History
The garden originated as part of a city redevelopment plan for the area between MIT and Cambridge Street and Lechmere. The neighborhood was comprised of a predominance of Italian, Portuguese, and Black families living in single and duplex…
The community garden and playground of Hurley Street Park, amid the tightly knit neighborhood of East Cambridge, is truly a haven. The curved, rounded lines of its beautiful design by Gary Chan of the City’s Community Development Department provide…
Moore Street Community Garden occupies a truncated L-shaped space bounded by a tennis court, a parking garage, some residential housing, and a park. A large portion of the gardeners come from many corners of the earth. The garden is unusual, not just…
Squirrel Brand Community Garden (originally known as the Broadway & Boardman Community Garden) has seen many changes since its inception in 1977. Although it is now less than half its original size it still retains much of its grass-roots-based…
This community garden has always been unique because it is comprised of one shared communal garden plot, as opposed to one plot for each gardener. Planting, maintenance, harvesting, and all other responsibilities are shared by the gardeners. It is a…
Riverside Press Park Community Garden is in transition from the traditional form of community gardening with individual plots assigned to individual gardeners to becoming a pilot program offering a communal form of gardening. This new program is an…
Green Street Neighborhood Garden is the only Cambridge Community Garden that is owned and maintained privately with no input or support from the City of Cambridge. The advantages and disadvantages of this privately-owned community garden depend on…
This unprepossessing rectangle, with a path running diagonally through it, is aptly named “Field of Dreams.” It is the inspiration for a rich, beloved garden to many. Privately managed by a resident neighborhood group on property technically…
Sacramento Street Community Garden has been a lively and important feature of the neighborhood since 1975. Many gardeners and plant lovers, young and old, have found friends and refuge from city bustle along with a place to pursue a variety of…
Corcoran Park Community Garden is well sited on a slight plateau at the northwest corner of Corcoran Park. With its slightly elevated position, and neat chain link fencing, the garden seems to crown the green expanse of the park stretching out below…
McMath Park Community Garden is set well back from the street, and further hidden by a tall hedge that acts as a barrier between a shady little park with benches and the long north side of the garden. There is an element of real surprise when one…
This is a new garden that was made available to gardeners in 2019; it was designed in the updated mode of raised beds and wide accessible pathways. Gardeners tend to be younger and live in West Cambridge. A plot can be used for three years.
Early…
William G. Maher Community Garden can claim to be year-round and, on purpose or not, to be a source of food for wildlife as well as humans. Some of the wildlife is vexing and the humans inevitably have ups and downs, but the vibe is mainly friendly,…
With communal spaces including a gazebo, orchard, meadow, trees, and a bricked barbecue area, in addition to 23 individual plots, Bel Arbor Community Garden welcomes all kinds of life to Philadelphia’s Bella Vista neighborhood. The land has a long…
This outreach ministry is located on 2 residential lots owned by Barnett Chapel United Methodist Church in Kerrville TX. Desiring to address food insecurity in the neighborhood as well as other health and social challenges, the mission “continues to…
I live in a small city in the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia. We are lucky enough to have an enormous public park with baseball diamonds, a football field, basketball and tennis courts, a skate park, three dog parks, picnic areas, ponds (stocked), and…
Today our grandkids might think planting vegetables in a cemetery smacks of the gothic and macabre and perhaps such a garden hints at vestiges of the Addams Family somewhere in our genealogy tree. But they need to examine the circumstances and the…
A Northside gardener with a plot adjacent to mine gave me this advice after my first crop died. “My beans died, too,” he said. “You just have to plant more.”“And they’ll grow?” I asked. “There’s still enough time?”“Yeah,” he said. He was on his third…
The Ancestral Roots Community Garden is in Chattanooga’s Menlo Park Neighborhood. The garden plantings and design are inspired by traditional Southern African American yards and home gardens. Greens, beans, okra, muscadine, herbs, corn, watermelons…
I’ve sometimes wondered about the importance of space in one’s life. For me, my home filled with family photos, colorful art works, plants, and books is the place that provides comfort and peace and is the space I can always count on. Bridge Gardens,…
I am a gardener at a community P-Patch garden in Seattle, Washington. I also volunteer/write for the P-Patch Post, which is a free bi-yearly newspaper that is mailed to each gardener in the P-Patch program. I wrote the below article, which appeared…
I grew up gardening and, living in the suburbs my whole life, was lucky to have space available to plant many different kinds of gardens over the years. In my retirement, I joined garden clubs and completed training at the University of Illinois to…
During the fall and winter of 2012 and 2013, Ryan W. put together a proposal to build an urban farm, which later became North Brooklyn Farms. He presented it at a Greenpoint Waterfront Association for Parks and Planning meeting, where two neighbors…
Gregory is the director and founder of East New York 4 Gardens. He is a visual artist, a community advocate, horticulturist, and founder of Gregory’s Garden. Gregory’s Garden is a community garden located on two formerly-abandoned city lots in…
El Jardin del Paraiso, Inc. is a public park, operated by community members and the NYC Department of Parks & Recreation. El Jardin del Paraiso is available for community events and activities. The goals of El Jardin del Paraiso, Inc. are to promote…
My name is Maryanne Kuzniar. My second community garden experience began in 2009 in and continues to this day at La Guardia Corner Gardens. I came back to New York City in 2009, and having had a large garden in Italy, I was a little bit worried that…
My name is Maryanne Kuzniar. I was born and raised in the suburbs of New Jersey, and that's when I started gardening—helping out in the backyard with our vegetable garden and pruning flowers and things. And then, I traveled around a lot of in my…
Poppa & Momma Jones' Historic Community Garden is a struggling garden with strong ties to an interesting past. Back around the summer of 2013, I walked past an elderly couple gathering vegetables from various garden beds. I had recently returned…
My name is Lori Harris, and I’m a community gardener. I'm quite sure I wouldn't have been a gardener if it wasn't for my father. I mean I like to grow plants in the house or whatever. But, I really took an interest in watching him be interested in…
Haja: My name is Haja Worley. I am the husband of Cindy Nibbelink Worley. I’m from Patterson, New Jersey by way of North Carolina. Growing up, my parents had a garden in the backyard. I'm sure the garden was not as big as it seemed to be when I was…
In 2013, the Neighborhood Farm Initiative (NFI) received a generous grant from the DC Humanities Council to conduct oral histories with community gardeners in Washington, D.C. Founded in 2008, NFI is a community organization dedicated increasing…
Ours is a story of how the two communities of Algonquin and Lake in the Hills came together to build vegetable gardens that feed local families in need, educate new gardeners, and provide a peaceful artistic space.
