Shared garden blooms more than veggies
By BILL RODGERS Tribune ChronicleArticle Photos
YOUNGSTOWN - Empty lots between the houses on this city's North Side don't look like much, but they're prime real estate if you want a D.I.Y. produce section.
''This is creating more locally-grown and organic food, and gosh Youngstown has a lot of land. It has all these vacant lots!" said Elsa Higby, a member of the nonprofit community supported agriculture group Grow Youngstown.
Higby's group is affiliated with community garden projects in the Youngstown area. The group helps with one garden at the Unity Church Centre in Girard and another on Youngstown's North Side, the Fairgreen Neighborhood Garden. In these neighborhood-run projects, greenhorn greenthumbs get to eat what they grow while having something else to look at beyond houses and lots.
The gardens are an experiment in community agriculture, according to Higby. Most of the materials and even the land in Fairgreen's case are donated for neighbors to grow their own food. Grow Youngstown plans to plant seeds by knocking on doors in neighborhoods across the region and speaking to community groups about starting new gardens in old lots.
''I find if people are willing to pick vegetables, it has to be within walking distance. If you have to drive two miles the incentive is not there,'' Higby said.
Higby started the project out of what she said was a political interest in sustainable agriculture and small market economies. She is originally from the Youngstown area and returned last year from New York, where she sang opera and worked in IT management.
Located at the intersection of Ohio Avenue and Fairgreen, the Fairgreen garden began this spring when more than a dozen nearby residents took turns hoeing, spreading mulch, tilling and dragging massive foundation stones from the soil where a house once stood.
''We're doing Youngstown landscaping,'' one gardner said.
Another jokingly asked if that was code for a shallow grave. Everyone laughed. And at the end of the day, a group of the gardeners went to a cookout together.
Last week, the lot looked significantly greener, with lettuce, corn stalks, potatoes, onions, peppers and the beginnings of a pumpkin patch popping out of the ground.
And not only that, the gardeners took extra care with the ambiance of the garden. A walkway, made of stones pulled from the ground, weaves through the rows and knick knacks like an antique coffee grinder and an old Ohio license plate add to the scenery.
Higby said the little improvements were not part of some action plan by the group as a whole, rather someone took the initiative to add to the look. That seems to be the progression in community gardening, according to Higby. People come for cheap produce and turn it into a hobby.
''I certainly think the fuel price spike and the cost of vegetables is the most conscious, the obvious socially validating reason to do it. But the underlying reasons are more powerful,'' she said.
She said groups from the Jewish Community Center and the Beatitude House recently volunteered to help in the garden, too.
For Noah Cicero, who was breaking up soil around the pumpkin patch last week, the garden could be the start of a trend.
"We're going to have to have sustainable agriculture. If gas and diesel hit $7 or $8 a gallon, those trucks are not going to get to the stores like they used to," he said.
As Higby worked, someone walking down the street waved and asked where her sun hat was today.
''When I'm on site in the morning, half my time is talking to people passing by . . . As soon as someone sees another person in the garden they stop by and ask 'Wow, when did this get started?' '' Higby said.
And keeping with the local theme, Higby said Grow Youngstown could branch to selling North Side veggies at the North Side Farmers' Market, which is held Saturday mornings throughout the summer in front of the Unitarian Universalist Church on Elm Street. The market is about two and a half blocks away from the garden.
''This brings people together in our city,'' Jim Converse said.
Converse and Karen O'Malia say they helped organize the market also as a community project. Nearby farmers such as Richard and Patty Brungard of New Middletown grow and sell their produce back into the local economy.
Converse hopes that Grow Youngstown eventually will do the same with their hyper-local veggies.
"Eventually we hope they get a table and sell things. We want to see that spin off so they can use more of the vacant space here," Converse said.
