Growing in the South Side community
Yellow squash, onions, different varieties of peppers and tomatoes of all sorts—all of these can be found in the University Heights Community Garden. Planted on Windermire St. near the University Heights Methodist Church, which maintains it, the garden consists of nine raised planters, boxed in with cinder blocks.
Planted on Windermire St. near the University Heights Methodist Church, this garden consists of raised planters, boxed in with cinder blocks. This is a place where the university could become more involved in the South Side community and also in urban gardening.
This food oasis was guarded by—and I say this as a cat person—two shifty strays that looked like they had been on a bender. In all seriousness, a community garden is a tough project to undertake. But it is a great source of fresh vegetables during the summer, as well as a way to be environmentally responsible.
Earlier this year, while I was interviewing for a story on the common reading experience, one of the things that kept popping up was the idea of creating a garden.
The common reading experience, as you probably know, used the book “Bet the Farm: How Food Stopped Being Food,” by Frederick Kaufman. With so many people on campus talking about and looking critically at where food comes from, you would think that the university would already have five community gardens. I thought for sure that some freshmen would dig up the sand volleyball court to plant corn or the flower beds along Hanna Ave. to grow green beans.
Alas, midterms did approach quite quickly, and those botanical plans probably went to seed.
As for a garden sponsored by the university, the key players had questions about who would take care of it and how the produce would be used and distributed.
One of the biggest questions, however, was where the university would put it. As one source said, we don’t necessarily have huge tracts of unused land.
So, going back to the bucolic introduction, here is the good news: there is already a place to grow vegetables within walking distance. In fact, many students live in the neighborhood around UHMC and pass the garden on their way to and from classes.
Is the garden huge? No, not really. But it has room to grow, and it is a place where we could start. It is a partnership that we could expand. This would go along with both the university series of ‘Stepping up’ and the university’s desire to connect to the community.
So while we’re figuring out the best place on campus to build beds and plant vegetables, this is a place to start—and probably more popular than tilling up the football field.