In 2012 the Algonquin Lake in the…
Citizens Committee for New York City’s mission is simple: to help New Yorkers – especially those in low-income areas – come together and improve the quality of life in their neighborhoods. Residents are uniquely situated to define and act on the…
Before this year, I never thought I would grow my own food on a plot of land. When I was a teenager, my grandmother grew, and taught me to grow, vegetables in our backyard garden. She also canned tomatoes, peaches, apples and other fruits/vegetables,…
Considered the oldest community garden in New York, Liz Christy Community Garden was established in 1973. In late 1973 and early 1974, the community activist group the Green Guerillas, among them an energetic member named Liz Christy, cleared the lot…
The Farm Bureau/Extension Community Garden was established in 2004 with the help of the Woodstock (Illinois) Noon Rotary, who paid for the materials to build sixteen raised beds on the property owned by the McHenry County Farm Bureau. The garden is…
Libby Area Community Garden is a grassroots project (founded by Linda Alkire), now in its fifth growing/thriving season with a membership of over seventy active members on about a quarter acre of school property in beautiful Libby, Montana. The…
This organic garden at Thomas Jefferson Middle School in Arlington, Virginia was created as a Girl Scout Silver Award project by Cadette Troop 557. The garden was built over the course of a few years, with the bulk of it constructed in 2012-2013. A…
We have been partners in our community garden in Longmeadow, Massachusetts for 15 years. Our love of gardening stems from our childhood. Our heritage is one of farmers—Linda’s grandparents had a farm in Monson, Massachusetts and Karen’s great aunt…
The Berwyn Heights Community Garden Planning Committee (Planning Committee) is an outgrowth of the Berwyn Heights Green Team (Green Team) in Berwyn Heights, a town of approximately 3,123 residents in Prince George's County, Maryland. In 2012, the…
I was gardening in our community garden, located in Washington DC, just ten blocks from the Capitol Building, the home of the U.S. Congress. Our community garden is an oasis of peacefulness and my soul is refreshed when I garden there. On 9/11, after…
Initially, a group of Lafayette Community members came together to form the Local Foods Group under the inspired leadership of local “green” activists. From 2008 through 2011 the group searched Lafayette for an appropriate site to establish a…
The mission of the Well Fed Community Garden is listed on the Irregardless Café website: “To provide an opportunity for community members to learn how to grow their own food, to reinforce the community’s ties to the environment; and to increase food…
Note from the Artist and founder:“Before you read the story of the Please Touch Garden I would like to dedicate this story with a thank you to the many that helped make it possible. I did pour my heart into making the Please Touch Community Garden a…
Sunflower Village, a community garden in the Franklin Square neighborhood of Baltimore, has been growing strong since 2010, when the Franklin Square Community Association decided to take over a large abandoned lot. Several years before, five houses…
North Austin Community Garden is a partnership between the City of Austin and YMCA of Austin. Local artists Lucy Begg and Robert Gay of Thoughtbarn were commissioned by Austin’s Art in Public Places program to design and build the garden. Although…
Motivated by Mahatma Gandhi’s famous quote “you must be the change you wish to see in the world,” Trenton-based artist collective and non-profit organization S.A.G.E. Coalition (“Styles Advancing Graffiti’s Evolution”) transformed an abandoned lot…
When the abandoned gas station that had been owned by artist Vickie Jo Sowell’s long-time neighbor Big Daddy Green burned down in 2001, the City of Emeryville asked her what she thought should be done with the site. Big Daddy's Complete Rejuvenating…
My oldest and I have been eyeing the Kirk of Kildaire Community Garden for a while now, and finally took the leap to volunteer there last weekend. The garden is on the property of Kirk of Kildaire Presbyterian Church in Cary, North Carolina.…
Until late winter of 2007, my only productive interactions with plants had been with the most common houseplants. Neither our family's efforts during my childhood to grow tomatoes nor my obstinate individual ones to grow watermelons in conditions I…
Las Parcelas, a community garden in the Norris Square neighborhood of Philadelphia, began with brushes and paint, rather than shovels and seeds. Plans for the space began in the 1980s. It was not until a summer day in 1992, however, that a “massive…
When mayor Hazen S. Pingree (1840-1901) began his term, he did not plan to make Detroit a garden city. An influential reformer on many fronts, he became a major proponent of vacant lot cultivation during the economic crisis of 1893, which left him…
In the summer of 1902, the land that would become New York City’s DeWitt Clinton Park, just a few blocks from Central Park, was described as a place so run-down that even “The most vivid imagination could not have conceived a more desolate spot than…
