The Wake

There are many ways to combat drug use. You can punish the users or you can track down the dealers. You can impose huge fines or force junkies into rehab by threatening them with jail time. You can run sting operations with marked bills and undercover DEA agents. You can do cavity searches at all points of entry and train German shepherds to sniff out drugs. You can legalize it and dish out methadone like candy, hoping that if the problem does not get better, at least the criminality will be eliminated.

Or, you can plant a community garden.

The Emily Peake Memorial Garden in the Stevens Square neighborhood, named after a Native American activist, was planted for just that purpose, according to the Stevens Square Community Organization. The lot on which the garden sits, at 1913 3rd Ave. S., was an open-air drug market. In 1994, a community flower garden was planted. Gardeners were encouraged to keep an eye on the space, and were given cell phones to call 911 if they noticed anything suspicious.

In 2005, it was converted into a rent-a-plot garden. About half of the garden is conserved for flowerbeds and half has been converted to vegetable patches, says Robert Skafte, SSCO Gardening Coordinator.

Another garden in Stevens Square, the LaSalle Community Garden, was started in 1995 for the same reason. Skafte explains that the garden sits on the site of two former “crack houses.” The buildings were torn down, but after they were gone the drug dealers continued to use the abandoned lot to conduct business. The SSCO obtained grants from the Minneapolis Police Department, Anderson Windows and the Neighborhood Revitalization Program to plant the garden on the 1800 block of LaSalle Avenue.

The conversion of the two abandoned lots to a community garden was not easy, Skafte says. Before they could plant on the land, the ground needed to be tested for lead. The north garden–which has two lots that are separated by an apartment building–was contaminated and raised beds were constructed. Nevertheless, Skafte continues, the work was worth the trouble.

“(We) turned an eyesore lot into a place of beauty,” Skafte says.

Today, the LaSalle Community Garden is comprised of two gardens and 50 plots and is maintained by over 40 gardeners. In 1998, women from the Minnesota Correctional Facility-Shakopee built and donated a tool shed. Students and professors from the University of Minnesota’s landscape architecture program built a water system, a wheel chair bed, and a water wheel in 1999.

Skafte says that both gardens encourage community involvement. Even though those who rent in Emily Peake are “into their own thing”, they come together for potlucks and designated workdays. LaSalle gardeners also host a potluck every summer and they can participate in classes on sustainability, canning, and composting. Skafte adds that the gardens create a space for community in a densely populated area.

“Everybody just gives each other advice (on gardening),” Skafte says, “Some people are going to give you advice on what they learned from their grandma.”

Skafte adds that the garden continues to discourage crime in the area for two reasons: the gardeners keep an eye on their gardens and the beauty of the space encourages respect. He explains that there were some men who always drank on the street outside the garden and left their garbage on the ground. He put a trashcan on the sidewalk and asked the men to use it. Even though he has had to empty it frequently ever since that day, the men have not left their garbage on the ground.

The LaSalle Community Garden supplies food to the Groveland Food Shelf at Plymouth Congregational Church. In past years they ran a program through the food shelf in which homeless youths were paid $10 an hour to weed the garden. They were also taught how to plant and cultivate vegetables. For the last couple years, however, the program has been discontinued because of lack of funds, Skafte explains.

However, Skafte says, even though the garden is no longer able to actively work with the homeless, it still provides a place for rest and relaxation to the area’s homeless population.

“It’s a place for them to come even if they’re not a gardener,” he says. “Everyone needs somewhere to go. (They can) sit and take a load off.”

The LaSalle Community Garden hosts a small farmers’ market on the corner of Nicollet and Franklin avenues. The price of admission is a box of produce, which is then donated to the food shelf.

The Seward Youth Peace Garden, a community garden in the Seward neighborhood, also hosts a small farmers’ market on Fridays during the summer, outside of the Birchwood Café at 3311 E. 25th Street, says the Rev. Richard Westby, a volunteer with the garden.

The garden is located adjacent to the Seward Montessori School. During the spring, children and teachers plant the seeds with the help of master gardeners, Westby explains.

During the summer, about 15 children participate in the core program with 12 volunteers and two paid workers, says Diann Anders, Seward Neighborhood Group treasurer. Altogether, about 45 children participate in the spring and summer and are taught both gardening and entrepreneurial skills, Anders explains. She adds that they also teach the children about sustainability.

The garden is a unifying force in the neighborhood, Westby says. He says it brings the ethnically diverse children together for a common cause. The unifying power of the garden is represented by the “Peace Pole,” a pole decorated with, “May peace rain on earth” written in several languages.

Anders says that the garden unifies as well as engages. She says that there is much interest in urban gardening right now and that neighbors are happy to donate their skills. She thinks it creates a sense of ownership in the neighborhood.

“A garden is a visible sign that something is going on,” Anders said.

In the past, Westby says, senior citizens from the high rises in the area were invited to plant in the garden. Now, however, the garden does not have as much free space as it did before. If people want to plant a garden in Seward, Westby adds, they still have an opportunity to do so in the Hub of Heaven, a rent-a-plot garden located at 26th Street and 28th Avenue.

Hub of Heaven, like the Stevens Square gardens, is located on a former abandoned lot. After the house that sat upon it was torn down, the lot was left abandoned because it was too small to rebuild anything.

However, Anders says, “It is the perfect place for a garden.”

Located just two blocks from the Hub of Hell, a corner notorious for bars, employment agencies and check cashing services, Westby says the garden is an example of neighbors reclaiming a space for their own use.

“Its an asset to the neighborhood,” Westby says. “It encourages people to plant a seed, harvest the food and experience the benefits.”

Community gardens deter crime. In purely numeric terms, community gardens mean more people with their eyes on the streets, Skafte says. But more than that, they help residents take an active role in their neighborhood and in their community. They give people a reason to care about what happens.

Both Anders and Skafte comment that the community gardens are a visible sign that something is going on in the community. Whether the purpose of the garden is to produce food or to simply beautify an ugly space with wildflowers and sculptures, community gardens provide visible proof that the neighbors are not quite ready to give up their homes, to surrender their communities to crime and stagnancy. A dying neighborhood is a dangerous neighborhood. A thriving neighborhood is safe. Let’s make community gardens a staple in every major city. Who knows, it could be just the antidote we need to reduce crime!