AMERICAN COMMUNITY GARDENING ASSOCIATION
President's message
Remember to put joining an ACGA committee on your fall to-do list. Check out our Volunteer page to find out how you can make a difference. And, if you aren't yet a member, it's time to join. We are stronger and do more good when we grow together. Visit Membership, and join ACGA today! Best of luck to everyone as you work on your fall gardening and organizing tasks.
Cathy Walker, ACGA President
Alabama CG wins national honors
This year, ACGA celebrated our member gardens with a Community Garden Competition. Our Overall Winner, with its strong emphasis on growing food and cultivating strong neighborhood roots, is the Alabama Community Garden in Houston TX. The oldest community garden in Houston, Alabama CG took root in 1985 in Houston’s 3rd ward, a traditionally black neighborhood in a food desert. The garden’s history is celebrated with floor to ceiling photos on the walls of a garden shed. Other winners included (by category): Appearance and Art: The Franklin Park Conservatory Community Garden, Columbus, OH. Sustainability: Westport Garden, Westport, CT. Productivity: Alabama Community Garden, Houston, TX. Community: Alabama Community Garden. Embracing Diversity: Kashabi Osaaposhi (Sharing Garden), Purcell, OK. Deep Roots:(Tie) Liz Christy Community Garden, NY, NY and Alabama Community Garden. Thanks and best wishes to our runners-up, all with excellent programs: Urban Seed, Eastponte, MI, Wagner Farms Arboretum and Gardens, Warren, NJ, and Wrangle Brook Community Garden, Berkeley Township, NJ; and kudos to ACGA Board Member Lara Fahnestock of DUG (Denver Urban Gardens) who championed this inspiring contest. (Photos: Above: Terry Garner of Alabama Community Garden receives good wishes from a young gardener in Houston (photo: Marilu Lopez Fretts); right: The "communications tree" at the prize winning Alabama garden.)
Community gardening questions?
Send a note to
info@communitygarden.org
ACGA is a great place to ask questions and share perspectives about all aspects of community gardening. You can ask us directly via our contact form, buy copies of our annual magazine addressing different community garden topics at our Shop, or visit our Resources page for links and references. Last but not least, you can post your garden or find a garden using our interactive garden map.
ACGA and Gardeners' Supply:
harvesting hope for decades
ACGA thanks our old friends at Gardeners’ Supply for their long support for community gardening, most recently through Gardeners’ Supply’s Harvesting Hope Together program. The company started in Burlington, Vermont, just a couple of years after ACGA was organized in 1979, and we have made common cause many times since. We share a field where we need lots of folks sowing hope! ACGA is inspired by this employee owned and managed business, with its stated goal of spreading “...the joys and rewards of gardening, because garden nourishes the body, elevates the spirit, builds community, and makes the world a better place.” Hear, hear! (Illustration: The Gardener's Supply logo back from the 1980s, just in time for Halloween 2023.)
