A Terrific Short Video, a City's Vision, the Value of Recess, and How to Start a Community Garden Near You

I love that video, and it hits close to home for me. I've been knee-deep for months now in the Comprehensive Land Use Plan for the newest city in the United States (I serve on the steering committee) and I am pleased to report that the close-to-finished-draft includes major elements of new urbanism. Walkability. Bikability. Connectivity. Usable, public green space. Smart Growth. A "life-long community." Sustainability aspects at every turn. Here is our current Vision statement:

Vision of the City of Dunwoody

The City of Dunwoody showcases its “big city appeal with small town feel” from the moment you cross its gateways. Through its unique, high-quality character as a safe, comfortable and thriving place to live, work, shop and play, the City of Dunwoody preserves the past, promotes economic vitality, protects the residential nature of its neighborhoods, presents viable options as a place to live through all stages of life and ability, and prepares for the future through:

• Historical designation designed to save, restore, and promote our heritage properties

• Continued high-quality development of the Perimeter business area designed to promote the economic engine of the city while enhancing convenience to products and services for our citizens

• Conservative, conscientious growth of our other commercial nodes designed to enhance the quality of life of our residential neighborhoods

• Development of a variety of living options designed for all stages of life and ability

• Increased connectivity, enhanced transportation options, expanded green space and park ownership designed to improve the health, vitality and recreational enjoyment of our city’s businesses and residents and the long-term sustainability of our city

When our plan is adopted by our City Council, I'll be sure to post it here so you can see what a group of citizens and government leaders, working together to create something that can withstand the challenges and embrace the opportunities of the next twenty years, has created.

And so, just as the light shifts and the rains pour down (we got totally soaked this past week in Atlanta, if you haven't heard the news--although my family and home is fine, there was much destruction and some lost lives around Atlanta, so please keep us in your thoughts), I shifted gears all week as well. Two other initiatives on which I've been working (in between things like work, taking care of family, and sleep!) are:

Guaranteed Daily Recess for Our School Children.

Please, folks. If your child is one of the 40% of elementary school children in the United States who does not have daily recess (or is at risk of losing it), please stand up and speak out. Here is my Sustainable Dunwoody post about this (I particularly love the photo), which includes an excellent toolkit as support for this needed break in our children's day.

FYI, I was asked to be the chair of the Environmental Committee at the supposed new "green school" in my city. Not only do I think unstructured daily play time is the building block of environmental stewardship, but I said that I could not imagine the ideas I had being embraced if the school could not even assure me that all children would get guaranteed daily recess of at least 15 minutes. And also, something in my gut tells me this particular school is not where I am called to be right now (except for the usual support of my child and her classroom).

(An aside: I did my "life pie" recently, where I divided up a literal cherry pie to represent the 168 hours in the week--you take out sleep, work, chores, meals, and getting the kids from here to there and then decide how you want to spend your time to make the vision for your life a reality. I designated 14 hours a week for pro bono/volunteer projects and I intend to maximize the impact of those hours by only volunteering where I truly believe I can make a measurable, sustainable difference.)

The good news--our county's Board of Education is probably going to mandate guaranteed daily recess for at least 15 minutes, preferably outdoors, that cannot be taken away for any reason (including punishment or to finish up work), as early as January, 2010 (stay tuned). Other good news--my daughter's teacher is really trying to maintain daily recess in her classroom and I greatly appreciate the effort she is making even though the administration does not support it. I am also willing to check my child out for 15 minutes each day (if it comes to this) and discussed with the teacher what time of the day would be the least disruptive to do this. My daughter and I have also created a "Rainy Day Recess Kit" for the teacher that includes decks of cards, dice, checkers and chess.

FYI, I gave my ideas to the teacher who is in charge of forming the Environmental Committee to use as she and the eventual committee see fit. You may find these helpful in your child's school as well:

The proposed Environmental Committee would help insure that the school adheres to the newly-adopted Go Green standards of DeKalb County Schools, as set forth in its Go Green Operating Manual.

