As previously promised (for Deborah Mills), the 150K Community Garden story
(go get some coffee, this may take a while... AH).
A Little Background: As many of you know, Alabama, for the most part is not
exactly the metropolis of many of our northern states so therefore the term
"community garden" for the most part is unknown in this state. In fact, most
of the folks in my city of Huntsville are unaware of the CASA Community Garden.
Ninety-eight percent (98 %) of those who know of our garden call it the CASA
Garden, its original name. About 3 or so years again, I asked CASA to change
its name to the CASA Community Garden because its exist only because of
community volunteers.
Here we go: This past April, I received a call from a Master Gardener in a
small town in LA, that's Lower Alabama in these parts. This lady had been in
the audience when I was conducting a session at our state MG conference. She
called to asked for help for a lady who was starting up a community garden in
her small town of less than 5,000 (for privacy purposes, all names will remain
anonymous). So she begins to describe how this particular lady who hadn't
lived in the town too long had received a federal grant for 150K to start up a
community garden. She had to spend about 50K per year (3 years) on this
program. So as I understood it, she had been granted the used of an abandoned
football field (hard to believe in Alabama) and had spent money on prepping the
site and installing an underground sprinkler system with individual spigots for
individual plots. The purpose of the grant was to help provide vegetables to
the poor (most were) in this rural town/county.
Envision This: So... here we sit with a huge open field primed for planting in
the height of spring all ready for these community gardeners to pay $25.00 per
year to garden in their individual irrigated plot. What a deal, if you live in
downtown NY, but in rural Alabama, well you guessed it, nobody was interested.
This lady had group meetings with church and civic groups to try to convince
them to come to her "community" garden. So, this lady on the phone was asking
me for advice on correcting the problem. I told her "you can't put a round peg
in a square hole". Period. I asked her why would anyone in their right mind
want to drive their old broken down gas guzzler (most rural poor do not own the
most gas efficient vehicles) half away across the county to garden in a small
plot. Plus, someone is asking them to pay money to use this tiny plot. You
got to be kidding. Most small town folks have a garden 10 times this size in
their backyard. It's right outside their backdoor and "Hey, its free!".
I asked how this lady had gotten the idea that a "community garden" of this
type would work in this environment? "Well" she said. "she doesn't come from
these parts". I said, "where did she come from?". She said she lived most of
her life in a northern state where they used to have gardens like this.
I'm not sure how they resolved their dilemma, but I wish (as most of you do)
the CASA Community Garden could have some of that grant money. I never heard
from her again.
When I get some time, maybe I will tell about: Gino, the Italian photographer
and his models comes to the garden or
Seinfeld
(well kind of, NYC) volunteers in the garden or
The Okra
Pickin' Engineer or
CASA
Community Garden harvested record tomato crop after
spraying the plants with a defoliant.
Most stories are not as long as the one
above. I plan to update the www.casagarden.com
website this winter. I want to add a special
page dedicated to short stores and advice in the garden.
Hope you enjoyed,
Jim Call, CASA Community Garden Volunteer Director
PS - cross your fingers, if it doesn't rain tonight, the "ripper" is coming to
the garden. (http://www.casagarden.com/ripper.html)
Film at 11.
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