In need of some good reading material the next few days as you kick back in your slippers with a cup of cocoa? Check out our new digital exhibit on the history of community gardening in the United States and starting dreaming of tomatoes, green beans, and the bounty of the summer harvest. Read it here: http://s.si.edu/1loga5D
Pictured: Jones Valley Teaching Farm in Birmingham, Alabama.
Little seeds, BIG stories. Why our everyday stories are important and how YOU can share your family garden history with the Smithsonian during #ArchivesMonth - and every month! Up on our blog.
The Smithsonian is having another Showdown to find the most “Seriously Amazing” program or object and we need your help to win! This year we nominated Community of Gardens–an online archive of gardens grown by you.
We created Community of Gardens to provide a digital home for stories, photographs, and videos of gardens across America. Anyone can add their story, which means an account of your parents’ backyard wedding, your grandmother’s tomatoes, or your neighborhood’s community garden can become part of the Smithsonian. What’s more amazing than that?
Vote for Community of Gardens to show your support for the project and help us advance to Round 2!
School’s out for summer! And as children flock to urban gardens and public parks, this story from Community Gardens proves what’s old is new again.
In the summer of 1902, the land that would become New York City’s DeWitt Clinton Park, just a few blocks from Central Park, was described as a place so run-down that even “The most vivid imagination could not have conceived a more desolate spot than this.”
Witnessing the unsanitary conditions of New York’s urban environment first-hand, Fannie Griscom Parsons (1850-1923), an early pioneer of children’s gardening, imagined an alternative.
Over the next year, Parsons, with help from the city’s parks department, transformed this small piece of land into rows of orderly garden plots, intended to teach responsibility, concentration, and “private care of public property" to children. Today, the school and urban garden movement builds upon the work of pioneering 19th-century social reformers! Read the full story here.
Why do you want to improve your school garden?
“To help our community & make our school more visually appealing.”
-Ekram, Jonathan, Kamron, and Jamari, Paul International High School, Washington, D.C.
This past weekend was #MothersDay! Does your mother, grandmother, or aunt have a garden story? Share your family history with Community of Gardens and add their voice to our digital archive!
Janet W. shared a beautiful recollection of her mother’s love of gardening:
“My mother was the gardener and my father was the caretaker, orchestrating the raking and mowing, pulling trees down with his car - in the early days in this house there were too many pine trees. These were the tall skinny loblolly pines, Pinus taeda. Our neighborhood was called Whispering Pines and it’s true they do whisper. It’s a lovely sound."
Read the entire story here.
What would you tell other high school students interested in building a school garden?
We would tell them that building a garden is a wonderful idea because it leaves an impression for years and years. It takes a lot of work and it’s a great bonding experience. -Alexis, Deasia, Gabrielle, Lloyd, Nicholas, & Taylor, Paul International High School, Washington, D.C.
April is National Garden Month, and we are celebrating the diversity of American gardens and the gardeners who make them grow. Small gardens and large gardens, community gardens and backyards, our diverse stories are part of a verdant quilt of gardens growing across the country. Gardens tell us where we’ve been, and where we are going. They can tell us stories about how people in our communities lived in the past and articulate our cultural values in the present.
Please Touch Community Garden is not a traditional plotted vegetable garden; all of the food grown at the garden can be grown and harvested by anybody at any time the garden is open. There are no dividing lines between plots, and everyone shares responsibility for the care of the plants. There are many works of art that fill the garden, ranging from sculptures, murals, and mosaics.
This Community of Gardens story comes from the Please Touch Community Garden in San Francisco. The garden is a collaboration between artists, community members, and the The LightHouse, a non-profit organization dedicated to assisting blind and visually impaired citizens. Once an abandoned lot litter with needles, the garden is now a lively community space for growing and harvesting food, holding classes, and showcasing art.
April is National Gardening Month! How do gardens enrich your life and community? Share your story with the Smithsonian’s Community of Gardens digital archive.
At our most recent class at the Paul International High School, we asked the students in Ms. Merriweather’s class, “What inspires you in your school garden?”
The benches inspire us in our school garden. They have manybright colors. Also they need work done on them, which drives us to fix them up.
-Gabbi, Tiyan, Hamza, Derien, & Brishae
The students are busy readying the garden for spring, researching how to finish a cob construction project, and securing funding for their garden improvement projects. Stay tuned!