Additionally, the Environmental Committee would aspire to research, create, and help implement components of the following initiatives through, first and foremost, the unyielding and continuous support of administration and teachers in conjunction with the hands-on, active participation of students from ideas through implementation. It will be aided, secondarily, by innovative business and institutional partnerships, grants, and parent volunteerism:

• A waste reduction initiative that includes classroom and general area recycling, a vermicompost system, and awareness-raising about reduced packaging at the point-of-purchase (representatives from Atlanta’s Zero-Waste Zone would be great guest presenters regarding this topic)

• A farm-to-fork initiative that includes the necessary three components of food cycle lesson integration, experiential school garden, and hands-on food preparation exposure (I have many connections to local organic farmers and others involved in urban agriculture who could help)

• A Clean Air initiative that includes a No Idling campaign and active participation in the Dunwoody-wide Safe Routes to School initiative to increase biking/walking participation ( a member of the City of Dunwoody Sustainability Commission is extremely active in this endeavor)

• A water conservation initiative that includes the cleanup and utilization of the creek, the promotion of toxin-free lawn care and cleaning supplies, and inclusion of rain harvesting devises such as rain barrels (non-profit groups such as the Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeepers are great resources for things like this)

• An energy initiative that includes the exploration, creation and implementation of energy alternatives (such as retrofitting a bicycle to run a blender, or learning how and why to use a simple solar oven as used by refugees in Africa)

How to Start a Community Garden Near You

And finally, there are many groups of citizens who are trying desperately to start community gardens and hitting roadblocks at every turn. I wrote this predominantly to help other groups in my county, and have since adapted it for the Metro Atlanta Community Gardens social networking site I started, but I believe with just a few tweeks, you may find things helpful in this article for you as well:

How to Start a Community Garden on Public Land

Thinking of starting a community garden, and eyeing that public park nearby? You’re not alone. Community gardens are flourishing nationwide as a terrific way for citizens to grow healthy food as well as community bonds. Many community gardens are formed on public land such as public parks. Public parks are wonderful gathering places with some valuable features that typically include restroom facilities, security, visibility, parking, and a convenient location as well as other recreational options to enjoy before or after gardening. Community gardens are particularly good at bringing people to a part of the park that might be currently underutilized, improving the environmental attributes of the land itself and the park in general, and creating a positive energy that is known to have community-improving ripple effects throughout the park and beyond.

Our metro Atlanta counties are beginning to recognize the benefits of community gardens and encourage citizen groups to start community gardens in county parks. They are coming up with different procedures specific to their counties that will help position each community garden for optimal success.

To submit a proposal to start a community garden in a county park in your community, I’d recommend you follow the guidelines of the American Community Gardening Association, with these additional tips learned from the formation of the Dunwoody Community Garden in Brook Run (the first community garden in a public park in DeKalb County).

1. Form a planning committee. This could be a group of friends or neighbors, but we recommend throwing a wider net to bring in passionate people with specific skills that may not be present in your current social network. Skills needed include: organizing, negotiating, communicating, building, fundraising and yes, of course, gardening. If your group is already a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, or you can organize under the umbrella of an existing non-profit organization, you will be able to apply for grants and accept donations that will be tax-deductible to donors.

2. Choose a site. You may have a “perfect spot” in mind, but give it a fresh look to be sure it has 6-8 hours of direct sunlight a day (consider what the spot will look like when the trees are full of leaves if you are viewing it at another time of the year), a gentle slope for drainage, ample and convenient parking, room for the number of garden beds you propose as well as compost bins, a cistern, wood chip piles, a shady spot for picnic tables and other possible future enhancements to the garden. Check to see if there is an available water supply. If not, your county may be able to help you through Administration and Watershed Management to explore the possibility of using an existing meter or tapping a new water line. Also, if the park in which you are considering starting a community garden has a master plan, see if the site you have in mind is designated as green space or if there is already another site indicated for a community garden.

