ourselves.” He said that everyone is invited to the April 26 plant sale, where locals will have a chance to meet Garden Path members and to purchase plants, just a few days after Earth Day.

Eveline MacDougall is the author of “Fiery Hope,” and a founding member of the Pleasant Street Community Garden in Greenfield. Readers may contact her at eveline@amandlachorus.org.