(Host) Community gardens are an old idea that’s gotten a new lease on life in recent years.
As VPR’s Susan Keese reports, new gardens – and gardeners – are springing up like fresh greens all over.
(Hoeing)
(Bramble) "Would you like a cucumber? Ha ha."
(Keese) With a sharp-edged hoe, Larry Bramble is weeding his vegetables. This summer, at the age of 66, he learned something new.
(Bramble) "I realized the secret of life is sunshine and cow manure."
(Keese) An abundance of both gave this new community garden in Putney a strong start.
(Bramble) "And this thing just erupted out of the ground. It’s just amazing to see. And I think everybody in town got inspired when they saw that. They were just going, ‘Wow! Look at that.’"
(Keese) Bramble lives in a wooded part of Putney.
(Bramble) "And so I’ve never been able to plant vegetables. And I always wanted to. So when I saw this, I said, ‘Well this is great.’"
(Keese) And Bramble says it has been.
(Bramble) "The food that you get out of this is so much better than anything that you get any place else. But for me, it’s not just the food, but it’s just been the joy of doing it and to watch it grow!"
(Keese) It’s impossible to say how many times this story has been replicated across Vermont. But Jim Flint says community gardens are definitely on the rise.
Flint is the coordinator for the Vermont Community Garden Network. The network has provided small grants and support for about 200 community and school-based gardens.
Flint has visited many of them this summer — and discovered quite a few that weren’t on his radar. Like the one he spotted last week in South Strafford.
(Flint) "And what’s unusual about this school was that this was actually a garden class. And the teacher was hired by the school as a garden-based educator. In the back of the school is an even larger garden area being used to grow crops for the school lunch program."
(Keese) A garden in Thetford, which is also in its first year, is right on the town green
(Flint) "And it’s becoming a community gathering place. Neighbors come by and they’re interested in the progress of what’s happening, and gardeners by and large like to share."
(Keese) Flint says in this country community gardens go back at least to the First and especially the Second World War, when it was almost a patriotic duty to have a victory garden.
Another resurgence happened during the back-to-the-land movement in the ‘70s. It ended in the ‘80s with cheap oil.
(Flint) "As people, especially in Vermont, were able to commute longer distances to jobs, there was a loss of gardening as a life skill, as a means of feeding your own family."
(Keese) Flint says this resurgence is about more than saving money by growing your own food.
(Flint) "It’s knowing where your food comes from. Trying to reduce the number of miles food travels across the country, to have a greater sense of food security and the importance of nutrition, the prevention of obesity."
(kids picking tomatoes)
(Teacher) "They eat better, they’re healthier, they’re out in the sunshine, they’re more likely to have a garden of their own. They get excited! They love coming down here."
(Keese) Back in Putney, children at the local elementary school are picking cherry tomatoes from their garden with their teacher, Angela Walton.
(Teacher) "How many people like coming to the garden?"
(Kids) "I do! Me!"
For VPR News, I’m Susan Keese.