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At Organic Gardening, we've been dedicated to helping people make their homes and neighborhoods greener for more than 65 years. And we know that using nature's resources wisely is the only way to make all of our efforts sustainable and lasting.
Community gardens bring together people of all ages, ethnic backgrounds, and experiences to create beautiful green places in their neighborhoods. Because community gardens are often set up on abandoned or undeveloped lots, they have little, if any, access to water for irrigation.
So, we are joining forces with the American Community Gardening Association, and the caring people at Aveeno Skin-care Products and Nature's Path Foods to bring rainwater harvesting systems to 15 community gardens this season. The systems to be engineered for each location will direct water from nearby rooftops into cisterns from which the gardeners can take it when they need it. Below are short profiles and links (where available) to the gardens we are supporting this year. Each will host a dedication party when their WaterWorks system has been installed. The first was held on April 20, 2007 at the Dias Y Flores garden in New York City. Check back here for dates when you can join the celebration at the garden nearest you. Click here for tips on conserving water you can use in your own garden.
WaterWorks Mission Statement: Organic Gardening and its partners (the American Community Gardening Association, Aveeno, and Nature's Path) have joined forces to support the commitment of community groups that work to beautify and bring hope to their neighborhoods. The WaterWorks 2007 project will help community gardeners conserve water for their needs and educate their neighbors on the invaluable benefits of urban green spaces to the community as a whole.
Waterworks 2008
Alemany Farm - San Francisco, CA
Alemany Farm empowers San Francisco residents to grow their own food, and through that process encourages more people to become engaged with their community.
Alemany Farm is a project of the Alemany Resident Management Corporation, a non-profit organization dedicated to improving conditions in the Alemany Community, a 165-unit public housing development beset by high unemployment and recurring violence.
The Farm is 4.5 acres serving more than 500 residents and includes flowers, vegetables, 80 fruit trees, container gardens and herbs. Produce from the farm is shared collectively amongst residents and program participants.
Boyd Street Urban Farm - Portland, ME
The Boyd Street Urban Farm is located in a neighborhood of Portland that is one of Maine's most culturally rich but economically poor. This 1/3 acre parcel is the first urban plot in Maine to be certified organic by Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association. The garden serves 40 high school age youth growers, classes at a nearby middle school and up to 600 community volunteers.
Portland youth are responsible for the majority of the growing, working throughout the summer to maintain and harvest the garden. The garden provides youth development and education programs, and supplies food for a local feeding program for the elderly.
Garden features include an heirloom orchard, a raised growing bed, and a phytoremediation bed to address a soil lead contamination problem. A compost program also recycles scraps from local restaurants.
Brentwood Community Garden - Portland, OR
Brentwood Community Garden is a community garden in every sense of the word. With 81 plots and 124 active gardeners, this garden serves as both a place to garden and a community center where gardeners of all ages gather to be around friends and neighbors.
The garden includes individual plots as well as a common fruit area, several accessible plots for the handicapped, and much more.
Free classes teach skills such as fruit tree pruning and other essential gardening skills.
The Farm Garden at the Early Childhood Education Center - Columbus, OH
The Farm Garden at the Early Childhood Education & Family Center is a unique garden education program for students of the Outdoor Learning Environment school serving 700 children and 100 staff. The garden features an organic fruit, vegetable herb and flower garden, a play cabin/potting shed, compost area, native plantings and much more.
The program is run by local farmer Paul Etheridge, known to the school students as Farmer Paul. Farmer Paul teaches a structured farm garden curriculum for families that incorporates staff and children of all ages and abilities, helping the children build the connection between the garden and the source of their food.
The program also includes a summer job training program for area teens who help to maintain the garden and work with children over summer months.
The Garden of Dreams - New York, NY
The Garden of Dreams is an outdoor garden and classroom at PS 57 located in East Harlem, NY. The 1500 square foot garden, which was designed by third grade classes at the school, includes a 6 ft waterfall, a bridge and 4 large planting areas in an inner courtyard of the school and serves 100 students.
The garden has been built in conjunction with the Horticultural Society of New York as part of their Apple Seeds program. The HSNY has created the Apple Seed program, an in-school and after-school horticultural and environmental education program that provides hands-on science activities and exploratory plant studies. Through the Apple Seeds program, the HSNY provides important hands-on science based gardening opportunities for children who otherwise have no access to green spaces for gardening education. The Garden of Dreams is one of 12 Apple Seeds sites in Harlem throughout New York City.
Waterworks 2008 Cistern Dedication:
Global Gardens - Tulsa, OK
Global Gardens is a nonprofit, educational organization that provides schools and neighborhoods the resources that they need to incorporate educational, multi-disciplinary, science-based gardens into their curriculum and community. Global Garden's primary goal is to establish student-centered garden spaces, where students and their families have ownership of the implementation, progress, maintenance, and activities of the garden. Global Gardens believes that these experiences encourage personal growth and empower individuals to live healthier lives and become agents of change in their communities. Global Gardens is located at the Eugene Field Elementary School, serving approximately 300 people with 30 plots
Gloryland Community Garden, Detroit, MI
The Gloryland Community Garden is an 11,000 square foot neighborhood garden located in a residential section of Detroit. The garden serves roughly 35 gardeners from the local community.
Food from the garden is shared amongst all gardeners, and given to the food pantry at the church that owns the property where the garden is located. Currently gardeners carry water from home to water garden plots because there is no water source located directly on garden property.
