[Community_garden] need to prove that many community gardens are on public land

[Sandy Pernitz]

Rory, we have many of our (in Seattle Washington) community gardens on parks land along with other municipality land and private land.  The real issue with the "messy" nature is not related to public land at all but esthetics.  Everyone, even internally, in our community gardens have a different set of esthetics.  There is always the un-tended plots, those that have not been actively gardened but even that has a plethora of reasons (family member died, had a baby, hurt themselves, or yes just is not following through).  I say all of this because the bigger conversation I think needs to be around a working garden, not a passive park that to me is the difference.  You can offer to make efforts to work on improving the "bones" of the garden, add artistic elements, plant flower borders that bloom throughout the year, but nothing you do can change the nature of a working garden that changes.  We have the added struggle or benefit!  of year round garden, not even the fallow snow time for us.  The other issue for me is the ability to be inclusive of varied aesthetic sensibilities, obviously again there are those plots that are down right not taken care of but even that could mean that the person say has some emotional issues and the garden is saving them from going off the deep end.  This is an on going struggle with Working Community Gardens to keep having the conversation and not just around who owns the land.


 
Thanks for your time,
Sandy Pernitz
Community Garden Coordinator
P-Patch Community Gardening Program/Sustaining Grounds for Growing Communities
"I'm just a prairie flower growing wilder hour by hour nobody ever cultivates me, I'm wild"  William Carlos Williams
PO Box 94649
Seattle, WA 98124-4649
sandy.pernitz at seattle.gov
206-684-0284
office location: Department of Neighborhoods/700 5th Avenue Suite 1700

>>> "Rory Cohen" <rorycohen at verizon.net> 4/1/2008 4:19 PM >>>

Friends:

We have a small (10-12 family) organic community garden, the first in a
park in cheltenham township, PA.  We've been operating for 5 seasons
now.

One of the neighbors thinks the garden is 'messy' and 'unsightly' and is
trying to get it shut down.

One of the arguments they are using is that the garden is in a public
park, and they say that most community gardens are on private or
institutional land.

this isn't true according to my research, but I need to gather more
examples of community gardens that are on park land.  Can you help?

Warmly,




Mobile:1 215 287 6458
Toll Free: 1 877 669 9746
www.take10now.com <http://www.take10now.com/> 
<http://www.thesecretin10minutes.com/> www.thesecretin10minutes.com 

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