Kelly Melsted, community garden dynamo
Do you know this woman? If you care at all about food gardening in the District of Columbia, you should. She is Kelly Melsted, the D.C. Department of Parks and Recreation specialist in charge of overseeing the city’s community gardens.
Kelly moved here two years ago from Arizona where, she says, food gardens are an everyday part of life. Recently I bumped into her at a neighborhood meeting where we were discussing the new Justice Park community garden slated for construction here in Columbia Heights. Her name popped up again when the department sent a press release around announcing it was working with a $25,000 grant to build 56 new “community gardens” at the District’s recreation centers around town.
Fifty-six new community gardens? How is that possible? I wondered. I needed to know what that was about, so I invited Kelly to lunch.
Kelly is one of those fun, irrepressible, boundless energy types you can’t help being drawn to. It was a perfect lunch date, since it turns out this Arizonan of hardy Icelandic stock is crazy for pickles, and these days I’m serving lots of pickles. She even loved my spicy okra pickles, and when we finally moved to the kitchen table to sit down for our meal, she brought the tray of pickles–okra, savory green tomato, sweet green tomato, bread-and-butter–with her from the kitchen island so she could continue munching on them.
”Do you mind?” she asked meekly. “These are so good.”
(Kelly makes her own mead and is anxious to learn how to make sauerkraut. Hey, you came to the right place, Kelly. I gave her a taste of some of my homemade ‘kraut from the fridge.)
But back to those 56 new community gardens. It soon emerged that these are not the “community gardens” you would normally think of–large expanses filled with big plots for individual gardeners–but more like planter boxes set outside the recreation center buildings–every rec center in the city, Kelly said–offering a small but significant area in which to plant a few vegetables, herbs, perhaps flowers. In other words, these are beginner gardens.
“I just wanted the kids to have a place to get started,” said Kelly. So she approached Whole Foods at the store in Tenleytown and walked away with $25,000 in funds to purchase lumber and other materials to build the planter boxes. They are being filled (that might be too generous a description) with “tons and tons” of Miracle-Gro potting soil mix donated by the Scott’s company. And yes, for you purists out there, this is the traditional Miracle-Gro mix in the familiar plastic bag containing chemical nitrogen. Not sustabainable, and not something the city would normally encourage, but as Napolean might have said, you’ve got to crack a few eggs to make a citywide gardening system, especially when money is tight.
This reminded me of some of the gardening I had seen outside the entrance of Turkey Thicket Recreation Center near Catholic University, where I take my daughter swimming in the indoor pool. Over the summer, we had noticed what looked like an AmeriCorps volunteer working with a small group of kids planting vegetables and herbs. They had painted stones with “cucumber” and “tomato” and “basil” on them. The cucumbers and tomatoes never seemed to do terribly well (I wondered who kept them watered and weeded), but by summer’s end there was a terrific crop of basil. Sometimes I thought no one would mind if I harvested a little, but we just admired the basil on our way in and out of the pool.
Kelly frowned. Apparently she didn’t consider the garden at Turkey Thicket her best effort. But yes, this is part of the same approach. AmeriCorps and City Year and other volunteer groups of various kinds have been helping install the beds and work with the children. At the Columbia Heights Community Center, for instance, a local group of seniors took charge of the two new beds there and planted what looked to me like mustard greens when I visited later in the day.
New planter boxes at Columbia Heights Community Center
Kelly said the designs of the boxes, made of standard, heavy lumber, vary in number, size and design from one recreation facility to the next. About half of them have been built so far. They should all be ready by spring. Now Kelly is making plans to build a nature center and gardens on city property near the youth detention facility at Oak Hill, Prince George’s County, an old farm site with its own greenhouses. “Well, the greenhouses aren’t in very good shape,” Kelly said.
But I really wanted to hear more about community gardens, especially the gardens in underserved areas of the city where, it should be noted, there are no waiting lists for plots–the gardens are, in fact underutilized and in some cases completely overgrown. Barry Farms in Anacostia, Fort Dupont Park , also east of the Anacostia, Lederer Youth Garden in Northeast Washington all spring to mind. Obviously it’s no problem matching plots with gardeners in more affluent areas of the city. People are waiting in line to get in. So how do you generate interest in those parts of the city that probably could benefit most from fresh, affordable, locally grown vegetables?
Kelly said she has had some luck recently organizing some of the “older ladies” near the Lederer gardens. When I asked her how she did that, she replied, “You just have to be there.” I thought I’d heard her wrong, so I asked her to repeat that. “You just have to be there,” she said again.
And by that she means not going around knocking on doors, but just spending time in and around the gardens. Eventually, she said, people become curious and conversations ensue.
Of course, organizing community gardens can’t be that easy. When we’d finished our lunch, I made Kelly promise to take me on her next forray to one of those neglected community gardens and definitely out to the old farm where she’s hatching her plan for a nature preserve. Then I sent her on her way with a jar of sweet pickled green tomatoes.
Lunch, by the way, consisted of a frittata made with free-range eggs from the farmers market, sauteed leeks, broccoli rape from the garden and goat cheese. I served that with a fresh garden salad and some of the black-eyed pea salad I described in yesterday’s post.
And Kelly, here’s a link to the sauerkraut recipe I use.
We are engaging the concerns of a hungry planet--slowly--right here in our kitchen garden in the District of Columbia, about a mile from the White House.
ah… yes! Nothing like doing! Example beats fliers, any time. Garden in full view and people will ask. My former front garden in the city used to be a good way to engage people.
Hi Ed,
Hope you are all well.
I am still re-entering the land of the living – post back injury.
We have some excellent goat curry restaurants in the UK – delicious.
And just a mile from me at home is a butcher who sells goat meat . Shame it isn’t more widely available.
Charlotte
great posting! good to know what DPR and Kelly are doing. bravo, mostly. they need to take care that beds are narrow enough for the smallest kids to be able to reach from any side into the middle without stepping onto the soil. AND DPR should partner with DC schools to restore all of the existing greenhouses before building new ones, and enhance the nature & learning opps at all DC schools and rec centers before going outside the city limits.
Sylvie, as you say, gardens are incredible conversation starters and places for people to congregate. So there’s no telling where even these planters outside rec centers might lead.
Judy, I think these planters are a good size. It will take lots of effort to make sure that all 56 recreation sites have some kind of staffing to work with the kids and maintain them.
Excellent and thoughtful post, Ed. Kelly is right on, though – one of the essential tools for the community garden organizer is simply being there.