3. Prepare a Request for Approval for a Community Garden in a County Park from your county’s Parks and Recreation Department. If no form currently exists in your county, prepare your own and list the names of the planning committee, describe the site, attach a diagram of the proposed community garden, and indicate any 501(c)3 associations you have or are pursuing. This is a good time to secure and outline any social justice relationships you want to be integral parts of the garden (such as designating a certain number of plots to be used by families in need, or donating a set portion of the produce to the Atlanta Community Food Bank or other needy organization). These relationships help the garden to achieve additional objectives, and serve as a strong role model for the community.

4. Organize your garden leadership and operating methods. Establish your board of directors; write by-laws, rules and regulations; and prepare a waiver for garden members to sign. This sounds overwhelming at first. However, the American Community Garden Association has comprehensive online examples and resources for you to use to do this. You can tailor what they have for your specific location and intended membership. See www.dunwoodygarden.org for the bylaws, rules and regulations, and waiver developed by the Dunwoody Community Garden at Brook Run. The more you discuss and establish at the beginning, the simpler things will be as you move forward. However, remember that a community garden is a living, breathing science experiment, and there will no doubt be need for adjustments as your garden develops. Be thorough, but open-minded. There are many paths to the same destination.

5. Involve the public. Once you receive approval from your county as a letter on official letterhead, you’re ready to prepare a press release with details about the community garden and how the public can sign up for a plot or get involved otherwise and submit it to your local newspaper. You may also want to start a website and/or a social networking site at this time so that people have a place to go for more information and to leave comments or connect with others to help make this garden a reality. It is also helpful to put a sign at the garden site and an info box with a friendly note explaining about the garden and how to get involved.

6. Prepare and develop the site. It’s time for work days! Those who signed up for garden plots are currently enthusiastic to get going, and there’s no better way to channel that energy than to have a couple workdays and move some mulch. Have your garden design ready. Stake out the main paths beforehand. Have free mulch delivered from tree removal companies. And then get people out there, pounding stakes to mark plots and moving mulch. The Dunwoody Community Garden at Brook Run got its entire foundation established in two 4-hour workdays.

7. Have an official opening. You’ve worked hard. You’ve created community excitement. And you’ve achieved the start of something really special. Commemorate and celebrate. Keep it simple. Have a little music, say a few words, issue lots of thanks, and then have a bring-your-own picnic lunch or share a celebratory cake. Take lots of pictures and video because every single day from this moment on the garden will change and you will want to look back on when it was nothing but dirt and dreams. Follow your dedication ceremony with a garden member meeting. Consider asking the police department to give a short overview of safety suggestions for community gardening (such as “garden with a buddy” and “call 911 if you see anything suspicious”). Require payment and signed waivers before allowing anyone to start working on their plots.

8. Connect with other community gardens in metro Atlanta. Learn from each other. To fence or not to fence? Are you experiencing any vandalism? How do you handle water? Are you offering classes to plot holders? What are your fees? Do you have a source for free seeds or tools? Have you applied for any grants? Do you have a shared tool shed or a bulletin board? Are you involving area schoolchildren? The list is endless. This social networking site was set up to help facilitate the sharing of information like this among community gardens in the metro Atlanta area. Take advantage of it, contribute to it, and help metro Atlanta grow!

At any step of this journey, feel free to reach out and ask for advice or encouragement. Just about anything you are considering doing has probably been done somewhere else in the Atlanta metro area (did you know there are more than 150 community gardens in the metro area?!) or somewhere else in the United States or world.

If you are the first community garden on public land in your county, you may have a bit of a hill to climb getting approval and getting started. But stick with it. You are doing something positive, and your county will most likely applaud your vision and your perseverance and want to help you make your community garden a true success. It may be limited in resources but boundless in respect for what you are trying to achieve right here in metro Atlanta.

For more details and resources, please see the American Community Gardening Association website

As for our new community garden? Its gentle slope helped it survive the storms. Now, we're mulching and replanting some stuff. And praying for sunshine.

Wishing I Could Put a Rat Excluder Down the Very Center of My Life

These are rat excluders. They were made by DeKalb County Extension Services based on a design by the garden expert, Walter Reeves. A woman named Bobbi, who is a member of the City of Dunwoody Sustainability Commission, sold them to me at our monthly meeting this past week. You put one in the middle of your compost pile, surrounded by leaves, twigs, and old garden debris. Then, you lift out the black plastic planter, deposit food scraps into the cage, replace the planter and there you have it! Apparently the rats don't like the metal. I'm testing one in my yard and one at the community garden.