Growing Green Youth Garden, Buffalo, NY
Growing Green Youth Garden began 5 years ago in an ethnically diverse neighborhood on Buffalo's West side where fresh produce is not readily available. What began as a small garden on a vacant lot has evolved into a small - acre urban farm with 39 beds and 35 youth gardeners, that teaches organic gardening skills and life skills to youth participants.
Growing Green takes gardening one step further, teaching youth to make and sell products from their produce and providing them with sales and marketing skills training. Youth currently make and sell Amazing Chili Starter and Super Duper Salsa, the sales of which provide capital to continue to grow the program and beautify the garden.
Guadalupe Montessori School, Silver City, NM
This 500 square foot garden is located adjacent to a Montessori School and serves 65 students and their families. The garden serves as an outdoor classroom, providing education and extracurricular programs for the school and the surrounding community, and provides a sustainable example for community members.
The garden features vegetable and flower beds, a fruit orchard, raspberries and farm animals such as chickens and goats. Plans for expansion in 2008 include plans to double the orchard space.
New Mexico is in a very arid region where water is a serious challenge. The addition of a cistern is a great model of sustainability and environmentally sound practices that the gardeners are anxious to replicate.
Hope Community Garden - Toronto, ON Canada
The HOPE Community Garden is the only community food garden located in the Parkdale section of Toronto, an area that has a high proportion of population disadvantaged by poverty, race, and language barriers. The garden serves as an outdoor community center, bringing people together for workshops, festivals, community meals and more.
The garden serves 110 gardeners who garden communally and share the work and harvest. Harvest surplus is also shared with the local soup kitchen. In addition to community activities the garden also includes a Youth Green Squad which teaches youth leadership and employment skills.
Marigold Meadows - Phoenix, AZ
Marigold Meadows is 35,000 square foot school garden associated with the Desert Marigold Charter School. The garden includes vegetables, flowers, orchards and an active community farmers market, where more than 300 Pre-K through 12th grade students and their families receive hands-on gardening experience, science education, and fresh produce for their families.
The arid climate in Arizona - 5 inches per year for the last 7 years - leaves gardeners in this area praying for rain. Marigold Meadows has been seeking ways to become more water independent, while teaching sustainable gardening and water conservation techniques to gardeners involved in the program.
Master Peace Youth and Community Garden - Riverdale, MD
The Master Peace Youth and Community Garden is a program of the University of Maryland that is located adjacent to William Wirt Middle School in Riverdale Heights, MD. The current garden began as a modest vegetable garden in reused plastic baby pools and has grown to a 10,000 square foot community and youth urban farm.
The garden is divided into three main sections: a communal area with picnic tables where students can learn in an outdoor classroom and families can share a meal in the garden; a community garden with 30 small plots for local families to grow whatever they choose; and a youth garden that is planted and maintained for and with the help of the William Wirt Middle School Garden Club.
The majority of the garden harvest from the youth garden is sold at the Riverdale Farmers Market every Thursday from 3 to 7 PM. This important entrepreneurial program teaches the Garden Club students sales and marketing skills and introduces them to small-scale local farmers.
Transcona Community Garden - Winnipeg, MB, Canada
This 1 year old garden is located in a residential area of Winnipeg on previously undeveloped land within the city limits. The garden serves 81 people on 70 lots and includes flower and vegetable beds and a newly developed community use plot. There is no water available at all in this garden, and gardeners must bring water from home or rely on rain to provide water.
Urban Ministry Center - Charlotte, NC
The Urban Ministry Garden is part of the Charlotte Center for Urban Ministry. The garden serves the homeless who receive services through the Urban Ministry Center, and the harvest from the garden is given to the homeless, or to the program's soup kitchen, which is in great need of fresh produce. It provides both a practical source of food and a much needed activity to help homeless reconnect with their community.
In addition to community plots that are tended by anyone wishing to help there are individual plots, an inner courtyard for events and classes, and a fledgling green landscape training program. The garden features "improvised art" created from urban rubble.
With a severe drought in North Carolina, this and all gardens in the area are greatly in need of a sustainable water source that will enable it to continue to grow.
Rwenzori Pride Vocational School Agriculture Demonstration Gardens - Kasese, Uganda
The Rwenzori Pride Demonstration Gardens are owned by the Rwenzori Pride Vocational School Agriculture program. The garden includes cabbage, cassava, dodo, eggplants, tomatoes, beans, maize and many other vegetables that supplement the diet of the students at the school. Tended by students in the agriculture program, the gardens are both educational and function as a source of nutrition.
The program relies on rain water to water the garden. The school is anxious to participate in the program to help transform their program from a seasonal and weather dependent program to a year round garden, thus enhancing both educational opportunities and meeting nutritional needs.
Nyamighengere Kitchen Garden - Kasese, Uganda
Nymighengere Kitchen Garden is owned by the Rural Women's Development Association in Uganda. It provides both enhanced nutrition and income earning potential for the women who participate in the program. Water is a major challenge to this garden's survival. Gardeners carry water on their heads over several miles from the river to keep the vegetables watered, but perennials and other crops must wait for rain water. The gardeners say their crops "come up by the mercy of God".
Crops grown in the garden include cabbage, tomatoes, eggplants, carrots, pineapple, onions, vanilla, dodo, pumpkins, bananas and coffee. In the words of one of the gardeners "We would like this garden to be part of WaterWorks because it will relieve the women form the burdens of carrying water on their heads from distant places and ensure good crop harvest and better incomes. Organic Farming requires much water and all our farming is based on organic principles"
