Nickerson’s Gardeners Get Their Reward
Crime and the inhumanity of man are oppressive facts of life inside the Nickerson Gardens housing project in South-Central Los Angeles. But heaven help those who mess with the Gardens’ garden.
Since last November, 38 residents of the project have banded together to nurture vegetable plots on a vacant lot on East 115th Street. It was more an act of defiance than of optimism; few of the novice gardeners expected their fragile greens to survive foraging animals, weather hazards and most of all, the petty vandalism of teen-agers and transients.
Five months later, all of those misfortunes have come and gone. To the surprise of the urban farmers, the Vista Hermosa vegetable gardens are a leafy success. The 20 boxed garden plots are already producing a harvest bountiful enough to feed not only the gardeners and their families, but anyone courteous enough to ask for the extras.
‘It Can Be Done’
“It shows you that if you believe in something and you work at it, it can be done,” said Wilma Jean Powns, 46, co-captain of the gardeners, as she stood over her sprouting cabbages in the morning heat.
Powns and her neighbors started with seeds, training and supplies from the End World Hunger organization and Budget Rent-a-Car, which have sponsored urban gardens in other cities. Agriculture advisers from the University of California trucked in rich soil and fertilizer. The project has been such a success that other Nickerson Gardens residents, clamoring to plant their own vegetables, plan to dig 10 new plots by summer.
The gardeners rarely let a day go by without stopping by their redwood-framed plots to pour on some water, transplant crops that are crowded and admire the progress of their produce. “This comes from love,” Powns said.
It also comes from determination. Instead of depending on security fences or stern visits from police and the Los Angeles Housing Authority, the gardeners have spread the word through the neighborhood that their crops are available for the asking, but not for the taking.
“It took awhile for it to sink in, but all the kids and the (gang members) are letting the garden be,” said Tauheedah Karim, 32, who tends a plot dense with carrot and onion stalks and the foliage of broccoli, tomatoes and cauliflower.
The first lines of defense are neighbors like Juanita Randal, who keeps to her porch chair across the street from the gardens because of chronic arthritis. When her neighbors first began digging and seeding last November, Randal sat back and laughingly called them “crazy fools.”
But when children dug in the dirt after the first sprouts appeared last winter, she shooed them away. And when strangers reached out to steal a few vegetables for their evening meals, it was Randal who scolded them.
One morning in January, Randal yelled out to a woman who had stooped down and nervously filled her arms with greens after the gardeners had dispersed. “They looked so good sitting there,” the woman explained. When Randal told her to ask first, the woman said: “There was nobody to ask.” Embarrassed, the woman agreed to “ask next time,” but still left with her booty.
“I still see her around,” Randal said. “Now she just stops to look how the vegetables are doing, but she doesn’t steal anymore.”
Neighborhood children have learned that the vegetables are better grown and eaten than stomped on. A class from the Nickerson Gardens Head Start program shows up several times a week to help the gardeners water, taking turns using a faucet to fill up plastic water jugs.
Jugs are also used as another line of defense. When dogs began rooting through the plants last winter, Wilma Powns remembered an old trick that her grandmother taught her about vegetable gardening. Powns filled the jugs with water and ammonia and left them out for the scavengers.
“We had a few dogs running around sneezing like crazy,” she said with a satisfied laugh. “Dogs ain’t a problem anymore.”
Weather, too, caused havoc when January’s harsh rains washed out eight of the vegetable plots. But like stubborn farmers, the gardeners waited for the water to evaporate and then dug into the earth again and planted new seeds.
While her fellow gardeners stooped over their plots, working fresh dirt under their fingernails, Powns stood erect and smiled. “To see the greens come up and all these people take interest is a remarkable thing,” she said.
“Long as we keep at it, this garden’s going to be here a long, long time.”
