- Ann Carson checks out Huning HIghland Garden. - Gloria Williams
Every Wednesday young people go to work pulling weeds and watering the food they've planted at the corner of Ross and Wellesley Streets, SE.
“I really like how it's become this giant community effort,” says Lucia Martinez, a senior at Albuquerque High School and and intern with the Southwest Organizing Project (SWOP). “There's really been a lot of love and effort and care put into this garden.”
Martinez is one of ten young people working on the garden as part of SWOP's summer internship program.
SWOP garden coordinator Travis McKenzie, who also works with the office for community learning and public service, set up gardens on campus at UNM as his senior project. Part of the local gardens initiative, McKenzie says UNM will now offer a gardening class where students can learn and then go do put that knowledge into action at a community site.
Relying on Nature, Not Petro-Chemicals
McKenzie says that corporate food production is killing us with chemicals.
“What we need to do is reconnect and remember traditional and organic agriculture,” McKenzie says. “As well as bring in these new ideas and new innovations and methods for growing food without all the petroleum.”
One of a growing number of organic community gardens throughout the city, 53 sites opened their gates to the public this last weekend, July 31 and August 1 2010.
Jennifer Dwyer handed out maps for the self-guided walking and bike tours of gardens close to La Montanita Food Coop, but also listed all of the sites in the city on the Internet.
“Our response has been really good,” Dwyer says. “Basically it's an open house of all the stops, so I hope that everybody is getting around okay.”
Dwyer started the idea of a tour three years ago when she organized the first chicken coop tour to help people interested in raising chickens meet and learn from people already doing it.
“This year we expanded it to include community gardens, school gardens and backyard gardens and not just chicken coops,” Dwyer says.
As Dwyer handed Jonathan Hawes a map, he told her about yet another community garden she should know about.
Converting Urban Spaces into Gardens
Members of the Huning Highlands Neighborhood Association are turning the former gas station on the corner of Coal and Walter SE into a garden of plenty. They started by having the asphalt removed.
“Then we amended the soil and mixed it into the existing decent soil that was left behind and set up a drip system and got a big pile of mulch,” he explained. “We just kind of experimented with different plants and vegetables and now it's flourishing quite well.”
Ann Carson, historian for the neighborhood association, explains that they were very conscious about planting in a space that may have had contamination.
“If anyone wants to know how to convert the soil, they should contact us,” she offered.
Growing Community, Saving Seeds
This spirit of sharing information and wanting others to reconnect with the earth is something the South West Organizing Project (SWOP) has been working on for some time.
“We are trying to save old traditional seeds and maintain them,” says SWOP organizer Joaquin Lujan, who works on water issues along the Rio Grande. “We're also trying to share. In our garden we let a couple things seed, so we can go back and control our food supply.”
Jacob Lovato, a SWOP intern and senior at Rio Grande High School says he likes the idea of helping out the community and now he wants to help out his own neighborhood.
“I want to find ways to help out the San Jose area so they won't go hungry.” he says.
Food is not the only thing people find when they work with community gardens.
“It brings people together, brings people out that we hadn't seen before,” Carson says. “ Some of them are renters that don't have any place to plant and their delighted, they're just absolutely delighted.”
Gloria Williams - Freelance journalist and activist Gloria Williams is convinced that using alternative media and the Internet are the best ways to meet the ...
