Growing green spaces

Community gardens in the city 

BY LAURA C. MARTIN

The trouble with living in the city is that there are just too many people and too few green spaces.

This is precisely the situation that Louise Jackson faced in 1996. Louise lives in the Oakhurst neighborhood, outside Decatur. She loves her home and the neighborhood, and in 1996 created a beautiful garden in front of her house.

That’s when the problems began. Her garden was right smack in the middle of a path that neighborhood children took to school every day. They seemed oblivious to the tender plants and seedlings and simply trampled them underfoot, ruining the garden.           

There were several ways Louise could have dealt with the issue. She could have called the parents, the school, even the police. After all, the children were trespassing. But instead, Louise, with the encouragement of her neighbor Sally Wylde, chose a different route, and the result was one of those win-win solutions that changed lives.

Instead of trying to keep the children out of the garden, they decided to invite them in—and to encourage them to take an active role in replanting the plants and caring for the garden. To anyone not familiar with the magic of gardening, the results may seem unbelievable. For those who are happiest digging in the dirt, the results were predictable. The kids loved it. They loved it so much that they wanted to do more—and more.

Responding to their enthusiastic interest, Sally and Louise next helped the kids create another garden in the median strip in the street in front of Louise’s house. But not even that was enough for these youngsters who had gotten a good taste of the fun of gardening. So, when an undeveloped half-acre lot in the neighborhood came onto the market, Sally and her husband, Britt Dean, bought it for the purpose of creating the Oakhurst Community Garden.

Eleven years later, this urban garden is full of busy, happy kids doing everything from catching worms that they feed to rescued turtles to planting seeds to cooking up some greens just picked from the garden. It is a thriving, exciting place for neighborhood kids as well as those from the local Boys and Girls Club or the Decatur Recreation Department. They come here to learn and have fun.

Stephanie Van Parys, director of the garden, says, “People don’t realize how much children love to be outside in a place that’s not scary. The garden provides a safe space for them to be outdoors and be in nature.”

And what grows in this garden? “We grow all kinds of vegetables and things,” Stephanie says, “but the produce we get from the garden is secondary. This garden was created to give children a place to learn about nature.”

Community gardens in cities fill different needs for different people. Though harvest is secondary for the Oakhurst Community Garden, for other shared gardens in Georgia, one primary goal is to raise enough food to help feed people who simply do not have enough to eat.

The Community Garden Initiative is composed of 150 active community gardens in 36 counties in North Georgia and the Atlanta area. These are supported or organized by schools, agencies, neighbors or faith-based groups. Individual gardeners plant and tend to separate plots within these gardens and generally take most of the produce for their own use. Much of what is left over (a bountiful garden always produces extra) is donated to the Atlanta Community Food Bank, which serves 38 counties in metro Atlanta and North Georgia, to assist in their fight against hunger.

Fred Conrad, community garden coordinator for the Atlanta Community Food Bank, says that community gardens provide a common connection for people within a neighborhood. The gardens help beautify neighborhoods and give the residents a common source of pride. “It helps connect people,” he says, “and provides a space where they can work together and talk to one another. It fills a need in people’s lives, allowing them to be part of a group, to be out in the sunshine and to get some exercise.”

The benefits derived from community gardening extend far beyond what nature provides in terms of produce. The real magic, perhaps, is in sharing the hard work of digging and planting, then reaping the abundant joy of friendship.

—Laura Martin, of Atlanta, is the author of 26 books on gardening and nature crafts.

For more:

•  To learn about community gardens in regions throughout Georgia, contact your county extension agent.

•  For information about how to start a community garden, contact Fred Conrad at fred.conrad@acfb.org.

•  To donate extra produce to the Atlanta Community Food Bank, contact Natasha Daniels at (404) 892-FEED (3333).