The Flandreau Community Garden got some new additions on Monday afternoon. Tractor Supply Company and the Moody County Conservation District teamed up to donate and plant six fruit trees and two cherry shrubs.

“This is a way to support the community,” said Tractor Supply Store Manager Kendra Fleck. “We thought this would be a good idea.”

Tractor Supply has been open in Flandreau since the last week of January.

“This is a great community,” Fleck said, as she dug a hole for a fruit tree. “We’re so glad to be here.”

The donation is part of a corporate-wide program to help build communities that host Tractor Supply stores.

“It’s a way to thank the community for having us here,” Fleck said. “Hopefully, these trees will make it and we’ll have some fruit in a few years.”

When the trees bear fruit, like the rest of the community garden produce, it will be headed to the Moody County Breadbasket.

This year the garden produced close to 750 pounds of food for the Breadbasket, according to Moody County Conservation District Officer Harvey Shafer.

The garden is operated by the conservation district and the Farm Service Agency with help from local 4-H clubs.

The community garden serves as a test plot, Shafer explained, with half the garden planted using the no-till method and the other half planted the conventional way.

As a test plot “we try different varieties of stuff that people don’t normally grow,” Shafer said.

This year Shafer tried out Brussels sprouts and egg plant. By mid-October, the Brussels sprouts were still coming.

“The egg plants, they did wonderful,” Shafer said.