I became involved with this project through my work at the Capital Area Food Bank when a call went out on a local listserv to partner with a local garden group (Justice Park Community Gardeners) to help make this happen. It’s really one a of kind for the District and fits in nicely with the mission of the program I work with, Harvest for Health. We just initiated a Grow A Row program and in return for the CAFB helping out, some of the garden produce will go directly to community organizations in Columbia Heights that help those in need. We are excited about this partnership and there is more on our program at our new blog http://www.capitalareafoodbank.org/2009/11/rooted-in-community-%e2%80%9cgrow-a-row%e2%80%9d-sprouts-promise-of-new-connections/

Christiana, I hope the rest of the people involved with the garden feel as you do. I trust that they do. They all seem very committed to this.

Saharah, one of the things that has impressed me about this group is how receptive they are to different ideas (other than making this a farm over individual plots). Since this represents a very rare occasion when the city’s parks and recreation department actually creates a new community garden from scratch, I really think you should seize the moment and embrace the latest thinking about sustainable and even permaculture gardening. And, yes, it is quite possible to compost kitchen scraps without inviting rodents.

Sylvie, flyers might definitely be one method. In this situation, I feel there is an obligation on the part of the organizers to make sure no stone goes unturned in notifying neighbors that this opportunity exists. Many immigrants have brought home gardening traditions with them from the countries of origins, and are only lacking the land on which to grow their own food. This would be their chance.

As far as reaching out to your neighbors without computers, may I suggest simple fliers on colorful paper. If you can hook-up with schools, the fliers could go home with kids; left under doors (I know it takes volunteer time!) in apartment buildings – if the property management office is willing, or better left at the property management office; try to hook-up with churches also to leave fliers there, put announcement in their newsletter or even mention by the pastor. What other gathering places exist? even the liquor store (gasp!) might be a good place to leave fliers… Some neighborhood post office will let you hang a fliers (but many can’t or won’t due to regulations)… Are there very local radio station that could make “public announcements”.

Yes, it is a lot of work to reach out, but Ed, this is such an exciting worthwhile project!

Best wishes.

We’d love to hear more about how to do community composting. This is something we thought about, but ultimately didn’t pursue because of concerns over rodent control. Is there a way to do composting of home food scraps without attracting rodents? I’m not sure that a community garden can be a substitute for municipal composting, but please point us to good information sources if you know otherwise.

On the mechanics of plot assignments, this simply hasn’t been decided yet. We’re very aware that not everyone will have access to a yahoo listserv and that we need to do more outreach to make sure there is good community representation in the garden. We certainly don’t want to go forward with plot assignments until there has been more outreach to folks who don’t have computer access. Once that happens, I’m envisioning a potential members meeting sometime this winter where we sit down and figure out how to distribute plots in a fair and equitable way. Now that we’re getting closer to the garden being a reality, it’s time to ramp up those efforts. And we’d welcome everyone’s suggestions on how to do that.

On the fruit trees – I couldn’t agree more! Our initial proposal to DPR was to have lots of fruit trees and berry bushes. They had some concerns about fruit trees in a public garden and we decided to put that question aside for the time being while we focused on overall layout and design. But yes, the berry hedges are a great idea and one we’d hoped to realize as well.

We’ve been mostly in waiting mode as things got sorted out on the partnership and city end, but now that this garden is going to be a reality, it’s time to reengage on this with the wider community. Thanks for starting off this discussion!

Saharah Moon
Justice Park Community Garden Association

Nonetheless, I concur that it would be a shame not to at least try to involve the greater community. If folks could taste some of the fantastic stuff that comes out of my backyard, they’d want to grow their own vegetables too!

Isnt’t it amazing that we could not leave the land and its smell of compost fast enough to live in the cities and now how hard it is to claim land back for our use ?