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With collaboration and sunshinwater and partnerships and lov32 P A R K S & R E C R E A T I O N A U G U S T 2 0 0 8
How Doe
s YourG
a
A 10-plot community garden in this
Sacramento park created a gathering place
for residents-and discouraged the homeless
population from sleeping there.
BILLMAYNARD
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Would you prefer that your food
taste better, need fewer chemi-
cal preservatives, and lessen its
negative impact on our environment?
Then turn to locally grown fresh produce.
The primary goals of the local food move-
ment are to support nearby growers,
enrich regional economies, reduce the
amount of food that has to be shipped
long distances (thereby lessening the
amount of fossil fuels used in transporta-
tion and the pollution from their output),
and favor freshness and quality in foods
over large-scale and industrialized pro-
duction.
Joining a community garden is just one
example of how you can eat local ly. Here
are five additional ways to up your intake
of locally grown foods:
A perfectly ripe and juicy peach, the
snap of a crisp, fresh green bean, a sweet
and tangy heirloom tomato. This is the
time of year to frequent your local
farmers market. Make sure to ask if the
bounty on display is grown locally and
freshly picked; some produce may have
been trucked in from a distance.
Like to get your fingers in the dirt? You
cant get more local than food grown in
your backyard with your own two hands.
For inspiration and how-to videos, check
out Patti Moreno, aka Garden Girl, at
www.gardengirltv.com.You can also
find home gardening tips at the National
Gardening Associations Web site, www.
garden.org/urbangardening.
If you dont have a green thumb, sup-
port those who do by joining a commu-
nity-supported agriculture (CSA) program.
You prepay for a seasons worth of
weekly delivery or pick-up of whatever
the grower is currently harvesting, which
is usually vegetables but can also include
herbs, flowers, and even dairy or meat
products. CSAs help small and family
farms stay in business by providing a pre-
dictable income; the result is high-quality,
often organic, incredibly fresh produce.
Visit the National Agricultural Library
online (www.nal.usda.gov/afsic/
pubs/csa/csa.shtml) for more information
and to find a CSA near you.
Make it a habit to patronize restaurants
that support local growers. Ask your waitstaff to identify the items on the menu
that were grown locally or regionally.
Request that your neighborhood super-
market carry local produce; let the stores
manager know there is a genuine interest
and demand for produce grown and har-
vested close to home.
G.N.
Buy Local, Be Local
hurdle faced by would-be gardeners.
Leslie Pohl-Kosbau, the community
garden manager for Portland, Ore.s 31
community gardens, acknowledges the
challenge of finding usable public
space. The urban growth boundary is a
ring around the urban area of Portland
that is meant to limit sprawl and save
farmland and forests, she says. Thisputs extra pressure on land prices, and
means that there are few opportunities
to acquire or convert existing urban un-
built parcels.
Park departments can become in-
volved by purchasing land or taking
over the lease for an existing commu-
nity gardens parcel, or by offering a
section of a public park up for develop-
ment into a community garden. The
Chicago Park District sums up this nat-
ural relationship another way: Garden-ers take initiative and responsibility for
the community garden and, in effect,
the park as a whole.
Joshua Amaris, community garden-
ing coordinator in Oakland, Calif.,
explains how the park department there
became involved with community gar-
dens in his area.
Beginning in the 1980s, says
Amaris, Oaklands office of parks and
recreation initiated its community gar-
dening program in response to requests
from the community. [It] identified
plots of land within specific parks, and
volunteer groups planted and managed
the plots. As the program grew and vol-
unteers changed, it became necessary to
staff the program, and [the office] hired
a part-time coordinator.
Garden sites must be more than just
acquirable in order for green things to
grow. A garden needs enough daily sun-
shine (vegetables need at least six hoursa day) and availability of water in order
to flourish. The soil may need to be
tested for possible pollutants. There
must be easy access for community
members, keeping in mind the needs of
the elderly, children, and persons with
disabilities. If located within an existing
park, care should be taken that the gar-
den site does not infringe upon enjoy-
ment of the parks other offerings.
