Category — Community Gardens

“Chicago’s natural areas, whether they’re used for growing food or for recreation, are essential to neighborhood health and well being.” Mayor Rahm Emanuel said.

News Release
City of Chicago
October 5, 2011

The City Council today approved plans that will enable the development of a North Side nature preserve, a South Side urban farm, and a West Side community garden.

“Chicago’s natural areas, whether they’re used for growing food or for recreation, are essential to neighborhood health and well being. These proposals will help reinforce the City’s commitment to improving and expanding these local assets,” Mayor Rahm Emanuel said.

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Ostrich feather Badge of the Prince of Wales.

The hope that the Patronage of His Royal Highness will help to create greater awareness of the allotment movement

16th September 2011

His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales has kindly agreed to assume the Patronage of the National Society of Allotment & Leisure Gardeners, which is based in Corby, Northamptonshire. The Prince of Wales has a long standing interest in horticulture and sustainable growing and has always championed the benefits of partaking in such activities.

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Entrance to Shaftesbury Park Allotments, Newport.

Hazardous substances, including lead, were found by investigators.

By thehortchannel.tv
September 28, 2011

An allotments Newport (Wales) where lead was found in the soil could be closed for good from December.

Shaftesbury Park Allotment holders were told by Newport council last month it would close the site after hazardous substances, including lead, were found by investigators.

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Small portion of 17th Century Pictorial Map of Galway. See full map image here.

Shantalla scheme will make up to 30 garden plots available

By Dara Bradley
The Connacht Sentinel
September 13, 2011

Excerpts:

Plans for city garden allotments are beginning to bear fruit.

For years garden allotments were an aspiration for Galway City Council but at last concrete proposals have emerged that could see between 25 and 30 plots available for public use later this year.

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An urban garden located on the site of a demolished building with an array of graffiti as a backdrop.

Stadsboeren maken gemeenschappelijke, mobiele moes-, fruit- en bloementuinen in een stedelijke omgeving. Deze paradijstuinen voldoen allemaal aan de volgende voorwaarden:

• De tuinen worden gebouwd op braakliggende binnenstedelijke bouwterreinen (woonbuurten).

• De tuinen hebben een mobiele constructie en zijn verplaatsbaar naar andere locaties.

• De paradijstuinen zijn open voor het publiek om te bezoeken en te tuinieren.

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It serves as a model of what’s possible when people get together and think creatively and compromise and work together in community

By Jamie Stark
Madison Commons
09/06/2011

Excerpt:

Today, the site includes a five-acre organic farm, 330 community garden plots managed by over 200 families, a kids’ educational garden, a prairie, and a trail through “edible opportunities” like fruit trees and an herb garden.

Troy Gardens emphasizes the “community” part of community gardening.

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The Australian Community Gardening Movement And Repertoires For Change

By Claire Nettle
Bachelor of Environmental Studies Master of Applied Science (Social Ecology)
Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
School of History and Politics, University of Adelaide, December 2010
359 pages

Abstract:

There has been a resurgence of community gardening activity in Australia over the past decade. This coincides with increasing concern about food security, urban sustainability, social isolation and the preservation of community space. Community gardening has been adopted by divergent actors, from health agencies looking to increase fruit and vegetable consumption to radical social movements seeking symbols of non-capitalist social and spatial relations. This thesis contributes to a systematic research account of the Australian community gardening movement by considering community gardening as a site of collective social action.

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The Tempelhof project stands in contrast to Germany’s strictly regulated traditional allotments

Deborah Cole
Jakarta Globe
September 02, 2011

Excerpt:

It’s sunflowers instead of planes and kale instead of kerosene at legendary Tempelhof Airport, site of the Berlin Airlift and now home to one of Europe’s biggest and most unusual urban gardens.

Launched by a dozen “pioneers” in April, the Allmende Kontor plot now has about 300 people growing fruit, vegetables and flowers between the former runways of the airport, which closed nearly three years ago.

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Sylvie Laurent-Begin is in charge of 60 Paris Community Gardens. We spoke to her in Vancouver.

Just by chance, we met Sylvie Laurent-Begin and her husband Christophe at “Grow”, a small garden on False Creek. Sylvie is Deputy to the Paris Vice-Mayor in charge of Parks and Gardens. Christophe her husband is president of Potager des Oiseaux in le Marais neighborhood.

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Our two community-run farmers markets make fresh food available and affordable, while building our local economy and creating places for neighbors for meet and greet.

Video by Hugues Anhes – 2011
Excerpt from Natasha Bowens’ blog “Brown. Girl. Farming.”
July 12, 2011

“Some of you may remember the posts from my time at East New York Farms! last year – a place that meant so much to me and youth that blew me away with inspiration. Now I want to share some words directly from them, in line with the current theme of sharing stories from black and brown farmers and communities involved in food issues here on the blog!

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Local police who helped set up the allotments have reported an incredible fall in the amount of anti-social behaviour in the last two years since, the allotments were established

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
Landshare
10th August, 2011

Excerpt:

In 2009, the early days of Landshare, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall visited a community allotment for local residents in Leigh, Greater Manchester, as part of a River Cottage programme. Two years on, the allotments are thriving, and local police are amazed to find that anti-social behaviour has fallen by over 50% in the area.

