Author Archive

Posted by Barrett Jones | January 19th, 2010

We’ve talked about City Blossoms before. Now here is a video about their garden in Ward 1:

Posted by Barrett Jones | December 18th, 2009

Looking for a little sun on a cold winter day? Watch Liz Falk talk about Common Good City Farm in the Ledroit Park neighborhood of DC.

Common Good City Farm is an urban farm and education center growing food for low-income residents and providing educational opportunities for all people that help increase food security, improve health, and contribute to environmental sustainability.

Posted by Barrett Jones | November 6th, 2009

The Lederer Youth Garden, adjacent to Marvin Gaye Park in northeast Washington, D.C., is operated by the DC Department of Parks and Recreation. The department’s web page describes the garden as “an environmental resource for area youth groups, day care centers, home school students, and classroom groups…equipped with a computer lab, weather station, classroom, garden, and animals”. The plot of land is large, and features an impressive greenhouse.

Last spring, in a promotional event with the makers of Miracle-Gro, various city officials including Ximena Hartsock attended to dedicate the garden. Everyone posed for a photo.

Unfortunately, since then the garden has been largely neglected. The classroom building sits unused and most of the garden is overgrown with weeds. Hundreds of bags of donated Miracle Gro now sit stacked on the side of the garden, still unopened. On the sunny October day I visited Lederer Youth Garden, the one full-time parks employee on duty sat inside playing video games.

Lederer is proof that growing a community garden takes, well, community involvement. In too many cases, that involvement seems to be missing. In the northwest quadrant of the city, the  waiting list for a community garden plot is often 3 years. But in the eastern wards, there are no waiting lists. Lederer Youth Garden and others like it sit idle.

Why is that? Carl Rollins has some ideas. I talked to Carl at the garden, as he was cleaning out weeds and preparing to plant fall crops.

Carl is a master gardener and co-president of the DC Environmental Education Consortium. He’s also a Farm Coordinator at Common Good City Farm. [ed note: Carl mistakenly states in the video that there are 60 community gardens in DC - a recent census notes that there are in fact nearly forty.]