President Bill Clinton visits Portland's Woodlawn Garden in May.LESLIEPOHL-KOSBAU
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P A R K S &R E C R E A T I O N A U G U S T 2 0 0 8 35
For Parks, an Integral Role
Once a location is established, there
should be a plan for incorporating the
organization and maintenance of the
site. This is where the help and guid-
ance of a local park and recreation
agency can be crucial. The skill sets of
park professionals and the resources
they have at hand can offer the commu-nity garden planner a wealth of infor-
mation, knowledge, and support.
The city of Portland provides a suc-
cessful example of a community gar-
den-parks relationship. Portland Parks
and Recreation is the largest landowner
in the city and, according to Pohl-Kos-
bau, agency staff has the kind of
expertise needed to work with people,
soil, and plants.
She explains that the city council
allowed Portland Parks and Recreationto enter into land-use agreements with
other bureaus and private property
owners as part of launching the com-
munity gardens program. The manage-
ment of the program relies on commu-
nity volunteers to provide much of the
labor-intensive work of keeping the
gardens fruitful and beautiful, yet is
overseen by two botanic specialists.
Volunteer garden managers, elected
by the gardeners, help track the use of
plots, arrange work parties, and work
with on-site social participation, says
Pohl-Kosbau, highlighting the impor-
tance of the community stepping up to
the challenge of maintaining the gar-
dens.
The needs of local citizens must be
foremost in any gardens plan. The best
garden design or concept foisted upon a
disinterested or poorly informed com-
munity is bound to fail.
Solomon Boye, community gardensprogram coordinator for the city of
Torontos Parks, Forestry, and Recre-
ation Division, says, It is important
that community gardens remain a com-
munity-driven process. There must be
genuine demand and interest from the
local community in order for the com-
munity garden to be successful, and
community gardeners must have own-
ership over the garden.
Bill Maynard, ACGA vice president
and also the community gardens coor-
dinator for Sacramento Parks and Rec-
reation, recognizes and respects the
importance of community gardens
reflecting the needs of their population.
What sometimes happens, says May-
nard, is that a city builds a community
garden in an area that does not reallyneed or want one. Community gardens
are not like a ball field: Build it and they
will come. This does not work for com-
munity gardens.
Gardens and Parks:
Growing Relationships
With community gardens and parks,
another relationship that needs to be
carefully tended is that between the
park department and other government
agencies.
In Portland, parks and recreation is
one of many bureaus, each managed bya commissioner. It is important that
the gardens are well-regarded by all the
bureaus, Pohl-Kosbau notes, not only
for budget reasons, but for the partner-
Healthy Food: In When
School Is OutLooking for ways to engage children and make your programs more accessible and
enjoyable? The USDAs child nutrition programs, including the Summer Food Serv-
ice and the Child and Adult Care Food programs, can help.
Child nutrition programs, with support from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, com-
plement recreation and learning opportunities and provide reliable sources of funding
to the local park and recreation agencies that offer them.
The Summer Food Service and Child and Adult Care Food programs help children in
every state get the nutrition they need to learn, play, and groweven when they are
out of school. Children can receive free nutritious meals or snacks throughout the sum-
mer and at other times when they might otherwise go hungry.
The Summer Food Service program is the single largest federal resource available to
public park and recreation agencies looking to combine a feeding and summer activity
program. Agencies have partnered with school districts, local businesses, hospitals, and
other community organizations to deliver nutritious meals and planned activities to
youngsters in low-income areas.
Sponsors receive payments for serving free healthy meals and snacks to children and
teens, ages 18 and younger, at approved sites.
For details, visitwww.fns.usda.gov/cnd/Contacts/StateDirectory.htm.
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ships that we have with the other
bureaus.
In Oakland, the community gardens
coordinator is employed by the city and
receives support from other govern-
mental bodies. For example, says
Amaris, the citys public works agency
maintains irrigation systems, provides
mulch, cares for fences, and [provides]
other maintenance tasks. He believes
the responsibility for creating and sus-
taining a healthy working environment
in which the gardens can thrive de-
pends primarily on the effectiveness of
the program coordinator and that per-
sons willingness to reach out to other
groups and departments for assistance.
