Community Gardens as a Food Source
in Birmingham, Alabama
Written and researched by Sarah Roberts, Gloria Love,
and Eppie Armstrong (Interns for Jones Valley Urban Farm and the Food Security Coalition of Jefferson County.)
Summer 2005
Fifty years ago across the South gardening in a backyard was not uncommon. However, as backyard gardens disappeared, many families lost their connection with growing and cultivating food. In the past ten years, however, community gardens have cropped up in communities as a way for people with limited space to grow a food. These gardens make use of public land or donated private land to set up a garden to be worked and used by the members of the community. Community gardens can benefit a neighborhood in many ways; they are aesthetically pleasing, they create a sense of community and shared experiences, and finally they provide fresh produce.
The Food Security Coalition of Jefferson County is working to analyze food security issues in Jefferson County. In order to collect background information for the survey, we wanted to find if community gardens were successful and a significant food source in the greater Birmingham area.
Gardening in Birmingham
When researching community gardens in the Birmingham area, we found many people interested in starting gardens and quite a few gardens that used to be active, but very few functional gardens. We used contacts from an old list of gardens from the Birmingham Urban Garden Society (B.U.G.S.) and each Birmingham Neighborhood Association. We also tried calling city councils in suburbs, such as Vestavia, Homewood, Mountain Brook, and Hoover.
Success Gardens
The five functioning gardens we found were the Garden of Hope, the East Avondale Community Garden, Jones Valley Neighborhood Garden, the Healing Garden, and the Bessemer Urban Farm. The East Avondale garden seems to be the best example of a successful community garden.
Rosy Thrash (the neighborhood association president) began the East Avondale community garden three years ago in conjunction with Jones Valley Urban Farm and YouthServe. The plot is now shared by the Avondale community, JVUF, and YouthServe (an urban summer camp). The neighborhood plot is taken care of by volunteers with donations from the community and city council discretionary funds. The garden is left unlocked and anyone can come by to get produce. They aren't really sure how much they produce because different people come by and get food at different times, but Rosie says “a lot” of people get food. The church next door harvests on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and children from the neighborhood take some food to the older residents. In a neighborhood of mostly retired African-American elderly people and younger unemployed people, “every little bit helps.” It has also makes a difference in the community atmosphere because “a lot of people will stop and talk to you about the garden when they wouldn't stop and talk before,” says Rosie. Also, it gives children and people on their lunch break a place to come and sit.
The urban farm in Bessemer has a similar free-harvest policy, in which a few people garden and anyone from the community can take food. Virginia Ward, the gardens founder, really doesn't know how much it produces or how many people get food. However, the farm does provide some food in a low-income neighborhood where access to nutritious food is a big problem. Still, none of the community gardens we talked to were really big enough to provide substantial amounts of food to the entire neighborhood.
The Gardens of Hope, adjacent to the former Metropolitan Public Housing Neighborhood, has been generally successful over the last 10 years. James Rushton started the garden hoping to give something to the neighborhood as he believed that “the less opportunity you see, the less energy you have.” The Metropolitan Garden Community was a low income area, and the garden began offering free plots in 1995. Yet, when the neighborhood was torn down to be redeveloped as a mixed-income Hope-VI project, the gardeners were displaced from their plots. The garden is still open to the public and Mr. Rushton is hopeful that the new mixed-income residents will create a new dynamic and participate in the community garden.
Where there are no community gardens, some people garden in their own yards to produce food for themselves and their neighbors. Some of the gardens on the list from BUGS were actually personal gardens. Personal gardens, like ones run by Rev. John Sims and the Hubbards, provide a significant amount of food to the households maintaining them and to the community. Miss Irene Johnson's garden in the Southtown public housing neighborhood provides fresh vegetables to low-income seniors, who otherwise have to rely on donations from food distribution agencies which usually cannot provide a fresh, healthy diet. Even a small garden plot can be very productive. The Hubbard's garden, for example, formerly produced more than they and their neighborhood needed, so they gave the excess to a soup kitchen. Personal gardens tend to rely on natural rain more, so the harvest can be variable, but the good years definitely reduce grocery bills. It seems like individual gardens make a bigger impact on a family's food supply than communal gardens, because communal gardens usually end up with a few people producing food eaten by the whole community, while individual gardens can be about the same size but intended to feed fewer people.
