growing together

Com­mu­nity gar­dens are at least as much about com­mu­nity as they are about gardening.

From 120 miles away, I fol­lowed in the pages of the Los Ange­les Times the final days of what was then the country’s largest com­mu­nity gar­den. In a con­tro­ver­sial land deal, the city had sold the site just south of down­town Los Ange­les where almost 350 fam­i­lies had been grow­ing crops for their kitchens or for sale, and the com­mu­nity gar­den­ers faced hav­ing their spaces bull­dozed. The story of the gar­den­ers try­ing to save their spaces in the face of a city gov­ern­ment bent on find­ing more prof­itable uses made for com­pelling news­pa­per copy, and it’s now the sub­ject of The Gar­den, the Acad­emy Award nom­i­nated doc­u­men­tary that is mak­ing its way around the coun­try in gen­eral release.

Check out its most cur­rent screen­ing dates on Face­book. The film came to town two weeks ago, but it was gone within a week, like much of the pro­duce grown in the gar­den it profiled.

Yard-sharing offers a smaller-scale alter­na­tive to the larger com­mu­nity gar­dens and some of the pol­i­tics that go with it. Hyper­loca­vore is a social net­work that helps to match up peo­ple who want to gar­den with home­own­ers or renters who want to pro­duce food on their land but lack the time or exper­tise to do it.


It’s a fairly new space online, and not all com­mu­ni­ties have peo­ple who want to par­tic­i­pate. Here in San Diego, for instance, there’s cur­rently only one per­son on the site. But with grow­ing press, there should be more col­lab­o­ra­tors signed up. It’s a great con­cept, build­ing com­mu­nity, one gar­den at a time.

You can also check some of the other garden-based social net­works on Ning: Here. There might be just the per­fect space for you and your inter­ests. And if not, you can cre­ate one.

June 21 2009 03:33 pm | Categories: art • gardening | Tags: • • •

7 Responses to “growing together”

  1. Country Mouse on 21 Jun 2009 at 9:06 pm #

    Yard shar­ing — bril­liant idea indeed — sim­ple too. I heard an inter­view on NPR with a British guy who is a “guerilla gar­dener” — sneak­ing into derelict spots you don’t own and clear­ing and plant­ing. He said mostly nobody minds once they see you are actu­ally return­ing and main­tain­ing the gar­dens. Thanks for let­ting your read­ing pub­lic know about the doc­u­men­tary — will look out for it.

  2. ryan on 22 Jun 2009 at 4:16 pm #

    I saw The Gar­den a cou­ple of months ago. I knew noth­ing about the story, so it was a really grip­ping story. I found it a really inter­est­ing cul­tural doc­u­ment, they really gar­dened like peo­ple from another coun­try and cul­ture, plant­ing rows of prickly pear and papaya and so forth, stuff I would never think to grow.

  3. lostlandscape on 22 Jun 2009 at 8:17 pm #

    Coun­try Mouse, I think that was Richard Reynolds. I did a post on him and guer­rilla gar­den­ing a while back. It’s an idea whose time has come. There are so many wasted city spaces that need some attention.

    Ryan, I’m glad to hear from some­one who’s actu­ally seen it. For­tu­nately it’s out on DVD (or just about to be) so those of us who missed it can get a look. We have a per­fectly good prickly pear that keeps pop­ping itself over the wall. John got some lessons in mak­ing nopales from it a while back and we really should do more with it that just haul­ing the sprawly bits to the dump.

  4. Liz M owner hyperlocavore on 29 Jun 2009 at 9:15 pm #

    Thank you so much for the post! Yes, we are thin in cer­tain areas, but the idea is so new. We really need help get­ting the word out! You can let your net­work of friends know about the site and yard shar­ing and at the same time help other find part­ners by using the INVITE fea­ture on the site.

    Per­haps few peo­ple are listed in SD for instance, but maybe your extended net­work has some­one in it that may be inter­ested. Our extended net­works are actu­ally huge!
    So invite yours and see who they invite!

    Again thanks so much for help­ing us get the idea out there. It’s pretty clear to me that it will just keep grow­ing. I’ve only been up for a few months.

    Also — the per­ma­nent link is hyperlocavore.com — to keep that link work­ing you might want to change it.

    Take care!

    Liz

  5. Sylvana on 30 Jun 2009 at 7:52 pm #

    I actu­ally have been gar­den­ing my friends’ yard this year since with their new baby, they just don’t have time. Plus, it gives me space to put all that squash!

  6. lostlandscape on 01 Jul 2009 at 5:59 pm #

    Liz, thanks so much for stop­ping by and encour­ag­ing every­one to get involved. Hyper­loca­vore is an excit­ing con­cept and I hope it gets all the sup­port and inter­est it deserves. I’d be happy to mod­ify the link so peo­ple will be sure to be able to find you.

    Syl­vana, that’s a great arrange­ment. Hook­ing up with peo­ple you know is prob­a­bly the eas­i­est way to get going with yard sharing–you get over the “blind date” way of meet­ing prospec­tive gar­den­ers or home­own­ers. Good luck with the squash!

  7. Liz M owner hyperlocavore on 10 Jul 2009 at 10:27 pm #

    Thanks and thanks so much for fix­ing the link!

    Liz

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