We own a three-bedroom home built in the early 1900's in the middle of Kansas City, KS. Since the housing market bust in 2008, we have seen people move from the neighborhood and leave homes vacant in the process. This area is what most would consider a low socioeconomic neighborhood, so we are attempting to do our part to help bring about some new life.
Directly to the north of our home sits a vacant lot, the site of an old church. With the foundation still in place, this land was allowed to become overgrown and serve as the neighborhood dump and only cleared by th
e city once or twice a year. In the summer of 2009, after the city had done their obligatory annual/semi-annual clean-up, my wife decided it would be a neat idea to start a community garden. That fall we held monthly meetings with the neighborhood, primarily focused on getting the children involved. We had activities such as making stepping stones with cardboard forms and concrete to building a scarecrow and creating a pumpkin patch for the kids.See more photos from the Essex St. Community Garden.
The summer of 2010 started reasonably well with the planting of several vegetables, only to fall victim to the annual clearing of the garden by the city. Throughout the winter and early spring of 2011, with the help of folks from the local neighborhood development association, we were able to declare the lot a community garden and despite the sweltering heat of the 2011 summer, we were able to produce modest crops yields and even manged to sell a few things at the local farmer's market. Plans for 2012 are bigger and brighter than ever!
OK, enough about the garden. . . For now. This blog will serve to illustrate some of the things we are working on in and around our home and neighborhood. We hope to provide some ideas of things you can try.
Happy New Year!