Difficulties for Gardens
We talked to a number of people who used to be involved with community gardens. One of the main reasons gardens become inactive is a lack of people to garden. Young people often seem uninterested, and many of the garden founders have become too old to do it. King's Ranch Community Garden encountered troubles with youth participation and interest, and Creekway Community Garden ended in part because the younger generation is not interested in gardening.
Additionally, the Birmingham Urban Garden Society (BUGS) used to provide supplies, volunteers, and information to community gardens. However, when the program lost funding and couldn't continue to support the people they used to help, many gardens were unable to continue. Creekway Garden's end was solidified when BUGS sponsorship ended. Many of the gardens were either installed or maintained by volunteers in the beginning of BUGS. When the volunteers left, as volunteers tend to do, gardens were left with too few participants and not enough skill or drive to continue on their own. BUGS provided tools and supplies for the gardens they started, but now gardens have no access to basic necessities like tillers. For example, Oak Ridge Park Neighborhood wanted to start a garden this spring, but they had complications in getting the city to till their land (even though the city agreed to do it.)
Arlington Neighborhood Association president Keith Aaron worked with BUGS in the Healing Garden for Princeton Hospital. It got overgrown as the BUGS program stopped helping, but has just recently been redone with help from Birmingham Southern's Southern Environmental Center. Keith says that BUGS had a problematic view of “getting in and getting out,” practically installing an entire garden for a neighborhood but not establishing permanent relationships with the people.
Another big problem was access to water—some vacant lots don't have running water. One garden (Creekway) resorted to running a hose from a nearby house to water in especially dry times. Even if the gardens do have water the bill can be very expensive. At East Avondale Community Garden, the water bill is the largest expense. Many community gardens grappled with basic gardening problems like how to deal with bugs and weeds. Most gardens used mainly organic methods which is more labor and knowledge intensive. Gardeners also have environmental problems to deal with and may not have a resource for identifying problems. The Hubbard's personal garden is sometimes covered with black filmy pollution from a nearby factory. Urban gardens must deal with new problems without a knowledgeable resource to contact.
Although the communal nature and free-harvest system is one of Avondale garden's assets, these methods also can cause problems. Sometimes people take more than their fair share, and there's no way to regulate distribution based on the amount of work someone's done in the garden. In the beginning at least 10 adults worked in the garden, but now only 2 participate. The Bessemer farm hasn't had as much of a problem with this, partly because fewer people know about the garden so fewer come to harvest.
Possible Solutions
So what makes a community garden successful? The active gardens in Birmingham all have one central leader of the garden. However, it's also important that community members be involved as well. Some community gardens (for example, the one at Highlands Methodist Church) stopped functioning because the one person who worked the most either moved away or got too old. There need to be younger people involved. One of the most important things that can be done is to provide a consistent source of information for people without prior gardening experience.
Educating people about gardens can also be an effective way to get more people interested. As Rosie Thrash of the Avondale garden says, “a lot of people don't like dirt and bugs,” and many people pointed out the stigma attached to farmers. Information presented in an exciting way could especially help get young people interested. Celeste Clough of King's Ranch felt their garden would have been more successful if the kids were involved in the planning and creation of the garden instead of just garden labor. Learning about the entire process gives people a sense of ownership, which is essential to a garden's success. Being involved with the planning may have excited the youths about the outcome of the garden and motivated them.
