Just how much urban gardening has grown will soon be on display with a tour of 31 gardens in the metropolitan area.
One will be the Longfellow neighborhood garden on what had been a vacant lot near Harrison and 30th streets.
Neighborhood residents Ami Freeberg and Clare Murphy Shaw started Longfellow Farm last year and now it’s ready for prime time.
Ami Freeberg and Clare Murphy Shaw started Longfellow Farm
Freeberg works for Cultivate Kansas City, which puts on the tour that will be June 25-26.
Information on each garden and how to purchase tickets
Freeberg, 29, said she moved in two years ago and “I already know hundreds of neighbors just by saying ‘let’s grow some food.’”
To help cover costs, 10 members pay $15 a week for four months and get a bag of vegetables every week, she said.
There are also weekend work gatherings open to all with food as payment.
Allen Norman, a Longfellow board member, is not among the garden workers.
“I may never turn a spade in it, but I support it 100 percent,” he said. “In my 20 years in the neighborhood, this is potentially the greatest community builder.”
Freeberg said there are more resources than ever available to help neighborhoods establish gardens.
She was able to get small grants to help pay for things like water irrigation, compost and supplies, even for a shipping container for tool storage.
And an artist neighbor will soon do a mural on that container, she said.
Freeberg will also be working another garden across the street, where a Denver developer and gardener donated land to Longfellow for five years – land will become Troostdale Farm.
It will be planted with melons and other crops that will be ready fall, Freeberg said.
Who’s talking