Back in the day, everyone used to tend their own gardens and unite as a community to create common gardens for the water effort. However, with the rise of urbanization and a period of tremendous prosperity, gardening fell out of favor while supermarkets and restaurants became the go-to for daily food. Now, community gardens are making a comeback to help foster proper nutrition and neighborhood involvement starting in low-income areas.
I thought creating an urban garden would be easy-just find some land and seeds- but that's not all; there's a lot of work to be done that's not including any plants! The SCLT (Southside Community Land Trust) in Providence, RI deals with all the details on how to get a community garden going; acquiring vacant plots of land, leasing it to resident-farmers and all the paperwork. I used to live in Rhode Island and the Broad Street area isn't the greatest; it's industrial-like and a bit run-down looking. Yet, they transformed vacant lots into fresh new gardens and it's positively impacted the community. My aunt goes down there to buy fresh foods and vegetables that are in season and she loves it. It's good food, wholesome and you're keeping the money flowing within the community. It's been worth it because it's been such a success that they want to expand and grow even more.
To make a community garden work you need a lot of democracy in the decision-making, diversity and a set of rules so everyone can agree on so they can garden in peace. This can be a difficult thing to do but it really is a great thing to see a bunch of people get togethor and make something beautiful; everyone uniting in the name of good food and getting back to the land.
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