Category: Community Gardens

NEWS.LLU.EDU – Families in San Bernardino will enjoy a Thanksgiving bounty of fresh fruits and vegetables they grew themselves thanks to Loma Linda University Health’s donation of a one-acre parcel to establish an organic community garden and outdoor activity center — aiming to improve nutrition and mental well-being among the underserved.

The city of San Bernardino is one of Southern California’s food deserts — areas where people have limited access to affordable, nutritious food due to poverty, food insecurity, access to grocery stores and lack of transportation.

“Jardín de la Salud,” Spanish for “Garden of Health,” is an initiative of the Loma Linda University Community-Academic Partners in Service (CAPS), part of the Institute for Community Partnerships (ICP), to provide wholesome produce and safe outdoor green spaces to the local underserved population.

READ THE FULL STORY: https://news.llu.edu/community/organic-community-garden-established-san-bernardino-nourishes-body-mind

GOODMORNINGAMERICA.COM – Tony Hillery is on a mission to teach children in his Harlem community how to adopt healthier food habits.

“It’s a simple formula here that if a child plants it, they will eat it,” he said. “Eighty percent of the time that they eat it, they’ll like it.”

Hillery is the founder of Harlem Grown, an organization that inspires “local youth to lead more healthy, ambitious lives through hands-on education, mentorship and urban farming.” It all started nine years ago during the last financial crisis when Hillery’s business hit a rough patch and he started reading about schools in underserved communities.

WATCH THE VIDEO: https://www.goodmorningamerica.com/living/story/man-mission-neighborhood-healthy-food-options-urban-farming-74364299

TALLAHASSEEREPORTS.COM – On Monday, Oct. 19, Mayor John Dailey and the City Commissioners broke ground on the first City Farm TLH located in the Greater Bond area.

In support of the City Commission’s five-year Strategic Plan and the Greater Bond Neighborhood First Plan, the pilot urban farm will help provide affordable fresh fruit and vegetables to the surrounding neighborhood.

“City Farm TLH is a creative way to turn an underutilized property into a community asset. We are excited to see this pilot urban farm take shape and create a sustainable urban farming business certificate program to encourage local entrepreneurship,” said Mayor John Dailey.

READ THE FULL STORY: https://tallahasseereports.com/2020/11/11/city-breaks-ground-for-new-urban-farm-and-entrepreneurial-program/

TALLAHASSEE.COM – Officials broke ground on the pilot location of the City of Tallahassee’s own urban farm, “City Farm TLH,” this week.

The “innovative urban farm with an entrepreneurial training program” is located at 530 Kissimmee St., previously a vacant lot.

“Funded by a Knight Foundation grant, City Farm TLH is part of the City’s ‘Vacant to Vibrant’ initiative aimed at addressing blight by repurposing vacant properties,” the city said in a press release.

“In addition to providing a site for the innovative urban farming and entrepreneurship elements of this program, the pilot farm will also help provide affordable, fresh fruits and vegetables to the surrounding neighborhood.”

READ THE FULL STORY: https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/2020/10/21/tallahassee-officials-break-ground-new-urban-farm/3709606001/

 

MercuryNews.com – Salinas Valley Assemblyman Robert Rivas visited Veggielution Community Farm in San Jose on Wednesday morning on a tour of agriculture sites throughout the state and praised the 6-acre farm in East San Jose as a “model” for others.

“Clearly, in agriculture, things are changing in the state because of climate change,” said Rivas, who chairs the Assembly’s Agriculture committee and was joined Wednesday by San Jose City Councilwoman Magdalena Carrasco and fellow Assemblyman Ash Kalra. “We’re seeing more diversity in the ways we farm, and one of those ways is urban agriculture.”

And let’s face it, Veggielution is pretty darn urban. Taking up a corner of the 48-acre Emma Prusch Farm Park at the busy intersection of Story and King roads, Veggielution’s fields, gardens and buildings sit in the shadow of the flyover ramp from Highway 101 to Interstate 680.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE: https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/10/21/urban-agriculture-growing-strong-at-san-joses-veggielution/

Arlnow.com – A portion of Virginia Highlands Park, near Pentagon City, is being transformed into a vibrant display of gardening through a new agricultural initiative.

The Arlington Friends of Urban Agriculture, National Living BID, Livability 22202 and Arlington County Department of Parks and Recreation collaborated to develop a project that is revitalizing a strip of land in the park for a temporary demonstration garden. The project, called the Highlands Urban Garden (HUG), is located at 1600 S. Hayes Street.

