A Garden to Come

Behind the Catholic Worker House located at 317 S. Randolph St. near downtown Champaign, lies a patch of dark soil that will be transformed into a community garden this spring. Produce from the garden will be used to prepare meals in the Catholic Worker House’s soup kitchen, said student volunteer Craig Kreutzer.

“Planting a garden is the best thing you can do to address the ills of the world,” Kreutzer said, as he surveyed the space.

A similar belief in the capacity of gardening has inspired a local eco-ecumenical organization to partner with the Catholic Worker House to start the garden. Group member Emily Laugesen sees gardening as a connection between their faith and the environment, she said.
Participating in this project will provide the group with a tangible way to “foster a sense of caring about the planet” and to also develop “a social outreach plan (to) benefit people who would otherwise not have access to fresh produce,” Laugesen said.

According to the American Community Garden’s Web site, there are18,000 community gardens in the United States and Canada. And there are signs that interest is growing, said UI Landscape Architecture Professor Laura Lawson, who dose research on community gardening.
“In the last eight months there has been an escalation in the number of calls and emails that I (have gotten) from people interested in community gardening,” Lawson said.

More people have turned to community gardening to strengthen their connection to the environment as well as to address social justice concerns such as access to affordable and fresh vegetables, she said.
In 2005 Lawson published “City Bountiful: A Century of Community Gardening in America,” which traces the origins of community gardening back to the 1890s and through phases of popular interest that include the War Gardens of World War I, the Victory Gardens of World War II, and up to today’s urban gardening movement.

Lawson credits the renewed interests in community garden to the economic crisis and to food security concerns brought on by the recent recall of peanut butter, among other items. But to Lawson, this period of renewed interests also exemplifies a cyclical trend.
“My research shows that, historically, whenever our nation has been confronted by some sort of social or economic crisis, people turn to gardening -- in particularly they turn to community gardening because it satisfies so many things simultaneously.”

The benefits of gardening include a renewed sense of self-reliance that comes from “the ability to grow your own food,” a feeling of “community building” through interactions with fellow gardeners and “link(s) between the environmental, ecological and sustainable” movements, she said.

While the eco-ecumenical group is excited about the potential of the community garden project, they will need to help establish the garden.

“Ideally we would a have on a volunteer basis someone who is really knowledgeable about gardening who could provide expertise and practical advice,” Laugesen said.

When offering gardening advice, Lawson recommends groups to visit the ACGA Web site because it offers “a nice mix of hands on and practical” tips about how to operate a garden as well as how to manage the “people aspect of gardening,” she said.

“Garden(ing) is not just about growing food, it’s about organizing people to run the garden and to work together in common interests. And so, to build that community focus is something that the ACGA has looked into and they really support that concept,” Lawson said.

According to their Web site, ACGA’s mission is to “build community by increasing and enhancing community gardening and greening across the United States and Canada.”

Vicki Garrett, project coordinator for ACGA, fields calls at the Columbus, Ohio, office from people seeking gardening advice. Garrett cautions new garden groups to develop strong community partnerships before breaking ground on a garden.

“I get people calling here asking for a garden in their city because they’re desperate to plant something and can’t find one near them. And then, I get calls from the same city telling me that they can’t get anyone interested in community gardening. So, if you’re not reaching the people who want to garden it’s not going to work. And you also have to make (people) feel ownership,” she said.

For local people who are interested in renting an individual garden plot, there are two primary sites in the Champaign-Urbana community that supports community gardening. The sites are managed by the cities parks districts. In Urbana, for example, Meadowbrook Park, located in south Urbana along Windsor Road and Race Street, has provided organic garden spaces for community residents since 1974, said Park Coordinator Erica Schneider. Individual garden plot rentals range in price from $30 to $60 depending on the size of the space and require deposit of $15. Currently, there is a waiting list for spaces, Schneider said.

The Champaign Park District also offers garden plots at Dodds Park located at 1501 N. Mattis Ave. and as of April 1, there were 21 plots available. A plot rental ranges from $20 to $25 depending on the size of the space, said staff member Quandra Clarke.

Before the eco-ecumenical group begins gardening at the Catholic Worker House, it will conduct a planning meeting on April 7. The meeting will begin at 6:30 p.m. and will be held at the Wesley-United Methodist Church located at 1203 W. Greene St. in Urbana. A member of the Illinois Agriculture Extension Master Gardeners’ program will be there to answer gardening-related questions and to help the group map out an action plan for the upcoming growing season.

The eco-ecumenical gardeners are “an inner-faith religious group and people from any religious institution who want to get involved are welcomed,” Luagesen said.

“We envision this (project) beyond just putting some seeds in and getting food out of the ground. We think it’s more about nurturing respect for the land and what it provides us and (realizing) that we are not the only creatures that depend on it for survival.”