How community gardens make the city a better place

Gardeners have been itching to get their hands in the soil since the first seed catalogs began arriving in the mail in February. People are mobbing garden centers to purchase young plants for home flower and vegetable gardens. We know vegetables grown locally are best for our health and the environment, so many frequent a year-round store like Linda’s Produce.

Ask a clerk where a fruit comes from and the answer is often Conyersville, Georgia. You think, okay, that’s local, but actually Conyersville is simply a food distribution center for imports. It’s better to grow your own and eat what’s in season locally. However, home gardens aren’t the only ones in town.

Urban community gardening has come to Chattanooga as gardeners realize and farmers see the demand for local fresh food to feed the hungry. It’s becoming the new normal.

These transitions don’t happen all at once. It usually requires a champion leading the way. In this case, it’s Alex McGregor (not Peter Rabbit’s nemesis). He had long been a gardener picking up expertise from his grandmother and father, continuing the family tradition. In 1985, he started his quarter of an acre garden on Signal Mountain. His knowledge expanded when he took a class in biointensive farming at Ohio University. Eventually, in 1991, his quarter acre became the first organic certified farm in the area as he moved from gardener to farmer. Walden Farm was born.

By 1993, Alex had started the first CSA (community supported agriculture). Few had heard of a CSA then. Skeptics sneered at the idea of prepaying a farmer to provide a share of fresh vegetables weekly from May through November. Finally, an enthused friend talked some others into buying shares and the business took off. For several years, Walden Farm provided 30 families with a weekly supply of organic food. A study of organic farms in the Southeast showed that the quarter acre Walden Farm produced 8 times more than others.

Eventually Alex secured a Sustainable Agriculture Research in Education grant to teach the Ohio curriculum locally. He mentored several students who have now started up their own CSA’s. You find them at farmer’s markets around town selling their produce.

These days, Alex has returned to being a gardener. “We have formed a friendly coalition with neighbors to share the harvest,” he says smiling. He adds, “You can’t be a recovering farmer—there’s no such thing.”

CSA’s are now available from several regional farmers. Crabtree Farms produces Taste Buds with a local directory of community gardens and CSA farms including Crabtree. For a full Crabtree share, you receive a fresh produce box weekly from May through November for $750. A half share costs $400. However, if you volunteer a minimum of five hours a week, you can get a box. Other less industrious volunteers are eligible to get seconds. In this case boxes are picked up at the farm. Other farmers have a variety of delivery arrangements usually at a farmer’s market.

Now, one can find a farmer’s market somewhere almost every day of the week. Joshua Nelson owns The Healthy Kitchen, a three-acre farm in Dunlap. He brings his organic produce and chicken eggs regularly to Lookout Farmer’s Markets. From 4 to 7 p.m. on Mondays, it’s Red Bank United Methodist Church. On Tuesday, it’s Audubon Acres. On Friday, it’s St. Elmo Avenue except for the last Friday when it runs from 4 to 9 p.m. with the addition of music and festivities.

On Wednesday, go to the Main Street Market from 4 to 6 p.m. and on Saturday mornings from 10 a.m. to Noon, the Brainerd Farmer’s Market is open. Then on Sunday afternoons, there is the biggest one of all, the Chattanooga Market at the First Tennessee Pavilion on the Southside, where many of the same farmers from the smaller markets plus others appear along with several arts and crafts vendors selling their wares. Live music and special events are a given.