Pamphlets and a website about how to start gardens and how to get involved with existing gardens would be very important, as well as someone people could call with any questions. One of the reasons the Avondale garden seems to have done so well is its close relationship with Jones Valley Urban Farm. JVUF is a resource for questions about gardening, as well as an example of successful gardening right inside the community. Ideally small demonstration plots could be maintained at each community garden.
Nutrition
Beyond resources for starting and maintaining gardens, education about nutrition and ideas for quick, healthy preparation of produce is of foremost importance. Even if people have successful gardens, there needs to be an added push to break people away from fast food and frozen dinners. Being excited about how to prepare the food may inspire people to grow even more. Virginia Ward, of the Bessemer Urban Farm, is interested in starting a nutrition program for kids in the nearby projects, but past attempts have proved unsuccessful due to lack of funding.
School Gardens
Education through the school gardens may also be effective, especially for elementary children since they are still curious and like dirt! As we researched in the summer months, it was difficult to find substantial information about the status of school gardens in the greater Birmingham area. Still, some teachers suggest an online resource for lesson plans for teachers to see how gardening fits in with their students' comprehensive education. Also, many teachers are excited about Jones Valley Urban Farm's plan to create a field trip program for students to encounter a working garden because it gives them a context for what they are doing on a small scale at their school. A one-day workshop during the summer would be useful for teachers interested in starting a garden.
There has been talk about starting a community garden in Arlington, but the neighborhood president, Keith Aaron, is hesitant because he's seen so many community gardens that did not work out. He says starting an effective garden would involve coming to regular neighborhood meetings and providing long-term help, not just setting up the garden. There needs to be a combination of providing help and getting the neighborhood residents to do things for themselves.
Other than a lack of interest or a lack of information, another prevalent reason people don't start more community gardens is a feeling of distrust in one's neighbors. Grace Episcopal Church is home to an eco-scape garden with annual flowers, perrenials, and strawberries. However, people are worried about working in the garden because of the large homeless population, and racial tensions in the neighborhood are perceived to be high. People at the church are concerned that getting community members to work together may be problematic. Alternately, Mr. Rushton of the Gardens at Park Place never felt that stealing was a problem in the community garden. Community gardens are a way to bring unity and trust to a community, but in a sort of catch-22, they also require some unity and trust to begin. However, if a produce garden was ever started at Grace Episcopal, it already has a very active soup kitchen, it could perhaps follow the model of some gardens in Boston that supply soup kitchens and are worked in by homeless people.
Multiple people involved with housing projects mentioned the possibility of hiring youth for the summer to work on community gardens. Housing projects receive funding for job training that could be put toward this. Working for the garden would give the youth motivation and added income to their household. It would be a way to increase knowledge of and interest in gardening. In communities without enough volunteers, a workforce could start the garden and attract future volunteers. In the case of the Garden of Hope, they could reach out to the neighboring YMCA to educate and engage young people.
In communities that do not deal directly with issues of food insecurity, there may be people interested in gardening for enjoyment rather the food production who could volunteer at a garden in their neighborhood which donates the produce to food distribution agencies like Magic City Harvest. Being connected to the production of food is important for everyone to understand, no matter the accessibility of food from a grocery store. The community of Mt Laurel is currently developing a community garden in conjunction with Jones Valley Urban Farm for this purpose
Another option is community gardens based on individual plots. Although sharing responsibilities for a large, communal garden has many benefits, some people might prefer their own plot. Personal gardens tend to be a more substantial addition to a household's food, and renting a plot would give a sense of ownership and the ability to experiment. Many community gardens in Madison, Wisconsin have had great success renting garden plots for a minimal fee. They bring together many ethnicities and income levels into a community. When the plots are next to each other, it still provides a sense of community and a way to interact. These gardens usually hire at least one person to do routine maintenance in the garden as a whole and coordinate education programs. Work days could also be established to create a larger plot to grow produce for donations to elderly residents or soup kitchens in the area. Community gardens with plots could provide basic tools like shovels for members to use. Reestablishing a “supply closet” for community gardens to borrow from could help neighborhoods share the cost of equipment like tillers. Alternately, BUGS used to have a container garden program in which people could get plastic containers full of good soil to grow food on their own patios.
