Esplanade Community Garden

We have a community garden on our block!

My dear friend and neighbor, Stef, inspired it. Both of us—many of us on our block—garden. Stef lives on the park side of our street, and her garden sits in the back of her house, facing the park and the river. The river, right? The one that has overflowed a number of times recently and flooded the park and our block. Stef's house and land have been hit especially hard by the floods and she has virtually lost her garden. It has basically washed away.  Not good. Not good at all.

But—

At the other end of our block, just past my house, there is a big open field. A local guy owns it. Way back when it was used as a cow pasture.  And then, I believe, it was hayed. Now, it basically sits un-used—sometimes kids play ball there, we all use it as a shortcut to get to the block behind ours, but mostly it has been a place where some people just let their dogs poop. So Stef approached him about us using it for a community garden. He was thrilled with the idea! We asked our neighbors if they wanted to join in, two were interested, and now our four households are partners in the—

Esplanade Garden!

Stef's son and my daughter planting peas!

Over the last six weeks or so we have planned the layout of the garden, measured it, dug up sod, built a bean teepee, painted signs, shopped, planted seeds and starts, and watered the garden. The vegetables are already looking vibrant and strong. And we all—well, I think we all feel more vibrant and strong too.  It's fun to work collaboratively on such a dynamic project. It feels good to be in the dirt side by side. Each of us has a little expertise in one piece of the process (some—e'hem, like me—have less expertise than others!) and so we are learning a lot too!

Our pole bean teepee

And look!  Bean plants are beginning to grow!

Here is the other amazing (yet not so surprising) thing: we have already had a number of spontaneous and warm moments with other neighbors as a result of the garden. For example: when we were digging up the sod and had no real idea what we were doing, the neighbor across the street came over with her sod buster, a sharpener and her Master Gardener skills and she showed us how to dig up sod the right way!  She ended up staying to help, brought her dad and brother to help too, and it turned out that she and her family needed the sod to replace grass that had been destroyed in the flood. We dug it up, transported it to her house and they replanted it.  I had NEVER spent time with her before. Ever.  It was awesome. And, I don't know, it felt kind of critical too.

Community gardens are a great thing for all the reasons we already know.  They promote healthy eating and healthy relationships. They save money and save land.  And they connect us—to ourselves, to each other and to the landscape that is our home.

Our community garden made me want to understand their history. And so here is a brief overview, with some illustrations from a few of my favorite gardening picture books:

The Curious Garden by Peter Brown

1.  During the 1893 depression, Detroit's mayor, Hazen Pingree, proposed a plan. He suggested using donated vacant land for gardens, which would provide temporary work for unemployed folks. Known as Pingree Potato Patches, the program offered ¼ to ½ acre sites, and also provided seeds and instructions in 3 languages. The food raised was available for sale. Based on PPP's success, similar programs were started in in New York, Chicago, Boston, and other cities.

2.  In 1891, the first school garden opened at the Putnam School in Boston. Other school gardens followed. They were most often run by teachers and supported by local organizations—women’s clubs, gardening clubs, civic clubs, etc—who provided volunteers, land, and funding. In 1914, the U.S. Bureau of Education created the Division of Home and School Gardening in an effort to promote gardens nationally.

The Gardener by Sarah Stewart

3.  The war garden campaign began when the U.S. joined World War I. American volunteers banded together to raise food for their households so that farm-raised food could be exported to Europe, where there was a severe food crisis. Huge numbers of people participated in this effort, and gardens were started in backyards, vacant lots, parks, company grounds—on any available land. In 1918, the Bureau of Education restructured the Division of Home and School Gardening into the U.S. School Garden Army. Some reports state that 5.29 million gardeners grew $525 million worth of food in 1918 alone.

4.  People turned to gardening again during the 1930s depression. Two types of gardens existed at this time: subsistence gardens, which were found at people's homes and on community property; and work-relief gardens, where folks were paid to grow food that was used in hospitals and by charities.

Grandpa Green by Lane Smith

5.  World War II brought federally guided Victory Gardens. They were part of the larger Food Fights for Freedom campaign that included rationing, recycling, canning, handicrafts, and volunteer farm work. The Victory Garden program promoted gardening for household food consumption and, in 1944, 42% of the nation's vegetables came from them.  42%!!  This was a practical movement, yes, but it was also a philosophical and emotional one. Participating in Victory Gardens was a way to express patriotism, build morale and collaborate in a fun, relaxing way.