ACGAs Maynard suggests that gar-
den managers take every opportunity to
create shared spaces for common use.
For example, he says, departments
other than parks and recreation should
be invited to hold their meetings or
training sessions in the communitys
gardens.
City agencies can also come together
by creating compost. Maynard recom-mends locating compost collection bins
in all of the citys municipal offices so
that lunch waste can be turned into
valuable compost for the areas commu-
nity gardens.
Stretching the Budget for Green
Finding ways to compel local govern-
ments and private citizens to share what
seem to be ever-tightening budgets with
a community garden program forces
organizers to think creatively and workcollectively.
Torontos park and recreation depart-
ment currently oversees more than
2,500 plots in some 100 community
gardens. The agencys community gar-
dens program, created in 1997, strives
to promote three primary missions:
child and youth development, lifelong
health and wellness for all, and environ-
mental stewardship.
These goals cost money, of course.
Boye, the programs coordinator, re-
ports that his departments perennial
obstacle is adequate resources for
staffing to provide the necessary out-
reach and capacity-building required to
establish and maintain community gar-
dens.
In Arlington, Va., the department of
parks, recreation, and cultural resources
manages eight community gardens. The
city has enacted regulations governing
the operations of the gardens, includinga fee for each plot. The money collected
from participants helps to offset the
cost of water access and maintenance.
Other expenses include repair when
water lines spring the occasional leak,
fence mending, and trash collection.
Joanne Hutton, horticulture techni-
cian for Arlingtons community garden
program, describes the gardening
groups in her county as highly organ-C I R C L E 2 2 P R O D U C T I N F O R M A T I O N C A R D O R V I S I T W W W . N R P A . O R G / F R E E I N F O
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ized and politically vocal, which she
believes goes a long way toward protect-
ing funds for the gardens. Here, civic
activism speaks. That would be the best
approach to sustaining budgets, it
seems to me.
Sacramento Parks and Recreation,
says Maynard, has raised money for its
community gardens through a wine-tasting event and silent auction. Other
ideas for supplementing thin budgets
might include donations of gardening
tools by a local hardware or home-
improvement store, or the contribution
of seeds or plants from a local nursery.
Gardens Giving Back
One way to increase the appeal of a
community gardening program is to
incorporate artwork or sculpture cre-
ated by local artists and children intothe gardens design. In this way, the
neighborhoods creative potential is
showcased, and the garden becomes a
destination and meeting place for
tourists, visitors, and the local commu-
nity.
Surplus produce harvested from
community gardens can be a welcome
boon for food pantries and soup kitch-
ens. Fresh, locally grown fruits and veg-
etables are a nutritious and healthful
addition to the usual nonperishable
goods donated to these programs.
In Colorado, Denver Urban Gardens,
or DUG, is exploring the long-term
positive effects of community gardens
through Gardens for Growing Healthy
Communities, a three-year research
project in collaboration with the Uni-
versity of Colorado School of Medicine
and funded by the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention. The projects
aim is to assess the health benefits fromcommunity gardens, which will then
provide important information to local
leaders about the impact of community
gardens on urban neighborhoods.
Of course, these neighborhood gems
require hard work, coordination, and
thoughtful planning. But the payoff for
public park and recreation agencies and
the communities they serve is immea-
surably valuable for everyone involved.
For parks and recreation, investment
in community gardening programs is a
win-win scenario, because so many
park and recreation agency initiativesreducing obesity and increasing physi-
cal activity, promoting healthy eating
choices, building positive neighbor-
hoods, enhancing and protecting open
spacesdovetail nicely with the goals
of community gardens.
With public interest and awareness of
green living at an all-time high, theres
never been a better time for partner-ships among public parks and recre-
ation and community gardening advo-
cates.
Green, it turns out, looks good on
everyone. P&R
C I R C L E 2 3 O N P R O D U C T I N F O R M A T I O N C A R D O R V I S I T WW W. N RPA . O R G / F RE E I N FO
The needs of local residents should be foremost in any garden's plans.
BILLMAYNARD