By Mindy McIntosh-Shetter

The other day, I was out at the community garden and saw my first turkey.

I was told when I started the community garden project in my community that guard turkeys patrolled the area.

How I laughed at this thought.

Guard turkeys on military property. Poetic justice in action I suppose.

As I inspected the raised beds, I noticed the last bed I planted with donated tomatoes had been disturbed. How funny this was to me. The gardens are in the open and no cover is around for them to hide from predators. Who am I to question Mother Nature?

So I repaired the damage, placed some of my hair in t Read the rest of this entry »

By Mindy McIntosh-Shetter

Throughout my community garden project, I noticed a unique trend that I could not explain until recently.

My group consists of a majority of people who are under 30 years of age.

How wonderful I felt and still feel that the youth was getting involved in gardening.

I thought economics was a big factor and the organic food movement pushed these individuals to the community garden. But while my uneducated analysis of the situation was partly correct, it took a little research to find the “roots” of my community gardeners.

Personally, I am on the very backend of the baby-boomer generation. I was raised in an environment that I could do anything without any boundaries. For years, I have felt that I was raised this way because I was an only child but to my dismay that was not necessarily the case.

Baby-boomers were raised to think Read the rest of this entry »

By Cindy Naas

Recently I was invited to help create a large community garden on the campus of the Sabes JCC in the Minneapolis area.

I’m going to blog about each step of the process.

My hope is that some of you will use this information to go out into your own communities and create urban gardens which will benefit so many people.

History

This is the third year for some sort of garden at the JCC. The first garden was built with grant money. They had a large greenhouse, an outdoor garden and even staff to oversee the building and tending of the garden. Year 2 saw the grant money dry up, and with not enough workers the garden didn’t do well. This year the garden will be done on a shoestring budget, but my hope is to not only plan a large productive vegetable garden but to make it a sustainable project as well.

Planning

One of the ideas suggested for Read the rest of this entry »

By Vanessa Richins

When you think of urban cities, you may think of skyscrapers, traffic jams, and pavement everywhere.

However, the urban garden revolution continues to spread.

The Daily Green has created a wonderful article about the top 10 US urban cities when it comes to the number of community gardens.

Top of the list is Seattle, Washington. Our friends the Shibaguyz are right there in the trenches, growing their own food thanks, in part, to the city’s fabulous P-Patch program. I hope I can visit this lovely city soon and see all the good work for myself.

My internship landed me in the city of McMinnville, Oregon for a summer. I enjoyed being so close to Portland (number 2 on the list) – just 35 miles northeast. Known as the “City of Roses”, there are gardens everywhere. It’s natural, then, that they would also have a significant number of community gardens.

I was glad to see Read the rest of this entry »

By Vanessa Richins

Detroit is famous for Motown and producing cars.

There’s also a growing new trend there – urban farming.

It’s a positive sign in a city that has taken some of the hardest knocks in this economy.

The silver lining in the plethora of vacant lots is that they offer the potential to help feed the city.

Six years ago the Detroit Garden Resource Program Collaborative was formed. Community gardeners can join for $20 and get anything they need for their gardens, from tools to seeds and seedlings.

There’s also the Read the rest of this entry »