DESCRIPTION OF ISSUE
WHERE/WHEN APPLICABLE
HISTORY
TESTIMONIES

DESCRIPTION OF ISSUE:
The Boston Natural Areas Network, which owns and facilitates the operation of multiple community gardens in the Heart of the City, defines a community garden in this way:

"Community gardens are green spaces that are communally cultivated and cared for; these spaces may consist of individually-worked plots, multiple person caretaker areas, sitting areas, and small-scale children's play-areas. They are the result of shared collective effort of people working together. Community gardening is an effective community-building strategy that contributes to neighborhood renewal, preservation, and stabilization. Community Gardens provide a source of inexpensive, nutritious food and a rewarding personal experience. Enduring stewardship is needed to ensure success" (Boston Natural Areas Network).

Approximately two-dozen community gardens serve vital purposes in the Heart of the City. Most of them were created by small groups of neighbors who wanted to put vacant land into use and grow their own food and flowers. Community gardens provide participants with an opportunity for exercise, build their sense of community and accomplishment, and often reconnect immigrants to their agricultural heritage. Community gardens typically have a limited number of plots that community members must sign up for.

Individual gardens in the Heart of the City offer place-specific benefits. Over the years, gardeners at Clark-Cooper community garden in Mattapan have kept life alive on the otherwise forlorn Boston State Hospital site. The Minton Stable garden provides the Stonybrook Neighborhood Association with a place to gather and cook out in the summertime.

Land tenure and maintenance:
As land values in the Heart of the City rise and development pressures increase, community gardens that are not formally protected can be at risk. In addition, the costs and responsibilities of maintaining a community garden can become greater than a neighborhood is able to shoulder. These costs can include water, garden repairs, liability insurance, and legal paperwork to gain nonprofit/ tax-exempt status. Capital repairs such as tree trimming, retaining wall masonry, and fence building and repair can also be expensive.

There are often questions about who is responsible for these expenses. According to Betsy Johnson, former director of Garden Futures, which merged with the Boston Natural Areas Network (BNAN) in 2002, it is essential for community gardeners to define their relationship to the land owner and agree as early on as possible how to best divvy up the garden's myriad fiscal issues.

Spatial distribution:
As the list below reflects, community gardens are not equally distributed throughout the dense sections of the Heart the City. However, the list can be misleading. Mattapan is home to the Clark-Cooper Community Garden, which has more than 250 garden plots and is one of the two largest community gardens in Boston. The Clark-Cooper garden alone provides as much opportunity for gardening as do many of the city's other gardens grouped together.

Soil quality:
The quality of urban soils is often poor and contaminated. Lead in soil is an acute problem in the Heart of the City, and poor soils or soils comprised of fill material are not appropriate for gardening. Thus, before establishing a new community garden it is often necessary to scrape existing soil off of a lot and haul in good quality soil to replace it. Gardeners find that it is also important to supplement the quality of the soil with good compost. They can often obtain free compost from the City compost facility on American Legion Highway, and high quality, discount compost at Greenleaf Composting, which is also located on American Legion Highway.

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WHERE/ WHEN APPLICABLE:
Community Gardens and Land Tenure:
The majority of community gardens in the Heart of the City are located in Jamaica Plain. All of the community gardens in Jamaica Plain are located east of Centre Street, where human density is greater and few homes have substantial yards suitable for gardening. Private, non-profit groups such as the Boston Natural Areas Network (BNAN) or the Massachusetts Audubon Society (MAS) own some of the garden plots outright. Most of BNAN's garden properties were tax-foreclosed vacant lots that the organization purchased from the city at cut rates.

Other garden plots are owned by government agencies such as the Boston Department of Parks and Recreation, the Boston Housing Authority, or the Metropolitan District Commission, which operates the Southwest Corridor Park and its community gardens.

Still, other garden plots are at risk of development as the market and the needs of owners change. The South Street community garden is a large, well-developed garden at risk of being paved over. The adjacent State Laboratory owns the land. As the institution grows, its parking needs are expanding. In 2002, the manager of the facility was considering converting the garden into additional parking spaces. Other Heart of the City community gardens with property that may be at risk include the Farsworth House Garden and the Waldren Road Park.

Finally, community members may use some vacant lots for gardening without formally designating the land as a community garden. One example of this type of use is found in the Washington Street neighborhood of Roslindale between Alden Street and Franklin Place.