6.  In the 1970s, interest in community gardening was rekindled. It became an expression of urban activism and a new environmental ethic. In 1976, the USDA sponsored the Urban Gardening Program, which created urban offices in 16 (and then 23) cities to promote vegetable gardening and community garden. In 1978, the American Community Gardening Association  was created as a non-profit membership organization.

The Good Garden by Katie Smith Milway

7.  Truck farms. Remember the post I did on Ian Cheney and his amazing project?  I just LOVE that truck…

Do you have any community garden stories to share?  Or books about community gardens?

Gratefully yours,

Tam

Landscape and the Mindset of Growth

Erin Murphy posted a link to this blog post yesterday. (Thank you Erin and thank you Brain Pickings.) And it spoke to me.

Boy, it spoke to me.

Our mindsets make a huge difference in the quality of our lives. The moment to moment quality, as well as the long term, visionary quality.  I know this. I have known this. What we think—of ourselves—is a sort of guiding light in the darkness, right? If we think negatively, that is the path we see before us. If we think positively…well then that is the path we see illuminated.

But Carol Dweck's work is an even more intense examination of how our thoughts can profoundly impact our lives. I won't go into her work here in detail, because you can go to the blog post and read it for yourself (and I urge you to, if you have time) but basically she found, in her research, that one of the most basic beliefs we have about ourselves stems from how we view—and live within—our personalities. And she found two distinct categories here: a fixed mindset and a growth mindset. 

A fixed mindset says:

I am who I am, and I need to prove it over and over again. I have to show everyone that I am smart and any indication that I am not smart (making a mistake, for example) will not be tolerated.

A growth mindset, on the other hand, says:

Who I am right now is simply who I am right now. I can learn and grow and improve over time, if I put in the hard work and keep an open mind along the way. I am curious and flexible and have room inside for improvement.

I realized after I read the blog post that I had heard of Carol Dweck before. I read an article in New York Magazine a while ago about children and praise, and her work was in it, front and center: “Emphasizing effort gives a child a variable that they can control,” Dweck explained in the article. “They come to see themselves as in control of their success. Emphasizing natural intelligence takes it out of the child’s control, and it provides no good recipe for responding to a failure.”

This is powerful, deeply satisfying stuff. 

The Ugly Duckling by Roberta Wilson

It speaks to me as a parent, for sure. I can remember when my son decided to go to an ice hockey camp and when we got there it was clear that he was the only kid who had never played before. He couldn't do it on that first day. Any of it. And every other kid could. He tripped, he fell, he missed the puck, he fell again. I remember feeling so sad for him—you know that feeling in the center of your belly when your kid is suffering in the moment…when success is so not available in that very second—and wanting to scoop him up and take him home.  But I didn't. (Not because I got wise and knew this could be a powerful moment, but because Derek, my husband, was already wise and urged me to wait it out.)  You can guess what happened. We (and the camp counselors, thank goodness) praised my son for his incredible effort, for small improvements, for hard work. He got better at ice hockey each day of that week. Not good, not good by a long shot, but better. And most profoundly for me…he felt so content within himself, both throughout the process and, of course, after it was over.

What better lesson can we hope to teach our kids?  I would venture to say that there isn't a better one. 

(Except to be empathetic and kind to self and others, perhaps. But…and this is oh so cool, in my opinion…I am going to guess that living with a growth mindset nurtures empathy and kindness. If you know how to work hard, and know you can change, then you can imagine that in other people too.)

What better lesson can we hope to learn for ourselves too?

I used to think that desiring something for more than a minute was a sign that I wasn't meant to do the thing, or have the thing…because it meant that I had tried to do it, or have it, and had failed. Failure the first time meant that the desire was off the table. Quite a fixed mindset, eh?

But now…

From The Curious Garden by Peter Brown

My New Year's post, the one about last year being a cocoon year for me, is about exactly this. In all ways, but especially in terms of my writing. I have never worked so hard and so long at anything. I have never made effort and perseverance as much of a ritual as I have with the process of writing. This is key, I believe. The ritual of effort and perseverance. 

And I would add to that, now that I sit for a moment and think about it. The ritual of effort and perseverance and longing.

Work hard, keep at it, and always, always honor the longing.

With gratitude,

Tam