Community gardens connect people with fresh veggies, good dirt and friendly companionship

By Ann Passey

May 6, 2005 | Thousands of community gardens exist across the United States, including here in Cache Valley. A community garden could be between two skyscrapers, on the outskirts of a city, along railroad tracks, in your own backyard, or on hospital grounds. It is a piece of land shared by friends and neighbors for growing vegetables and flowers, and providing opportunities for positive social interactions and reactions.

Community gardens can take many different forms. Some gardens divide up the land between neighbors for personal use. Some are developed into school gardens where biology, environmental science and mathematics can be taught with hands on gardening experience. Yet another type of community garden grows food not for personal use, but to donate to a food pantry or to teach youth programs.

Five years ago a physician at the Logan Regional Hospital noticed an unused piece of land. Together with the Utah State University Extension Service, Dr. Doug Hyldahl built Logan's community garden, which now has over 90 plots and close to 70 participants.

"The land actually belongs to Logan Regional Hospital," said Theresa Christensen, the educational program specialist and garden program coordinator at USU. "They provide the land and all the water for it.

"I could garden at home," said Christensen, "but I really like gardening at the community garden. I don't have to worry about watering, since it's automatically watered twice a week. I also like being around other people, and walking through and seeing what other people are doing."

The garden, just north of the helicopter landing pad on 600 East has grown immensely since its conception five years ago. It has 95 plots that are 15 feet by 15 feet. The plots are arranged in squares of four plots that measure 30 by 30 feet. There are also eight raised circular beds and a demonstration garden.

"The raised beds allow people who maybe can't bend over, or have a hurt back, to still be able to garden," said Christensen.

The demonstration garden is run by Loralie Cox, the Cache County horticulture specialist. She works as the extension agent from Cache County with the Master Gardner program, and uses the demonstration garden for research.

"The demonstration garden is used to see how different plants will grow in this environment," said Christensen. "Some of them are given more or less water, and some are given none at all."

Plots in the USU Community Garden are $15 each. The plots are watered twice a week by the garden assistant. Tenants of the garden are responsible for, and are expected to do, their own weeding and garden maintenance. Each gardener, however, is allowed to use the tools provided by the university.

One of the major reasons the garden exists, said Christensen, is so that students can have the opportunity to garden.

"Most places students live won't allow them to rip up the lawn to garden, or there just isn't space in an apartment," said Christensen. "This gives those students the chance to have a garden.

Plots in the USU garden are still available, and interested tenants should call Christensen at 797-3275.

Community gardens exist in many communities across the state. Wasatch Community Gardens, the state's largest community gardening organization, started planting gardens in 1989. Today they have four gardens in the Salt Lake area. Their mission is to help people grow and share fresh produce, teach youth responsibility, cooperation and ecological awareness, and to be an active resource for sustainable organic gardening.

There are over 65 gardeners involved with the Wasatch gardens, and through their program the feed over 200 people. Their most popular garden is likely the Grateful Tomato Garden, located at 800 South and 600 East. Every year there is a tomato sandwich party thrown, where the tomatoes are getting better and better every year, according to Hilary Groutage.

The benefits of community gardening are endless, said Beth Kruger. Kruger is a student at Kalamazoo College in Kalamazoo, Michigan. She is the founder of the college's community garden. She has studied sustainable development in Chang Mai, Thailand, and developed the community garden as her senior project at K College.

"Community gardens can be a great community building tool. They create opportunities for neighbors to work together," said Kruger.

"When neighbors come out of their homes and work together they get to know one another," said community gardener Kim Cummings. "There are multiple benefits to this. One thing it does is build safer communities. When neighbors know one another, they are more likely to look after each other, which reduces crime and vandalism. Gardens can be a great tool for community building."

"Participants also often find that the garden can be a great stress reducer," said Kruger. "They beautify neighborhoods, and in urban areas help to preserve urban green space. Often times when a garden exists in a city, it's because a lot has been vacant for years, and residents are tired of the eyesore. The result is a conversion of the lot into a garden."

This is exactly what happened to one of New York City's most famous community gardens, the Clinton Garden.

New York is home to close to 2,000 gardens, more than any other city in the nation according to the National Community Gardening Survey released in 1998. The Clinton Community Garden was born 27 years ago. In 1977, a group of 48th Street residents noticed tomato plants growing out of the debris from the empty lot that had been vacant and abandoned for over 28 years. It was then that the idea of a real garden began to germinate. With encouragement from city sanitation workers, in 1978 the Clinton Community Garden was born. To see a picture of the lot before the garden was born see the Clinton Community Garden homepage.

Clinton Community Garden is unique in many ways. It is one of the few community gardens in New York City that has a public lawn that is open to everyone seven days a week from dawn until dusk. It also has several niche gardens. It has and herb and edible flower bed that has over 75 varieties of medicinal and culinary herbs and edible flowers that are available to the public for tasting. It also has a Native American Medicinal Plant Bed, which contains approximately 100 species of plants indigenous to the East Coast and North America. All of these plants, according to the website, were used by Native Americans for medicinal purposes.

The Native American Bed is also home to the garden beehive. The CCG beehive is populated with thousands of Italian Caucasian Honey Bees, from which over 100 pounds of honey is harvested annually.

Birds also find the garden to be a quite sanctuary. Over 56 species of birds have been sighted in Clinton Community Garden, and more are seen every year. Now that the island of Manhattan is mostly concrete, community gardens and parks provide a critical habitat for birds making the long trek to their breeding grounds in the north, and their winter homes in the south. The garden also has over 100 plots, similar to the plots in the USU garden.

For people interested in starting a garden in their community, there are several different resources. The Wasatch Community Gardens homepage has several different resources listed. For people who are interested in gardening, but aren't sure where to start, Better Homes and Gardens offers guidance for beginner gardeners.

"Really anyone can garden," said Christensen. "It's easy. All you need is a place to do it, and a some seeds."

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