I threw one in the car and drove in the pouring rain to the garden (five weeks old today!) to meet with Dennis Lang, a partner/owner of 5 Seasons Brewing Company, along with several board and garden members. Dennis offered to bring us a ton of spent grain (used in the beermaking process) per week for a compost pile, plus he would honor one night a month at the brewpub as Dunwoody Community Garden Night and give 10% of receipts from those who identify themselves as garden supporters to the garden. He'll also do a class on beermaking at the brewpub for garden members so we can see the whole process and appreciate how that glass of Belgian Wit helps our garden grow. A good relationship, if you ask me.

After the meeting, I took out the rat excluder and got to thinking about Dennis and the community garden members. About the folks who were putting in the first organic school veggie garden later that day at the school my children used to attend (and yes, I brought them there to see it happen, after all these years of advocating for it, and yes, Farmer D was involved). And about three other members of the Sustainability Commission:

* Tom, who is working on extending a Safe Routes to School program from one school to all schools in our city.

* Mitch, who is arranging to have bike racks fabricated locally from regional steel for businesses to sponsor around the city (we don't even have a bike rack at City Hall and Mitch therefore drags his bike into our meetings).

* Debbie, whose adorable Idbids sustainable toy company has teamed up with The Nature Conservancy and will soon be in REI stores nationwide.

And about all the other positive, can-do people I have somehow been fortunate to meet lately who are working day in, day out to make a measurable difference.

And then I thought of all the barriers I keep hitting. All the naysayers who will kill any whiff of wonderful possibility they smell. All the issues for which I have to advocate year in, year out (especially at the start of school--yes, the children need guaranteed daily recess; yes, the arts are important; no, my child is not for sale to companies like fast food restaurants and Coca Cola that want to capture yet more youth market share by calling it a "partnership for education"; no, a community with carpool lines that extend for blocks is not normal . . .)

And I got to wishing that I could put a rat excluder down the very center of my life and put all the people who believe in the power of positive change in the cage and protect them from those whose analysis paralysis serves to drive innovative thinkers away.

But then I wondered. Perhaps these people don't need that protection. In fact, perhaps the constant destruction from the rats keeps them going. Perhaps the rats of negativity have a purpose.

What about me? Do I need to be in a rat excluder? Or do the rats have a purpose on my journey, too? Should I, somehow, learn to embrace the rats?

Signaling That It's Time

The heavy heads of crimson amaranth, sprays of five-foot-tall zinnias, and towering sorghum stalks dominate my home garden right now. The days of multicolored tomatoes lining the windowsill (which we named for Yankees players or Supreme Court justices so that we would have Johnny Damon tomato pie or Sotomayor pizza for dinner) have passed.

The basil stems are thickening, getting woody, signaling it's time for a last batch of pesto. The first of the fall seedlings, the mustard greens, the tatsoi, are clumped together like college kids at a concert. The gold finches and cardinals and mockingbirds flutter from milkweed to pokeweed and back again. And the rays of light lengthen day by day, cascading across my dandelion-speckled lawn, across the lemon balm and mint (which are happy again with the cooler nights), through my kitchen window and across my face as I stand there, chopping or kneading or just gazing mindlessly.

"What are you doing, Mom?" my daughter asked the other day, finding me trance-like at the sink, a leg bent, my head cocked to the side.

I had no answer.

She stood next to me and gazed out, too, seeing what I was seeing, understanding.

It's that time of year when muscadines fall from the trees like that children's book (and soon-to-be-released movie) Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. We found some the other day, while riding our bikes home from school (an ongoing challenge each year as my children change schools and the travel patterns present new obstacles--here's a post about it on Sustainable Dunwoody). My younger daughter shook a dangling tree branch and the ripe purple balls of fruit struck our helmets and bounced to the ground like hail, making us laugh, as if we had worn the helmets just for this. Lone children in the back seats of cars rode by, occasionally waving, their faces pressed against the windows to try to figure out what we were doing. (There are only a couple once-in-a-while bike riders and only 12 walkers in a school of 800 students.)