Geography of Community Gardens:
Two high-density areas in the Heart of the City neighborhoods with no community gardens include the Grove Hall/ Roxbury area, particularly along Elm Hill Avenue and Humboldt Avenue and the Roslindale neighborhood between Washington Street and Hyde Park Avenue, which includes a large public housing development. The Longfellow neighborhood in Roslindale, which also has no established community gardens, is sparsely populated relative to other areas of the Heart of the City. However, residents have shown extraordinary interest and expertise in gardening, as demonstrated by an award-winning garden at the Longfellow House and a neighborhood garden tour held in June 2002.

The Clark-Cooper community garden in Mattapan, as mentioned above, is by far the largest in the area and has kept the mostly vacant Boston State Hospital site in productive use for the benefit of hundreds of families. It has become a place for celebration and community building.

The Boston Natural Areas Network and Garden Futures lists the following community gardens and garden owners in the Heart of the City:

Dorchester:
Charlotte House Garden -- Boston Natural Areas Network (BNAN)
Erie/ Ellington Neighborhood Garden -- City of Boston
Franklin Field Garden -- Boston Housing Authority (BHA)
Lucerne/ Balsam Streets Garden -- BNAN
Re-Vision House Urban Farm -- Re-Vision House

Jamaica Plain:
Agassiz School Orchard and Garden -- EarthWorks Projects
Anson Street Garden -- Metropolitan District Commission (MDC)
Bowditch School Building Garden -- Bowditch School
Brookside Community Garden (8 Minton Street) -- BNAN
St. Rose Street -- BNAN
Farsworth House Garden (90 South Street) -- private (Farrel Liss)
Granada Park (near Egleston Square) -- BNAN
Hall/Boynton Garden (Southwest Corridor Park) -- MDC
Lamartine & Hubbard Streets Garden (Southwest Corridor Park) -- MDC
Lawndale Terrace Garden  (Southwest Corridor Park) -- MDC
Leland Street Community Herb Garden -- BNAN
McBride/ Boynton Streets Garden (Southwest Corridor Park) -- MDC
Minton Stable Gardens (Williams Street) -- BNAN
Oakdale Terrace Garden (Green Street/ Oakdale Terrace) -- EarthWorks Projects
South Street Development Garden -- BHA
Starr Lane Garden -- BNAN

Mattapan:
Clark-Cooper Community Garden, Inc. (Boston Nature Center) -- Massachusetts Audubon Society

Roslindale:
None

Roxbury:
Mount Calvary Holy Church (347 Blue Hill Avenue) -- Mount Calvary Holy Church
Waldren Road Park -- City of Boston by foreclosure 

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HISTORY:
The community garden movement began in the 1970s in response to an outmigration of residents and an increase in unproductive vacant land in the neighborhoods. The first community garden in the area was established in Jamaica Plain in the early 1970s after Governor Francis Sargent declared a moratorium on the highway construction along the Southwest Corridor, leaving miles of vacant land in the Heart of the City. Neighbors came together to create the Southwest Corridor Farm on part of this stretch of urban wasteland. The farm quickly became a productive, profitable community resource featuring a solar heated greenhouse that employed community members. The community garden movement spread explosively throughout Boston, fostered by the Boston Urban Gardeners and the Dorchester Gardenland Preserve. By 1987, approximately 125 gardens had been established by communities all over the city, providing nutritious food to low-income households and putting vacant land to productive use (Sam Bass Warner, To Dwell is to Garden, 1987).

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TESTIMONIES:
"[Community] gardens provide food, neighborhood beautification, and they stabilize the communities' property value. These are hidden resources in this way. I like to call them basketball courts for the elderly. This is their primary outdoor activity" (Betsy Johnson, Garden Futures, from an article by Jeff Lemberg, "Searching for a slice of green," The Boston Globe, April 28, 2002).

"The real value and meaning of a community garden is proportional to how disconnected and disempowered the people in the area are and how dangerous the area is" (Pen Loh, Alternatives for Community and Environment (ACE)).

"Many of Boston's newer residents have roots in cultures where farming, gardening, flowers, and open space play an integral role in daily life. This renewed interest in gardens and agriculture in Boston's neighborhoods is a force that unites people from diverse backgrounds. People have come together on the land in ways that express cultural continuity and tradition and contribute to neighborhood pride, stability, and cohesion" (Charlotte Kahn, Affordable housing or open space: the future of vacant land in Boston, 1984, p2).

"I thought there were ten years of work to be done before we could start community gardens in Roxbury. But when I met Augusta Bailey [in 1976], I realized that she had already put in those ten years, and that it was time for our work to begin" (Charlotte Kahn, former director of the Boston Urban Gardeners (BUG)).

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