Urban gardens gain ground

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Community efforts are driven by price and safety concerns

By Susan Gvozdas | Special to The Sun
August 14, 2008

Bob McKenney drives up to Kinder Farm Park in Millersville three times a week to tend his squash, cucumbers, green beans, carrots, cantaloupes and watermelons. The Annapolis retiree lives in a condominium and doesn't have anywhere else to garden.

"They would raise Cain if I tore up the grass and put in a garden," McKenney said with a chuckle. If plans for a proposed community gardens in the city come to fruition, McKenney might just stay local to get his fruit and vegetables. Rising fuel costs are eating into his savings on his grocery bill. "I burn a lot of gas coming up here," he said.

Helen Loughrey, 46, of Edgewater is trying to bring community gardens within walking distance of their gardeners. She founded Annapolis Community Gardens, a consulting business, last year to advise schools, hospitals, apartment complexes and neighborhood associations on how to set up a structure for urban agriculture.

Community gardens, such as Kinder Farm, are good, but they don't help low-income city residents who rely on public transportation, Loughrey said. By bringing the gardens to smaller plots within the city, those residents can get fresh vegetables at a reasonable price. With food banks stressed, it makes even more sense to learn gardening, Loughrey said. Besides, Kinder Farm has a waiting list of 20 to 30 people, said William Offutt, the park superintendent.

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1. .

but they don't help low-income city residents who rely on public transportation

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2. Saw that, these ideas work when land in the neighborhoods are used. Similar to story below.

Vertical veggies to sprout on Skid Row, thanks to Poly group

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3. There are many more problems than that, but muddle-class people don't want to know or hear.

We no longer are in an era when people actually LISTEN to each other.... muddleclass people have all bought into the idea that they know best, and are only here to TEACH us what we ignorant simpletons don't know, and to straighten us out.

There was a time when neighborhood organizers came into an area, and LISTENED to people.. they ASKED them what the problems were, and asked what they thought the solutions would be. They then organized NEIGHBORHOOD MEETINGS where EVERYONE had a voice, and put together plans according to what the RESIDENTS wanted.

Now, do-gooders come in without knowing the people there, or their lives, and tell everyone what to do, and then judge and criticize when it doesn't work.

When "progressives" face how paternalistic they've become, and start acting like human beings instead of mini-dictators, then things will change.

Until then, the class wars go on.

We're such easy targets to judge.

[Name removed]

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