It's that time of year when the leaves of the maple trees that hold my hammock start to turn red and yellow. When the sweet potato vines make a mad dash for the finish line. When children start coming home again with too-heavy backpacks and I once again advocate for daily recess and a school garden and a bike rack, please.

It's that time of year when I stand there with my lantern in the dark of morning waiting for the school bus, gazing at the moon I share with my friends in Australia half a world away. And knowing it is time again to pass them the baton as they welcome spring, and as those of us in the northern hemisphere, once again, dig out our socks.

"They Don't Have to Justify Need"

A package came the other day with these seeds in it. Corne de Belier snow peas. Rouge d'Hiver lettuce. Danvers carrots. All heirlooms from the 1800s. Plus a variety of other heirloom seeds with equally impressive histories. These were sent to me, free, from Holly. This is what Holly does. Holly Hirshberg and her husband Sean run The Dinner Garden, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization that gives free seeds, gardening supplies, and advice to anyone in the United States who wants them. Anyone. No questions asked. No qualifying. No cost, not even postage.

The Dinner Garden just celebrated its first anniversary. Since January, Holly, Sean and a small group of volunteers (including their two special needs children) have provided seeds to almost 12,000 families, including numerous community gardens, in 39 states.

I met Holly because of Pamela Price, who writes the blog Red, White and Grew. I met Pamela because of that Victory Garden Drive I tried to run a couple years ago, a concept that was also being rejuvenated by many others around the country and world, most famously, now, by Roger Doiron of Kitchen Gardeners International, who was instrumental through his Eat the View campaign in pursuading the White House to plant its organic vegetable garden, but also by Pamela and a historian and garden educator in California named Rose Hayden-Smith. Roger and Rose are actually going to the White House next week to bring the 110,000 signatures of the White House Garden petition to the White House chef to add to the compost pile. Pamela continues to write like mad out of San Antonio, Texas about Victory Gardens and more. And I am giving Holly's seeds to the six families from the food pantry who will be gardening in our new community garden.

So, this is how it works. We do things because we feel driven to do them. We meet people for reasons we don't know. We trust the journey. And then one day, bang, some pieces of it somehow, miraculously, come together. If I hadn't done the Victory Garden thing, I wouldn't have met Pamela. Holly. The seeds. The families. The garden. It all ties together.

I interviewed Holly last week about The Dinner Garden. This is not a little side volunteer project that Holly and Sean are doing. This is a full-time job for both of them. They rely on donations of money, seeds and supplies from individuals and companies, and again and again I heard Holly say about their recipients, "They don't have to justify need."

They don't have to justify need.

I kept thinking about this all week, while walking to and from school, while shoveling yet more mulch on yet more paths, while turning over some of my garden beds with the change of seasons, while riding my bike, while writing, while cooking, while standing there at the kitchen window washing dishes and watching hummingbirds, while realizing that 9/11 is coming once more, sure as the swallows return to Capistrano, in just a few more days (9/12/01 is the day when I started my garden) and my heart will get ripped from me yet again.

They don't have to justify need.

They don't have to justify.

And so I realize, I don't have to justify my actions. I don't have to justify my intentions. I don't have to justify my purpose or path or possibilities. I simply have to take the positive steps. Save the seeds. And pass them on.

I invite you to do this, too, figuratively, in the winding, twisty path that we call life. Trust that journey. And in the literal seeds that pass through your day. The seeds from that butternut squash in your CSA box. The heirloom tomato you buy at the farmers market. The beans you find hiding in your vines, too big to eat fresh. Dry them and put them in little plastic bags or glassine envelopes, mark them, and mail them to Holly and Sean at:

The Dinner Garden
P.O. Box 700686
San Antonio, Texas 78270-0686

I'm not going to worry about justifying anything anymore. No more questioning whether or not the steps I take matter. Holly and Sean and Roger and Rose and Pamela remind me to just do the actions. And trust.