Currently community gardens do not provide a substantial amount of food to residents. Community gardens desperately need an organization or person to provide information, resources, assistance, and inspiration. The interest and need is present in the community for healthy, fresh food. Greater participation by the city could be very instrumental in their long-term viability. People with resources to assist urban gardens need to understand the problem that food insecurity poses in Birmingham and the potential urban gardens have to help alleviate the problem. We believe urban gardening could be very successful in Birmingham—the interest is strong, but it will take funding and education to create successful, sustainable gardens. As a program for encouraging urban gardens, we need to continue talking to people in the communities about their needs and ideas for increasing food security. A garden in a public housing neighborhood will be different from a garden in the suburbs. Every community deserves a garden to fit their particular needs and situation, while at the same time an over-reaching program could provide a beneficial connection between these gardens to share new ideas and resources.
Appendix A
Active Gardens
Bessemer Urban Farm
Virginia Ward; vward01@bellsouth.net
Garden of Hope (adjacent to the former Metropolitan Public Housing Neighborhood)
Jimmy Rushton; jrushton@bham.rr.com
Jones Valley Garden (in the West-end of Birmingham)
Contact Flora Banks, 925-1868
Located at Jefferson and Birch
This neighborhood apparently has a garden but Flora Banks is very hard to contact.
East Avondale Community Garden (3 rd Ave south and 47 th St)
Rosey Thraser 592-2937
Youth Serve 591-6117
Healing Garden (West-end near Princeton Hospital)
Roald Hazelhoff; 226-4934
Personal Gardens
Rev. John Sims Garden
Contact John Sims, 956-4162
He has a garden in his backyard for his family and for the community. The produce is free to the community members. The amount of produce from the garden definitely decreases the amount needed to buy at the grocery store.
Appendix B
Inactive Gardens
Creekway Garden
Contact Ms. Jerigan, 925-0958
This garden was funded by BUGS. When BUGS ended, the community was not informed and did not receive the seeds and plants they usually received from BUGS to plant their garden. With no further information of where to go from there, the garden ended. The gardens end was also related to the aging population of the neighborhood; many of the gardens biggest supporters could no longer work in the garden. As the neighborhood is an older one, there were no younger generations interesting in keeping the garden going.
This garden formerly provided a substantial amount of produce to the community. About 12 households were involved, and all the households received food from the garden. It worked as an addition to food but not a replacement. Yet because of difficulties of water access, the harvest was very variable year to year. The first year in operation, the garden fed the whole neighborhood, but in later years it was less productive due to less rain. Therefore, watering was the biggest challenge they faced. They also dealt with a lot of rocks in the soil since the lot was previously a creek that was filled in.
Gate City Garden
no contact
no longer exists (drove by to see)
Cynthia Young's Garden
Contact Cynthia Young
Unable to contact her or find other contacts, assumed to be a former garden.
King's Ranch Garden
Contact Celeste Clough 678-8331
Located at King's Ranch
This garden was started by the staff of King's Ranch; they began with high hopes for it to be a good activity for the youth at the ranch. The project was started very large. They planted many vegetables: squash, melons, corn, beans, tomatoes, and cantaloupe. While the garden provided a substantial amount of food to the ranch, the garden was eventually unsuccessful. The main problem was participation. Once the summer heat set in, the youth were generally unwilling to work in the garden. With other issues taking the staff's time, the priority was not to get the kids to work. Celeste Clough believed that the gardens was a good idea and had potential, but it was started too big. If the youths had been involved in the planning of the garden and excitement was built up for it, it may have succeeded. This garden showed clearly that you cannot plop a garden down and have it succeed. It also revealed the challenges of engaging young people in gardening. The ranch has downscaled the garden to blueberry bushes and fruit trees mainly. |
