Gardening Program Helps Residents Grow

An urban gardening program has taken root at the county’s Carmelitos public housing project in North Long Beach.

Project residents recently pledged their help in cleaning up an empty lot and replacing it with individual gardening plots and a fruit tree orchard. They also set aside land for county officials to train residents in landscape work.

Officials said they are especially excited about the project’s potential to provide job training. They hope to eventually offer training in landscaping, operating greenhouses and installing irrigation systems.

Community approval of the program was crucial, organizers said.

They said resident support will allow planners to put together a design in time for a groundbreaking ceremony scheduled in January.

“The key to all this is that it’s resident driven,” said 4-H coordinator Ray Grabinski, who works for the Cooperative Extension Program, an agricultural education arm of the county. “Part of the problem of living in a housing project is the lack of a sense of ownership. That’s one of the values of a gardening project.”

County officials think the program will help make the housing project more attractive and will bring residents together. Children in the project’s after-school 4-H club have tended their own gardens since September.

The children’s gardens “make our community look pretty,” said 11-year-old Catrice Bydon, a member of the 4-H club. “I don’t mind getting dirty, as long as it’s for my community.”

In two colorful 4-by-8-foot patches, Catrice and other project youngsters have planted and tended to vegetables and flowers, learning the value of food production and preparation, said Brenda McDuffie, who runs the after-school club.

County organizers say the larger plot across the street from the children’s gardens can do more than teach agriculture.

“We can grow from here,” said gardening program director Rachel Mabie, a University of California urban horticulture adviser who works for the Cooperative Extension Program. “There will be plenty of land left over to do landscaping in the future.”

Once individual plots are assigned to residents, perhaps by early next year, Mabie and other organizers will watch to see if the gardens improve diets and bring residents together. If successful, the program may be duplicated at other county housing projects in East Los Angeles and Lomita.