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Ali Rabideau, at left with hoe, Anna Blaustein and Lindsey Beauregard, walking with a small plant, plant sunflower seeds and seedlings in the newest community garden run by the St. Mary’s Nutrition Center in Lewiston on Tuesday evening. Before each garden is planted, the soil is tested for contaminants. This lot next to the center contained small amounts of lead in the soil, which led the center to plant an entire garden of sunflowers. Because of the plants’ rapid growth, they are particularly suited for pulling toxins out of the soil. When the plants are harvested later in the year, they will be thrown away, removing lead from the soil.
Madina Issack and Shay Hendrix talk about what they like about the community gardens at the St. Mary’s Nutrition Center in Lewiston during a group exercise at the start of a community sunflower planting activity at the center’s new garden plot on Tuesday evening. The garden will be developed in stages over the next few years.
Anna Franceschetti, Donal Demm, 2, Lindsey Beauregard and Elizabeth Keene plant their wishes, written on wooden paddles, into a plot of earth near the middle of St. Mary’s Nutrition Center’s newest community garden. The center held a community event on Tuesday evening to celebrate the opening of the garden.

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