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A Richmond Villages resident tends a healthy crop of rhubarb.

Seniors Celebrate National Allotments Week 8 – 14 August 2011

Green-fingered residents at Richmond Northampton, the award winning retirement village built and operated by Richmond Villages in Grange Park, are keeping fit and enjoying each others’ company while growing their own food on their allotments. A bumper crop is expected this summer as they celebrate National Allotments Week.

National Allotments Week, run by the National Society of Allotments and Leisure Gardeners, is a great opportunity to demonstrate just how much fun allotments can be. For those who have sold their homes and gardens to retire to Richmond Northampton, time out tending plants is still possible thanks to some local allotments.

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Vincent Olsen (right) and volunteer construct a fence around the abandoned lot on Stockton Street. Photo by Lucy Butcher.

Guerrilla farm empire expands across Broadway

By Lucy Butcher
Bushwick BK
August 9, 2011

Excerpt:

A lot on the corner of Stockton Street and Lewis Avenue has been receiving lots of love from Bushwick City Farm and neighborhood volunteers over the last few months, and it’s quickly taking shape as a public park that will produce free food for the community.

The 9,000-square-foot lot had been abandoned for 30 years and was a place of illegal dumping, squatting, and violence, which came to a head with a homicide involving a rusty shovel last summer.

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There are at least 150,000 allotment plots in the UK and demand for them has been increasing in recent years, prompted by a growing interest in home grown fruit and vegetables Photo: Alamy

Dossiers have revealed a catalogue of disputes among allotment gardeners, from plot holders sleeping overnight in their sheds to the poisoning of prize-winning vegetables.

By Jasper Copping
The Telegraph
07 Aug 2011

Excerpt:

The saboteur
A dispute between allotment holders in Beckbury, near Wolverhampton, has its roots in a vegetable growing contest.
Peter Glaze planted his six hopefuls for the competition in secret locations this year after accusing a rival, Barry Truss, of putting his foot through a pumpkin and upending his shallots. Other holders have even accused Mr Truss of using his dog to sniff out pumpkins hidden from him.

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Tara Tracy

The Cecil Whig
Aug 2, 2011

Tara Tracy has been named the Urban Agriculture Manager at the Delaware Center for Horticulture, following a rigorous national search by the nonprofit based in Wilmington’s Trolley Square neighborhood.

As head of Urban Agriculture, Tracy is responsible for developing and implementing food production and community gardening programs, including: TheDCH’s Urban Farm at 12th & Brandywine on Wilmington’s northeast side, the greater Wilmington area’s Urban Farm Coalition; and 23 community gardens in New Castle County.

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“I Love Gardening”

Designed by the popular cartoonist Mike Jupp

“It all seems to be happening down in the allotments.” 1000 pieces.

See the puzzle here.

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Inauguration du jardin de l’Univert. Crédit photo: Nad Charvier.

Paris compte près de 70 jardins partagés

Ces parcelles de terrain gracieusement mises à disposition par la Ville de Paris sont devenues en quelques années les lieux de rendez-vous et de détente préférés des jardiniers amateurs de Paris. Gagnés sur des friches urbaines (jardin de l’Aqueduc ), aménagés sur des toits de gymnase(le Jardin sur le Toit ) …des jardins fleurissent au sein de la capitale.

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Volunteers Lindsay Stolkey (front), 24, and Katie Jordan, 29, prune out the collard-green bed at the Emerald Street Urban Farm in East Kensington. (CLEM MURRAY / Staff Photographer)

Young, college-educated, they harvest food and more from empty lots, rooftops.

By Dianna Marder
Philadelphia Inquirer
July 21, 2011

Excerpt:

On a steamy summer morning, Sarah Garton is kneeling in a strawberry patch, weeding and reflecting on why she moved to the city to become a farmer.

“Philly is a place where people want to be right now to grow food and make a difference,” says Garton, 25, a Texan who majored in anthropology at Boston University and apprenticed at a farm in Rhode Island.

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“It’s nice to know that it’s not going to waste.”

By Teresa Edmond
North Jersey .Com
July 6, 2011

Excerpt:

Every Friday this summer, an army of volunteers will get together to gather plants from the West Milford community garden, situated at Apple Acres Farm on Union Valley Road. Their social consciousness and compassionate hearts are what spurred them to this selfless task.

Anne Thornton, owner of Apple Acres, has lent her generosity and her private land to Sustainable West Milford for the community garden.

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Among the Gerlach schools students who have worked in the community garden are: front, left to right, Chase Bridges, Crystal Bingley and Erin Nolan; and back row, left to right Kyle Katz, Marissa Tullar, Ariel Marshall and Daphne Reynolds. Below, the gardens are thriving earlier this week. / Susan Skorupa/Reno Gazette-Journal.

Gerlach’s community garden is a surprising patch of green

By Susan Skorupa
RGJ.com
Sept 24, 2008

Excerpt:

Despite its location at the southern edge of the Black Rock Desert, Gerlach has become a garden spot of Northern Nevada.

This summer, while no one was looking except the residents of this tiny community, Gerlach bloomed.

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