This is a story about a city park neglected and forgotten, and what happened when one group tried to make a difference. Littered and graffitied, the park hosted one garbage can, trash, drug users and drunks. And thought the park sits across the street from a prestigious condominium complex, it received no more than the obligatory mowing by the city. Within the park sets four large cement containers which grew nothing but weeds for the past five years; this is where the project began, in the abandoned and neglected container gardens.

Three months ago, a few neighborhood residents took it upon themselves to beautify the park. With the idea of teaching children how to grow something useful, like food, the group weeded and planted the container beds with tomatoes, sunflowers, watermelon, pumpkins, corn, and other vegetables. The kids in the park immediately became interested. They made a promise to help maintain the gardens and to keep pick up garbage around the park. The adult residents came up with a club name for the kids, and the City Rangers were born. The Agrarian Urbanites covered their story in May(Guerrilla Warfare: Be On the Lookout for City Rangers) and June (Guerrilla Warfare and City Rangers Continue…).

Despite a few bumps, the City Rangers met every Wednesday and Saturday to pick up the park and work on their gardens. Though one of the neighborhood residents, Brandy Slaybaugh, requested permission from Parks and Rec, no reply returned; not a yes, or a no that the group could or couldn’t garden there, so they expanded the garden to a tilled up space. The City Rangers planted 12 watermelon starts and just as many pumpkin transfers, and the group continued to carefully maintain the area around the patch knowing that at anytime, the city could mow over their project.

But the city didn’t mow it down. For over two months during their obligatory mowing of the park, the city mowed around the garden showing great decency for the folks and children who were trying to accomplish something in the park. Since the kids began their gardens, trash diminished and the drug users thinned-out. It was a win-win situation for everyone. The city didn’t have to work as hard (not that they ever really did) to maintain the park, and the kids were learning about where food comes from and how to grow it.

Then tragedy struck. True despicable and disgusting tragedy.

During a time when the Mayor of Knoxville is running for Governor, the city of Knoxville tries to make strides with the Sustainably Task Force, and the Knoxville Knox County Food Policy Council diligently works to create more community gardens; the City Rangers’ community garden was absolutely obliterated by the city. I couldn’t believe it when I heard it, so I drove over to the park to see for myself what happened.

I asked a woman sitting under the gazebo amongst broken glass and used condoms if she knew what happened. She said, “The city was out here working last week, but I don’t know much about this park. I don’t like coming down here too much. There’s always drugs and stuff down here.”

It wasn’t a pretty site. The container beds that grew nothing but weeds but now were growing tomatoes, watermelon, sunflowers, and corn had been ripped out and, get this, mulched. Nothing new was planted, not even a petunia, but the container beds were meticulously mulched for the first time in five years.

Though the city can’t clean-up the graffiti; fix the broken bridge; pick up the broken glass, trash and condoms, they can saw down several trees. And somehow, they can make one of those trees land right on the watermelon patch. Oh, then the city can leave the sort-of, cut-up trees laying where they fell for at least a week. It’s carnage, and it doesn’t happen in other city parks in Knoxville.

Slaybaugh talked to Joe Walsh of Parks and Rec and he knew nothing of the gardens or the work recently done by the city at the park. When he heard the description of the damage, he suspected it was the horticulture department. In which Slaybaugh replied, “Well you’d think a ‘horticulture department’ would know what vegetables look like.”

Is this really the city I live in? When a few concerned citizens and children take it upon themselves to care for a neglected forgotten park and try to do something good, is this really how people get treated?

At first I felt shock when I heard the news, then I felt seething anger while taking the photos. And now? I feel a mixture that races between anger, sadness and denial. It’s a beautiful thing when a few people give their time, money, attention, and love to a park and a group of kids who are eager, excited and willing to learn. It’s unbelievable when their project gets shit-on by the very same people who didn’t give a shit about the park or the kids to begin with. Its a lot of things, like, disgusting, mean, unjust…and unfortunately, it seems to be how Knoxville’s east side is treated.

The best thing the city can do right now, is to leave the pile on the garden alone. Some of the plants are miraculously surviving. If the kids are lucky, they still may get a small harvest. But the dream of growing a melon and pumpkin for each kid, a dream that was well on its way to fruition? That dream isn’t going to happen.

And what about the kids? As her eyes fill with tears, Slaybaugh says, “How do I explain this to them? How do I even….” She breaks off, shakes her head and stares out the window. “I can’t even bring myself to go see it. How am I going to face those kids?”