The Oregonian Portland, Oregon http://www.oregonlive.com/metro/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/portland_news/1166833514268540.xml&coll=7
Thursday, January 04, 2007 By ED HERSHEY Leslie Pohl-Kosbau was a new face at the Parks Bureau in 1974, when a supervisor offered her a project. Thirty-three years later, she's still on the job as the first and only manager of Portland's 30 community gardens. She talked recently about the garden, the gardeners and how she ended up in the thick of them in the first place. Her comments have been edited for brevity and clarity. What was the impetus for community gardening in the 1970s? People were looking to do things from scratch, working on their own cars, building their own homes, learning crafts that had been known by their grandparents but maybe their parents had abandoned. I think it was a generational thing. There was a movement in that direction, and growing one's own food was part of it. How have things changed in 33 years? We've learned that it is important to have a community space within the garden so that it is not just a fence and plots lined up, but that there's a design to it -- something attractive that people want to come to. Were the gardens popular immediately? Yes. We started out with three sites in 1975 and grew incrementally. The only impediments have been availability of land, staff time and funding. We always work with the neighborhood associations. It's never one person saying, "We're going to have this garden, and I am going to put it here." It is a process of involvement, partnership and volunteers. At what point did this become your life's work? At first, I had no idea I was going to be doing anything like this. I thought I was on a horticultural path, and this turned out to be more of an organizing path, a citizen recreational path, working with people. Plants were just the avenue to do that. How did you react to proposed elimination in the last budget crunch? Unfortunately, I'm used to it because that was the fourth time in just over 30 years. It seems as if the community gardens program is tested periodically. I'm not sure why. It is very inexpensive compared to other things the city does. But there's a fairly good environment right now. I think the commissioners all agree on the value of the program. They took the cut off the table. Aren't many gardeners just hobbyists? That's the beauty of the whole thing. Parks doesn't say, "You can only come into this park if you are low-income." Gardening belongs to everybody. There are amazing things we learn from each other. The food is part of that. Flowers are part of that. People of means do contribute back by doing a little extra, donating things and growing food to donate, although I think you will find that more people give who don't have than who actually have. It is a very interesting way to look at life. So it is helpful for people of means to see people who don't have means doing for themselves and for others. Any surprises? When I first saw hearty bananas at Colonel Summers Community Garden back in the early '90s, I couldn't believe it. The gardener, Burl Mostul, went on to purchase some property and start his own nursery of exotic plants [in outer Southeast]. I thought that was fabulous. The gardens have also been fertile ground for developing farmers: city people who start a garden, learn something and go on to become farmers. There are lots of examples. Other community gardeners have gone into landscaping, horticultural therapy or some other variety of this work. Don't people have to wait years for a plot? Some gardens, such as North Portland, have openings. In inner Southeast, it is going to be more like a five-year wait because of the many people who want to garden. We are building new gardens, but not in inner Portland because land is scarce. Two come online next year: the Earl Boyles Garden in the Lents neighborhood and Parkrose Garden at 112th and Prescott. We still have the issue of inner Southeast, inner Northeast and downtown. I would like to see edible rooftop gardens. We just need to find sponsors willing to give up a few spaces on top of their parking garages. The goal is to have a garden within walking distance of every person in Portland. That will be beyond my time, of course, but it's the old story: If you plant a tree now, the fruit will be there later.
