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

The Landscape of a Truck Farm

One of my other jobs is as an educational writer for Reading Plus, a silent reading intervention program for Grade 3 kids on up. I write short narratives for the company, about a wide range of topics, mostly non-fiction, always connected to the core curriculum. I could write a whole blog post on how good this job has been for my writing. I have learned how to write within very stringent guidelines: specific word lengths, specific vocabulary, specific sentence lengths. This is probably a useful skill for any writer, but especially for me, queen of verbose. (See earlier blog posts to see how I am trying oh so hard to break my overwriting habit and leave    s     p     a     c     e    in my stories.

But this is not what I want to tell you all about today.

I want to tell you about Truck Farms because I just researched them for a Reading Plus narrative I finished writing today and I was blown away by what I learned.  They are so darn cool.  And smart.  And do-able.

Ian Cheney created the first Truck Farm.  He founded this "mobile garden education project" in Brooklyn, NY, where he moved after making his film King Corn, a film about "growing an acre of America's most subsidized commodity crop." He wanted to create a garden, but, as he said, he couldn't find a community garden to join and he didn't own any land.  What he did have, though, was a 1986 Dodge pick-up truck that his grandfather had given him as a college graduation present. Maybe he could drive somewhere in the truck?  To some place that had land?  Or maybe...he could build a farm ON the truck? Yes, that.

For very little money and a lot of creativity, Ian built a garden in the back of the Dodge.  He used green roof technology to do it, got lots of materials donated, got lots of good advice and help, planted seeds and soon he had vegetables poking their tiny heads out of the soil...small signs of life on a wild ride.  The whole project sounded like so much fun.  He would drive to the sunny side of the street when the plants needed sun and then to the shady side when they needed shade. Once he actually had vegetables ready to eat, he would drive to a CSA member's apartment (people bought small shares in the Truck Farm) and right then and there harvest their crop.  Talk about fresh!  Talk about local!  And best of all, he began going to schools to show kids how easy it is to start a garden...how the sky's the limit in terms of where a garden can flourish...how important it is to know where food comes from, and how even more important it is to eat local, fresh food.

Ian has put out a 25 Truck Farms in 25 American cities challenge.  And they are popping up in lots of places.  I love this for so many reasons.  For one reason, as Ian deeply believes, we need to feed our kids better.  We need them to know what food really is, where it comes from, and how it grows.  For another, the creativity of the Truck Farm is inspiring. The way Ian looked at his truck---this familiar object with a single purpose---and thought sideways and came up with this incredible thing.

And for one more reason too.  To my mind, a Truck Farm is a lot like a story. It is this world, this living breathing changing world, in a tiny space. Each vegetable has an arc, the whole garden has a structure and an aesthetic, and there is a rhythm to its existence.  You have to fill the truck bed as much as you can, it can't hold much after all, but you also have to make sure each plant has enough space. I mean check this out: when you plant carrots you plant a ton of them, then as they begin to grow you have to thin them, pull some out so that the remaining carrots can grow big and fat and full.  If that isn't the process of revision---or my revision anyway (did I mention I am trying to create space in my stories??)---then I don't know what is.

Check out the trailer for Ian's film about his Truck Farm.
 

Happy writing. Happy planting.  Happy revising.  Happy harvesting.
Tam

All images from Ian's website.