Project HUG will include a display of various irrigation systems while showcasing how to counter challenging soil conditions and how edge spaces in parks can be converted to functioning gardens. Produce from the garden will be donated to local food pantries.

READ THE FULL STORY: https://www.arlnow.com/2020/10/14/new-community-garden-breaks-ground-at-virginia-highlands-park/

Post Register: Claudia Pine spent Wednesday morning at Happyville Farm digging up carrots, picking tomatoes and washing cucumbers. By the time she was done, Pine had 58 pounds of fresh vegetables that were separated into one-pound bunches. Each family who visited the Community Food Basket – Idaho Falls that day was given one.

“Fresh, farm-raised produce is good for you. We are trying to provide people with the most nutritional food we can. People can then incorporate this fresh produce into their packaged food to help them go farther and make those meals healthier,” Ariel Jackson, executive director of the Community Food Basket – Idaho Falls.

Happyville Farm is a large garden just over one acre in size tucked into a neighborhood west of downtown at 600 S. Saturn Avenue. The farm is an offshoot of the Community Food Basket that Food Basket volunteer Pine dreamed up six years ago. This autumn she is reaping her first harvest.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE: https://www.postregister.com/news/local/urban-farm-grows-fresh-produce-and-sense-of-community/article_4679d34e-4832-5b8f-98ed-667a2d5d2193.html

Denver Urban Gardens plans to sell most of the land where it operates El Oasis, one of its Highland neighborhood gardens, to Caliber Construction in a $1.2 million deal set to close on December 1. But members of El Oasis, located at 1847 West 35th Avenue, are fighting the sale by raising public awareness in hopes of pressuring Caliber Construction to back out while the agreement is still under contract.

The money from the sale is intended to help DUG alleviate accumulated debt and continue to fulfill its role in offering gardens on more than 180 properties around the city, according to Ramonna Robinson, president of the nonprofit’s board. DUG informed El Oasis gardeners of the planned sale on September 9, with notices to vacate plots on the two-thirds of the land that Caliber will take over by October 5. The remaining third of the land will remain a garden in perpetuity. The gardeners, many of whom have tended El Oasis plots for years, believe that DUG has fundraising options other than selling the land, but DUG says that without the sale, the nonprofit will cease to exist.

READ THE FULL STORY: https://www.westword.com/restaurants/community-gardeners-try-to-stop-sale-of-denver-urban-gardens-property-11804554

AGPURDUE.EDU – Located within an Indianapolis food desert, 25 volunteers gathered on a hot July day to build six raised garden beds and plant cool-season vegetable crops in a community garden on the campus of HealthNet Martindale-Brightwood Health Center. The volunteers made a vision for quality food access a reality sought by determined HealthNet employees, Martindale-Brightwood residents and the help of Purdue Extension.

HealthNet is one of Indiana’s largest Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHC) with a network of nine community-based primary care health centers in Indianapolis and Bloomington, Ind. HealthNet provides health care services to the medically underserved, reaching more than 61,000 residents each year. The health center in the Martindale-Brightwood area serves residents with the highest poverty rate in Marion County who also happen to live in a food desert, meaning access to affordable or good-quality fresh food is severely limited.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE: https://ag.purdue.edu/stories/purdue-extension-growing-communities-one-garden-at-a-time/

Stuff.co.nz – Yet another vibrant mural has sprouted in San Bernardino, this time with a community garden Loma Linda University and Huerta del Valle hope will foster wholeness around town.

Loma Linda University, meanwhile, provided an acre of land, water and financial support for the community garden, called El Jardín de la Salud.

Leaders hope the space promotes respect, unity, responsibility and justice.

Huerta del Valle, an Inland Valley group dedicated to encouraging community members to grow their own organic crops, hosts workshops, educational programming, urban farming and plots for personal gardening.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE:  https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/122579037/how-urban-design-can-transform-lonely-cities-into-social-societies

Sheri Smith is on a mission. It’s Saturday, which means it’s farm stand day at Blodgett Urban Gardens, the Texas Southern University community garden she leads in Third Ward.

Smith, who teaches urban planning and environmental policy at TSU, is wearing an oversize red Rawlings T-shirt; her eyes are darting left and right between her beige sun hat and face mask, surveilling the activity in the garden and the handful of volunteers tending their beds.

READ THE FULL STORY: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/life/article/Plants-with-purpose-at-Blodgett-Urban-Gardens-15541271.php

SAVANNAHNOW.COM – Students at Savannah-Chatham schools will have more fresh veggies to eat this year thanks to a $100,000 grant the district recently received from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. They will also learn how vegetables are planted, grown and prepared for meals.

