Sustainable Communities Network invites community members and garden enthusiasts to join us By Bus or Bike for a unique tour of community gardens throughout Lexington! The tour offers a chance to experience a diverse group of community gardens and meet individuals that are working to GROW Lexington through urban gardening activities.

In the words of Ginny Ramsey of The Catholic Action Center, “Urban gardening is a way to empower neighborhoods and individuals in the creation of a community hub while eating healthier and regaining a connection to our food source.”

Sumaya Rashid of Virginia Place says “ I was inspired by the 2009 Garden Tour and knew I had to help lead the effort to have one at Virginia Place. My daughter loves the garden and enjoys being out there everyday. Our garden plots have been a wonderful addition to the bonding of mothers and children”.

Bus transportation will be provided and others are invited to BYOB-bring your own bike. The tour is free but donations are warmly accepted.

Pre-registration for the bus or bike tour is requested by July 27 at: sustainlex@gmail.com or call 859-312-7024.

We will meet at The Rock/La Roca Church, check-in and observe the gardens along North Limestone St. and at 5:30 p.m. we board buses and hop on bikes to begin the tour through the city looking at five (5) beautiful community gardens that Lexington is blessed with! At each stop you’ll get to hear from gardeners themselves, ask questions and walk among the bountiful vegetables. Come, listen and see the up close view of Lexington’s emerging community gardens, meet the gardeners working in your community, learn how to become involved and help us create a greener and healthier future for the city of Lexington! The Lexington Community Garden Tour 2010 stops on the bus tour include: The Rock/La Roca Garden, Fresh Solutions Hoop House, Drug Court and AVOL Gardens on Nelson Ave., Columbia Ave, Virginia Place and Beaumont Presbyterian Church. The bike tour will include stops at Kid’s Café, William Wells Brown Elementary School, Drug Court/AVOL, London Ferrill, Fresh Stop, Columbia Ave and others!

At the end of the tour join us for a potluck dinner from 8-9:30pm. Participants attending the dinner are asked to bring a dish to share.

This event is sponsored by Sustainable Communities Network, The Rock/La Roca United Methodist Church, Catholic Action Center, Employment Solutions, Virginia Place, Bluegrass Partnership for a Green Community, Tracy Farmer Center for Sustainability & the Environment, Beaumont Presbyterian Church.

Other organizations involved:

Youth GreenCorps, Catholic Action Center, The Rock/La Roca Methodist Church, NorthEast Lexington Initiative, Bluegrass Partnership for a Green Community, ACE Weekly, Tracy Farmer Center for Sustainability & the Environment unities Network (SCN) is dedicated to contributing to the important work of creating a sustainable Lexington where a healthy eco-system is integrated with social justice, community empowerment and a vibrant economy. We maintain that a local food system is the foundation of a sustainable community. Our organization further recognizes that community gardens are an important part of a local food system and is one of the best ways to instill eco-literacy and sacred Earth connection.

Join us on July 29th and meet the gardeners that are transforming their neighborhoods by helping to GROW Lexington!
Descriptions of community Gardens on the Tour.

Virginia Place Community Garden came alive this year and began with community garden workshops held in May and attended by 40+ residents. The workshops provided the single moms with: 1) the role gardens play in local food systems, good health and community interaction 2) the basics of planting, care and maintenance and organic growing methods 3) and having fun! On June 9th we kicked off the effort with a big garden work party that included adult residents, children, staff, members of Architects for Humanity and other volunteers. We built, painted and filled with compost 5 raised beds for the pre-school classes and 12 raised beds for the resident households. More than 20 families are now raising a garden to supplement their food supply. The toddlers in pre-school are connecting the gardens to their curriculum and watching stuff grow! The garden plots contain tomatoes, peppers, dill, corn, beans, squash, melons, blackberries, flowers, peanuts, sweet potatoes, fruit trees, okra, cabbage, basil and lots of love! Families are learning together, interacting in a once vacant area and caring for the gardens that provide them food and social engagement.

