Revisiting Empty Common Community Garden

 "We have a Sichuan Pepper Tree. Have you ever tasted one? It makes your mouth go numb." Lileng, my tour guide to  the Empty Common Community Garden picked off a tiny pepper and handed it to me. Once you bite down on the seed it releases a citrusy flavor and gradually a slight, pleasant numbness to your lips and mouth.  

The Sichuan Pepper Tree

This was my second visit to this garden located in Cambridge, England. On my first visit 4 years ago there weren't any gardeners around so this time I was happy to find several gardeners present. They were working on building a hut where gardeners could meet protected from the rain and cold. Charlotte, Lileng and Callum were anchoring the sill to the concrete block foundation. When I inquired about funding for the hut Charlotte told me, "We got grants from Cambridge City Council, The National Lottery via Transition Network, we are a part of Transition Cambridge and the Co-op Community Fund which the co-op shops donate to local causes."

Lileng, Callum and Charlotte



The garden has matured a bit since my last visit. It was started in 2013, so some of the trees are maturing and the perennial plantings are becoming well established. An herb spiral is one of the focal points of the garden and spot to fly the Earth flag.

The plantings surrounding a semicircular log seating area are filling in nicely. Even though I visited after the peak growing season it was a bright sunny day and the beauty in the garden was everywhere.

The plots are all communal and the group decides what to plant and the harvest is also shared and sometimes poached by night visitors including muntjac deer that stop by in the evening to browse. Other pests are also a presence and Lieng pointed out netting and plastic rings used around the Pak Choi to deter flea beetles and snails. 

The garden is located at the edge of an allotment garden. Allotments are found in England and other places in Europe and serve as remote backyards for urban dwellers. They are usually rented or sometimes purchased from the municipality. The Allotment gardens are much different from community gardens like this one where everyone shares the work and harvest of the whole garden. When I asked garden leader Charlotte if the gardeners paid rent or fee she told me, "There is no fee. People tend to buy things we need as they come up, some give money occasionally and one person gives us money monthly by direct debit. "

This quarter acre garden has 15 active members and an email list of about 80 people who are interested in the garden or support what the gardeners are doing. Much like community gardens everywhere non- gardening groups use the garden space. Others that regularly use the Empty Common garden include a a Tai Chi group, a poetry group and a group called Woodcraft Folk.

There are a few existing structures in the garden including a shed, hoop house and composting toilet which I made use of during my visit. A lot of the materials used in the garden are found or recycled. Everything from the leaves and organic matter which is turned into compost, to sticks and twigs used for supports on a bean trellis to some of the materials being used in building the new meeting hut that were salvaged from a temporary structure that was dismantled.

 This garden is a wonderful example of all that a community garden can be.  A common ground for people to meet and share ideas and share the effort of improving the land we inhabit. The gardeners use of permaculture techniques makes sure there is habitat for creatures both large and small while providing food for the gardener's bodies and souls.

More information about Empty Common  Community Garden can be found on their blog 

  

  

Renewal

I visited the Olivet Heavenly Harvest Garden in the middle of the Coronavirus pandemic on a bright sunny day in June 2020.  Punctuating  the lively socially distanced conversations taking place was the chop chop sound of ice choppers and spades being used to reduce the size of the compostable material to help speed up the composting process. The raised beds were lush with all types of vegetables, most of which was destined for distribution to  local food pantries. This was a necessary change made by the gardeners to safely garden in the time of the pandemic. In 2020, 1650 pounds of vegetables were donated to pantries run by a local Methodist Church, Community Health Action of Staten Island, El Centro, the Refrigerator, The Schoenstatt Sisters of Mary and a soup kitchen at Project Hospitality. This list only highlights the number of people who are food insecure.

In a normal season, produce is  given away each Saturday to people in the community. The gardeners roll out a covered produce stand built by volunteers recruited by Ralph, a young gardener, as his Eagle Scout project. The gardeners don't have to advertise their giveaways. With just word of mouth in the neighborhood, the vegetables are often all given away before the 10 am to 1 pm hours are over. They have regular Saturday visitors including one woman who loves green tomatoes and would always request them. In addition to tomatoes they grew garlic, okra, bok choy, collard greens, lettuce, beans and cucumbers.

Having visited community gardens throughout the US as well as in England and Sweden, I've seen many types of community gardens. The Olivet Heavenly Harvest Garden inspired me more than any other. There is a very active multi-generational group of gardeners here. Many of them are cancer survivors. They are all supportive of each other’s circumstances but from what I saw there were no limits on the work or activities going on. 

This winter, when I visited a small group of three of the most active gardeners, Kelly, John and Mike, they rattled off all of the types of cancers represented in their group; colon, liver, prostate, ovarian, breast and skin cancers. They sometimes would see each other at doctor's offices. As Mike told me,"We are good for 6 months until our semi annual checkups" In between doctor visits they spend their time creating an amazing garden.

They have a unique way of organizing the garden. The plots are "rented " to local people who can afford it for $100. The core group of gardeners tend the plots for the renters who will get a head of lettuce or a tomato or two from time to time but the largest share of the produce is donated. This coming season they plan to grow 2000 pounds of produce by utilizing a space to grow onions and potatoes down the block in the backyard of the house used by the minister. 

The garden is located on the grounds of Olivet Presbyterian Church on Staten Island. In highly developed cities like New York, very little municipal land is available for planting community gardens, so land owned by churches, mosques or synagogues is being used more and more often. This is a perfect example of that trend. 

The unique characteristics of the space surrounding the church were taken into consideration in the layout of the garden’s plantings and activities. A retaining wall was used for cascading cucumber vines to make use of vertical spaces. Dotting the garden are repurposed pop up awnings minus the shade covering being used as trellises for climbing pole beans. The vegetables are grown within a fenced in area but the gardeners neatly tend the landscaping outside the fence with flowering plantings. One area surrounding the church steps is lovingly tended by Kelly as a Memorial Garden. The garden is also used as a location for plant and tree giveaways sponsored by city agencies and others.

They spend a bunch of time processing food scraps to be worked into the composting systems they have set up. The chopped up food scraps are composted into the only soil amendment they use on the vegetable plots. In fact they have a bin set up outside the garden gates to accept food scraps 24 hours a day. On the day I visited they were meeting to discuss accepting more food scraps from other collecting sites. The city of New York has unfortunately cut the municipal composting budget by 90%. Community gardeners and other volunteers are pitching in to do the work that should be done by city agencies. The gardeners did not seem to care about budget cuts although they mentioned that donations and volunteers are always welcome. As John told me, "Here it is about us and every year we make the garden a little better"