Greetings from Cincinnati! With the frost coming early this year, we have already been busy clearing and replanting our garden beds with cool-weather vegetable crops and dragging season extension materials from the shed. Winter is right around the corner!
As we finish up another season, I’m happy to share that it has been one of the best years to-date for The Over-the-Rhine People’s Garden. In 2022 we grew, enjoyed, and shared 604 pounds of food and led 19 free garden-related classes in the garden! The garden is managed by a group of experienced gardeners who have gotten into a groove and established a solid rotation—resulting in a fine-tuned creation. I can’t begin to count the number of people who have commented on how beautiful the garden is—not only from an atheistic perspective, but from an emotional one. It’s been said that it radiates a sense of peace and tranquility. We’re very proud of how this year has gone and we’re looking forward to an even better next year.
Wesley Chapel Mission Center continues to shine as a wonderful community parter for the garden. We created a Garden Club, years ago, with interested students who attend their after-school program and it continues to this day. Participants walk to the garden twice a month, all year round, to learn about growing food, earning money and flower farming. This week the youth and I had a wonderful time getting the garden holiday ready by setting up a real Christmas tree in the garden. We were able to have a tree this year thanks to a generous donation by Nana and Pap’s Christmas Tree Farm. We decorated it with beautiful wildlife-friendly ornaments and the tree is on display at the edge of the garden where everyone in the neighborhood will enjoy it too!
As I end this blog for the 2022 season I am delighted that my entry fell on the week of Giving Tuesday—a global generosity movement highlighting how powerful people can be in uplifting their community. All season long, I have witnessed how this community garden both gives and receives genuine acts of kindness. Please comment below and let us know what you are doing to promote random acts of kindness in your garden.
I truly believe Audrey Hepburn said it best; “To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.” See you next year! I will be back writing blogs in early 2023.
In the meantime, I am wishing you a wonderful holiday and a happy new year!
Peace, Love, Happiness & Flowers,
Christina
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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