A cousin had read my post about CityFarm and asked if Dave Goldberg’s vision included something like the Fenway Victory Gardens. For those who aren’t familiar with the Fenway gardens, they comprise over 500 individual plots, each of which are about 15′ by 25′. The plots are available for any Boston resident for $30 for a single plot ($15 for seniors). The plot owner then spends the season tending his plot, providing vegetables or flowers for his own use, and a beautiful space for visitors to walk through.
The gardens are gorgeous and usually combine both vegetables and flowers:
I really like this idea, because it brings a sense of ownership to an otherwise unused bit of land. Perhaps we should start thinking Victory Gardens for every parcel we can’t find a suitable buyer for. We’re in a tough economic climate, the gardens don’t necessarily need to go on for longer than one season, and I can think of at least one parcel of land that would suit this project perfectly.
(Image: vegetable gardens can be beautiful, a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 image from Aria Nadii’s photostream.)
Nicole, Worcester 
Nicole, please don’t laugh, but I DID file an item at least once if not twice about designating parkland that we can no longer care for as community gardens! I think it is a good idea….:-) also, park spirit is the agency to work with on this endeavor….I know we give money every year to support the green house at green hill park
I would love to see this go somewhere and — for those of you who are interested in discussing CityFarm and related ideas further — Dave will be at the Blogger Beer at Vincent’s on Wednesday.
For people who have the time & interest, the REC is looking for volunteers to build the Mill Swan School community garden TOMORROW. Click here for more information.
I often think the city missed an opportunity to expand what was going on at the Mill Street median strip to other gardeners. (For those not familiar with THAT situation, click here, and then read this, this, and this. Every time I drive down Mill Street, I think — goodness, what could we do if we rented out plots along the median to gardeners with talent!)
I really love this idea; I’ve been blown away the times I’ve walked through the Fenway gardens, or the walkway from the entrance of Back Bay Station that leads up to Symphony Hall and there’s a good collection of community gardens and also the ones in the South End. It’s a great way to give kids ownership of their neighborhood as well …
Ditto everyone! All we have is a tiny deck – Husband would love to grow more stuff!