Fresh Solutions is a new collaborative project that involves the Catholic Action Center, Sustainable Communities Network and Employment Solutions. Fresh Solutions located Whipple Court is composed of four integrated projects 1) God’s Worms is a vermi-composting operation designed to create for the Lexington community worm castings, worms and worm composting workshops. Our 30 worm bins have been set up with 1 lb of worms(1,000 worms) each and are fed weekly with vegetable scraps from Fresh Approach, 2) Fresh Approach Compost is a hot composting operation designed to reduce the 500 lbs/wk of food waste going to our landfill from Fresh Approach, 3) Our Fresh Hoop House will enable us to grow food year round, start seedlings for spring and fall planting and serve as an educational resource, 4) One World Eco-Art produces beautiful and functional art installations using only material from found or recycled objects. Our aim is to place pieces of eco-art in all of the community gardens and inspire other Lexington residents to create art from materials that now goes to the landfill. The various Fresh Solutions projects involve Lexington residents who were formerly in a homeless condition as well as adults with disabilities. This is a unique approach to involving all of our citizens in the sustainability movement. Our Fresh Hoop House and Compost bins were built on November 212009 with 60 volunteers from Lexington and Mt. Sterling. This hoop house will allow us the opportunity to grow vegetables year round, grow seedlings for Lexington community gardens and supply veggies/herbs to area restaurants. Boy scouts are now working on additional shelving and second level growing space is for our winter time operation.
Nelson Ave(Drug Court) Community Art Garden: developed from an empty lot in 2007 by the Youth GreenCorps this garden was adopted this year by the youth involved in the Drug Court program. Beginning in June we met every Thursday with the youth, counselors-Stacy and Rick, a few parents and Judge Masterton to work in the garden that provided food for the neighbors. For more than a year SCN had provided at our various garden sites community service projects for youth in Drug Court with lots of good results. Judge Masterton with her out-of-the-box and into-the-garden-thinking wanted a single garden site for the youth to work in with hopes that the effectiveness of this experience would be enhanced. This Drug Court garden experience has been a true blessing for everyone involved. The garden provided an opportunity for the Judge to take off her black robe and put on jeans while also allowing her to lay down the gavel and take up the garden trowel. But the primary beneficiaries were the youth engaged each week in a new discovery, an opportunity to work together on a project that benefits the community. These youth saw snakes and rabbits, planted all types of veggies, sweltered in the summer heat, interacted with neighborhood residents and observed the magic of plants growing from seeds. One parent commented that “ I do not recall when I was last with my teenage son for an entire 2 hour time frame, but thanks to this garden we now get to work together each week”. One young girl in the Drug Court program lived with her mother in the house right across the street from the garden. This mother who was in the garden most every week picking greens, tomatoes, beans and squash for her family to eat expressed how proud she was of her daughter for being part of this project that brought food to the community. The Nelson Ave garden is an example of the need for restorative justice that provides young offenders service projects that helps restore them to their community.

AVOL Community Garden located on Nelson Ave is the sister garden to the Drug Court Garden a few lots away. Angel Clark the AVOL community organizer has pulled together many volunteers to begin this garden only a few weeks ago that provides a community space for healing and contemplation.

The Columbia Heights Community Garden came to life in 2009. At that time the Columbia Heights Neighborhood Association arranged to lease a vacant lot on Columbia Avenue from the University of Kentucky. A neighbor, the pastor of Embrace United Methodist Church, offered manpower to cultivate and distribute the produce. This first-year effort, involving about 20 church members and neighborhood volunteers, produced vegetables that helped about 150 people.

In 2010 the church pastor moved from the area. Columbia Heights neighbors now work the garden, growing an abundance of favorite foods and flowers. Thanks to the neighborhood association, a formal sign has been designed to mark the spot, and a grant from the Lexington Council of Garden Clubs has provided much-appreciated funds for supplies. The spirit of community gardening continues as the Columbia Heights Community Garden seeks out new members and possibilities for next year and beyond.

The Croft: A Community Garden at Beaumont Presbyterian Church, 1070 Lane Allen Rd.
The genesis of this community garden began the summer of 2008 when Jim Deleo, a church member and friend of Jim Embry read the July 2008 issue of ACE Weekly that featured the Lexington Community Garden Tour. The church had been talking about more direct ways to reach out into the community and a community garden seemed like a great idea with so much open and flat land that was not being used. Erica Horn, who heads The Garden Squad, the committee that developed the garden, says “the land was a former tobacco farm, so the soil was excellent. The Croft garden has 24 plots, each measuring 15’ x 20’ with 4 perennial plots for berries and other plants. The gardeners include 15 families from within the congregation and 9 from the community, including Boy Scout Troop 279. The garden boasts a large 3 bin compost structure, which was built and donated by one of the scouts as an Eagle project.

The garden has become a focal point for the neighborhood in various ways. While the gardeners are growing food mainly for their own use, contributing a portion of the harvest is encouraged as part of the garden contract. Bins have been set up for donations, which are taken to the Kids Café on East Seventh Street and the Hope Center. “This community garden has far exceeded our expectations,” says Erica. “The opportunity to meet folks from the neighborhood, the amazing way our plants are growing and the chance to contribute to the local need for food has made it a very rewarding experience.” Jim Deleo jdeleo@nosonline.com

The Rock/La Roca United Methodist Church 1015 N Limestone; Church members and residents from the surrounding community began their garden together in April 2007 behind Arlington School but because of constructing the new addition to the school this site is no longer a garden. But you can’t keep Rev. Aaron Mansfield from digging in a garden. They moved the garden location to an empty lot in front of the church along N Limestone. The church also has a big garden on Todd’s Rd on the grounds of 1st United Methodist Church. These gardens contain a variety of vegetables: tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, watermelons, squash, beans and even peanuts. The gardens also include a variety of community people. The Latino and African garden members plant many vegetables that are culturally relevant to them and provide an opportunity to celebrate cultural diversity. Church leaders harvest vegetables and distribute them to neighbors. Community members are encouraged to harvest and use the vegetables themselves. Rev. Aaron and his congregation have inspired other houses of worship to find God in the garden and to create Gardens of Eating. Rev. Aaron Mansfield (859) 255-0712

Website

Community garden tour 2010 bike bus