Public Produce - a new twist on community gardening

[Christy]

Check this out:
http://wamu.org/programs/dr/09/10/21.php#29618

You can listen to this Diane Rehm Show program online or, at least for a few days, download the podcast on iTunes. The idea is that we have lots and lots of public spaces for growing things, many of them unplanted or boringly & uselessly planted. What if we started growing vegetables and fruit trees in these places?

In the program, you will hear not only the author of the book Public Produce but also the horticulture inspector for Des Moines, Iowa talking about how the concept works. This is something that would be very workable in Newark, New York, and what a great visible endeavor for the community to see and participate in.

I'll save the MP3 file I have of this program, if you'd like to have it from me. It's too big to send in an email, but I can burn it for you or transfer it to flash drive. (I'm also trying to download it as an attachment to this post. If you see it here, the download worked.)

[Seth C. Burgess]

The attachment showed up so I'll have to give this a listen.

Related story--my aunt heard on NPR that the city of Detroit is tearing down the abandoned / foreclosed buildings and replacing the empty lots with gardens for growing vegetables and fruit trees. They are built on raised beds b/c of the lead content in the soil left over from the heavy industrial boom.

Check it out: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91354912

[Seth C. Burgess]

OK so I finally listened to the Diane Rehm piece on community gardens. An incredible place where something like this could happen at scale, in comb. w/ composting etc. is the Spring Farm outside of Newark. The State of New York is currently discontinuing a program there effective 1 January 2010 and the awesome land will need a new usage.

Spring Farm is outstanding--it could incorporate many things. Existing recreational trails, outdoor recreation, local retreat programs, community produce / composting, alternative classroom, etc. And it's less than 10 minutes from downtown Newark.