Hello Garden Friends,
Since my last blog entry I was asked,“How does the garden make you feel?” As I began to ponder this question, I felt a wave of warm emotions run through my heart. Quick flashes of some fond memories came rushing to my mind—like the time a young summer camper exclaimed, “Carrots are kindness!” And another memory involving a conversation I had with a neighbor in the community garden one summer afternoon. She shared that the garden was the first thing in her life that ever returned the love she put into it. I also vividly recalled a gardener telling me a story about a conversation he had with a passerby who asked him to look out at the street and tell him what he saw. The litter-filled street, he was currently trying to clean up, was the only thing he noticed. The passerby then asked the gardener to look down at the puddle of oil and water on the sidewalk and he said, “I only see the rainbows.” I also thought about all the food and flowers the garden provides my neighbors and me. And I felt so grateful. This garden brings so many different people together. So my response to this question is: The garden makes me feel loved. It motivates me to want to continue to serve in this special community green space and to appreciate all the people surrounding it.
Over the last few weeks, the community gardeners and I have harvested flowers, pulled lots of weeds and, of course, enjoyed a wide array of fresh produce. As a reminder, folks from The Civic Garden Center will be in The Over the Rhine People’s Garden on Saturday 8/27/2022 at 1:00 PM. They will provide a free class discussing the benefits of composting as well as how to create a small-scale composting site of your own. Hope to see you there!
Garden Club will be getting back together this month! I will be meeting with the high school group next week, and the younger group will be back right after Labor Day. The focus of this youth garden club is: learning how to grow foods and flowers using organic growing methods, building healthy relationships with each other, learning healthy eating habits, and discussing ways to make money from a garden through a flower farming-floristry business model. I am so excited to see everyone!
Wishing everyone peace and love from Over-the-Rhine People’s Garden! We will be back with more updates after Labor Day!
Warmly,
Christina
OTR People’s Garden Site Coordinator
www.theflowerladyotr.com
In 1980, members of the Over-the-Rhine community in Cincinnati, Ohio joined forces with the Civic Garden Center and purchased four vacant lots on East McMicken Avenue which they ultimately transformed into a productive vegetable garden known as the Over-the-Rhine People’s Garden. This historic Over-the-Rhine People’s Garden was the first community garden in Cincinnati and is an excellent example of people coming together to improve a neighborhood.
Beginning in 2014, the Civic Garden Center’s Over-the-Rhine People’s Garden began collaborating with Grow Appalachia and Paul Mitchell the School Cincinnati after the then Admissions Leader and Green Team Leader, Christina Matthews, along with a neighborhood art teacher, Ali Burns, decided to apply for a grant from Grow Appalachia to support the garden. Christina Matthews, personally met with John Paul Dejoria, the CEO of John Paul Mitchell Systems and founder of Grow Appalachia, in Toledo, OH where he agreed to donate $10,000 toward their efforts.
The Over-the-Rhine People’s Garden is Grow Appalachia’s only urban partner site. And although it is located in a neighborhood that continues to see high crime rates, it is viewed by many of the residents as a respite from some of the pressures that exist outside its fences. It is also purported to be the longest continuously active community garden in the country!
Paul Mitchell the School Cincinnati eagerly became involved with the garden as a direct result of the culture established in its schools. The culture of Paul Mitchell’s schools encourages individuals to do more for their community by giving back. The Green Team focus on civic responsibility, recycling etc. Christina Matthews’ vision was to meld the goals of Grow Appalachia, Paul Mitchell Schools and the OTR People’s Garden in an effort to improve the Over-the-Rhine community.
Six years later, the Over-the-Rhine People’s Garden has accomplished more than anyone could have ever imagined—growing approximately 500 to 1,000 pounds of fresh food and flowers per year! More importantly, it provides a space for the community to heal, teach, empower, and feed each other. Just last year the garden offered 17 free garden classes with topics that included cooking, generating income from a small garden plot and building affordable season extensions. Events like these brought 250 new friends and volunteers to the garden in 2019!
Christina Matthews, was so inspired by her years of involvement with Grow Appalachia and the People’s Garden that she resigned from Paul Mitchell Schools in 2016 and launched her own flower-farmer-florist business—The Flower Lady OTR. Now Christina devotes all her time and energy to what she loves—growing a business in conjunction with volunteering her time with Grow Appalachia, The Over-the-Rhine People’s Garden, and in the OTR community. Life is flourishing!
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