Community gardens open gates for visits on August 6 in Twin Cities and beyond
Dowling community garden (Some rights reserved by mhartford)
Mark your calendars for Saturday August 6, 2011 to visit a Twin Cities garden at Community Garden Day. More than 35 gardens in the Twin Cities and suburbs and a few others in greater Minnesota will be hosting open houses to showcase their community gardens. Formerly known as the “Parade of Community Gardens,” the name has been changed this year to reduce confusion and reflect the open house, festivity-laden celebration each garden will have. Some feature food, others music or arts and crafts, and all offer conversation with gardeners.
“We want communities to know that gardening is more than just a hobby,” said Nadia Berneche, Program Director of Gardening Matters, the non-profit organization dedicated to helping individuals create and sustain community gardens and sponsor of this event.
Community gardening has a long history in Minnesota, but its popularity has increased the last several years. Gardening Matters offers this definition of a community garden:
A community garden is any space where plants are grown and maintained by a community to meet the needs of that community.
Community gardens provide opportunities to grow food, to share traditions between cultures and generations, to create habitable environments, and most importantly to build community.
In the last five years, Gardening Matters has helped over 2000 people start community gardens. They have provided start-up workshops, consultations with experienced gardeners, advocacy in public policy, and raised awareness of the multiple benefits of community gardening.
Every garden is unique, from the types of gardeners who work there to their specific mission. While all of the gardens aim to build community, they may have one or many of the following goals: to have a central gathering place for people of all ages and races to come together, share in a common endeavor, and build meaningful relationships; to celebrate art in a public space; to beautify our neighborhoods; to grow food for ourselves, our families and those in need; to reduce our carbon footprint and improve the health of the community’s ecosystem; to educate children about where our food comes from and nutrition; and to extol the many health benefits of growing our own food.
One reason community gardens have increased in popularity is because of the growing epidemic of obesity in our society and the many diseases that result from it such as heart disease and diabetes. Gardening strikes at the heart of these maladies and is one of the best forms of prevention. Beth Kackman, a nurse and director of the International Outreach Church Garden in Burnsville, is passionate about promoting wellness through food. She said, “Food is a form of medicine. Eating the right foods will build our immune system, whereas gardening promotes physical exercise and emotional well-being. The results of gardening are very holistic, meeting different dimensions of our being.”
On August 6, community gardens participating in this event will have celebrations that are as unique as the gardens themselves. Many of the gardens will feature tours, food samples, culinary dishes and recipes, activities to engage children, and helpful gardening information from the growers themselves. At the International Outreach Church Community Garden in Burnsville, visitors will be able to sample ethnic food recipes, pick fruit from their orchard of 24 fruit trees, listen to music, and relax in their beautiful arbors. They will also have activities for kids such as a garden scavenger hunt and a butterfly garden. For a complete list of gardens participating, their individual attractions and activities, and maps of their locations, visit gardeningmatters.org.
There's a garden near you! As of July 11, the following gardens were listed on the map at the Gardening Matters website. Check back for later additions.
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