The grant is part of the national Farm-to-School program that encourages schools to start or augment their on-campus vegetable gardens and incorporate lessons from science, math, language arts and other core subjects into the project.

Even though the schools are open in a virtual-only format for now, Dorothy Dupree, district school nutrition coordinator, is confident she will still be able to do the program and work with students.

“Many of our in-person activities can be bumped to Year 2 or to the spring,” she said. ”[We are] definitely thinking of some creative ways to get materials out. A lot of the planned work in the fall is more behind the scenes stuff, so I am optimistic that key in-person student interactions we had planned for will not be impacted.

CONTINUE TO THE FULL ARTICLE: https://www.savannahnow.com/news/20200831/despite-virtual-learning-savannah-chatham-students-to-plant-grow-eat-more-vegetables

“Florida may be known as the Sunshine State, but it deserves another nickname — the Gardening State (not to be confused with New Jersey, the Garden State). Three cities in Florida are at the top of our list of America’s Best Cities for Urban Gardening, and another three Sunshine State cities finished in the top 12.

Another sunny state — California — boasts two cities in the top tier.

What about the four other cities in the top 12? Well, they might be as surprising as a rose bush blooming during the winter in Minneapolis.

LawnStarter ranked the 150 biggest cities for urban gardening because tending to herbs, vegetables, and fruit trees is especially popular during the coronavirus pandemic.

With more of us stuck at home, gardening gets us outside. It also provides food security at a time when store shelves are running bare.

So, what are the best U.S. cities for urban gardening? CLICK THE LINK BELOW!”

The Top 12 Best Cities for Urban Gardening

SALEM — A robust “food farm” has popped up at Mack Park and is doling out thousands of pounds of food to local families. But the farm is growing a lot more than carrots and kale.

Described as “a municipal farm and future food forest,” the Mack Park food farm replaced an unused baseball practice area at the base of the park’s hilly Grove Street entrance. Today, it constitutes about 10,000 square feet of growing space, along with a manmade pond that captures water for irrigation and overflows to a wetland abutting Tremont Street.

But as city councilors and other Salem officials toured the farm on Monday, there was a sense from some that more farms are not just coming, but must keep coming.

“We’re working on a lot right now, and so far the city — all of you — has been terrific, and this project is sailing,” said Pat Schultz, one of three agricultural minds behind the farm. “I know everybody is going to say this, but (demand) is going to continue to grow, and we can’t keep up with our three markets on Wednesday and the food giveaway on Saturday with just this farm.”

READ THE FULL ARTICLE: https://www.salemnews.com/news/local_news/growing-more-growing-space-mack-park-food-farm-triggers-urban-agriculture-movement/article_f5bf4d42-d8af-5adb-815a-f255ceeddd3b.html

When Edmunds heard that a local nursery, Soil Sisters, was offering a gardening camp this summer, she enrolled her daughter Lenyxx, 7, in it.

“It is just a great idea,” she said. “I am really grateful.”

The Soil Sisters are Raynise and Taray Kelly. Thanks to a grant, they started the camp to give children in the Beltzhoover neighborhood of Pittsburgh outdoor activities as the COVID-19 pandemic lingers. Like Edmunds, the Kellys gardened with their grandparents growing up and wanted to introduce a new generation to the tradition.

“I am hoping it gives kids a sense of connection to things that aren’t charged up to batteries that don’t necessarily have to involve a huge group of people. You can garden with your family or by yourself,” Raynise told TODAY Parents.” “We’re just slowing down the day and just appreciating what nature has to offer.”

READ THE STORY: https://news.yahoo.com/urban-gardening-camp-wants-kids-150247782.html

BOISE, ID (CBS2) — “Now more than ever it is especially important to know where your food comes from, the importance of environmental education is huge,” explains Executive Director of Boise Urban Garden, Lisa Duplessie. “Getting outside of that traditional classroom where they get to put their hands in the dirt.”

Boise’s Urban Garden School, located on Five Mile Road, is an outdoor learning environment, set on 1,500 square feet of outdoor classroom space and 3/4 acre teaching garden, this school gives our community the opportunity to learn about organic and science based gardening and how to grow your very own food.

“You know we are having to look outside of the box and out programs fit in perfectly,” Duplessie says.

Conservation being one of the main focuses, they tell me that their programs welcome all ages of students.

READ THE STORY: https://idahonews.com/features/leaders-in-learning/leaders-in-learning-boises-urban-garden-school-teaches-sustainable-gardening