The Start of the Season
While the Lower Price Hill gardens may still look quiet from the outside, the growing season is already underway.

Earlier this month, despite two weather delays, Community Matters hosted our first garden workshop of the year, Planning Your Garden. This workshop brought our home garden participants together around tables filled with seed packets, planting guides, and notebooks, and gardeners mapped out what they hope to grow this season, including tomatoes, peppers, greens, herbs, and the many crops that will soon fill backyard beds throughout the neighborhood.

For many participants, the workshop is an important starting point. Some gardeners are returning for another season with new ideas and expanded plans. Others are beginning their first year growing food at home. Together, they learn how to plan their garden space, choose crops that grow well in our region, and think through how to care for their plants in the months ahead.

Building the Foundation
At the same time, work has begun in our shared community garden spaces. One of the most exciting early signs of the season came with the delivery of fresh compost to nourish our raised beds. Healthy soil is the foundation of any successful garden, and each year we invest in improving these shared urban spaces so they remain a productive place to grow.

First Signs of Growth
Inside our indoor spaces, trays of seedlings have also begun to take shape. Small, bright green shoots are emerging from carefully planted seeds—the first visible sign of the harvests that will come later this year. Over the next several weeks, many of these seedlings will be distributed to participating gardeners, helping them get their backyard gardens started with strong, healthy plants.

Looking Ahead
While these early-season activities may seem small, they are an essential part of what makes the LPH Community Gardens program possible. Gardens do more than produce food. They create spaces where neighbors learn from one another, share resources, and take collective care of the land around them. In a neighborhood like Lower Price Hill, where access to green space and fresh food can be limited, these gardens function as a form of social infrastructure. They are the places that support connection, learning, and resilience.

Over the coming months, these early preparations will begin to take visible shape across the neighborhood. Raised beds will fill with plants, backyard gardens will begin producing fresh vegetables, and neighbors will gather regularly to tend, harvest, and share what they have grown.

For now, though, the work continues beneath the surface in the soil, in the seedlings, and in the plans gardeners are making for the season ahead. We look forward to sharing more as the gardens begin to grow!