Let’s shine a light…
…on the garden projects that inspired me and the women who cared enough to do something so useful and so full of love.
There’s some shine also for previous Use Love Garden projects.
Scroll for mo’.
Urban Green Dreams
Dr. Barbara Johnson and Toni Gatlin design, implement, and manage 5 gardens in the Palestine neighborhood of Kansas City, Missouri. If that’s not enough, they are also active speakers and participants in food sovereignty and urban gardening spaces. They deliver information packed presentations helping children situate themselves in a longer history and wider perspective of the land they live on. They bring diverse and culturally nourishing plant life into urban communities for the benefit of those communities. They forge coalitions with similarly aligned neighbor organizations along the way. Their work is a role model for mine, and I’m both stoked and reverent to call Dr. Johnson my Grandma.
You can find their work at the intersection of urban gardening, Afro-ecology, Indigenous ways of being, school gardens, and historical education initiatives.
Learn more about Dr. Barbara Johnson and Toni Gaitlin’s Urban Green Dreams project- http://www.mggkc.org/our-projects/community-projects/urban-green-dreams/.
Ruby Young Garden
Mrs. Patricia Wallace’s garden at Ruby Young Elementary School is the most impressive I’ve ever experienced. It was a blessing to help her out in the 2018-19 school year for her twice-weekly after school garden club.
I brought two different friends to experience and tend to the garden, and both separately expressed the special feelings they got from just being there. Add in the beautiful ordered chaos of school aged children learning about and tending to an extrensive garden like this and you have the stuff of magic.
Read more about Mrs. Wallace’s after school garden program here - https://greensourcedfw.org/articles/urban-farm-environmental-magnet-school-desoto and here http://rubyyounges.desotoisd.org/school_information/school_staff/wallace__patty/garden_news .
USE LOVE Therapeutic Gardening Project
2020-2021
“Earth Connectivity Group” at the Jude House
In June of 2020, I followed one of my infamous urges to stop in at the Jude House, a rehabilitation facility located just behind the extension office where I did my Master Gardener study. I asked about their interest in gardening and if they might have a space where we could carve out a small therapeutic garden for the residents. This is how I met Steve Brown, and seeded the idea for the “Earth Connectivity Group”.
We began meeting at least twice per week with a “garden crew” of residence interested in gardening or simply interested in an opportunity to get outside during what was a very isolated time in the world. I would lead us through whatever visualization and breathing techniques felt supportive at the time, grounding our intentions for our time with the garden before we entered. Then we’d get to work weeding, building, seeding, and tending. It quickly became evident to me that connecting social/emotional needs, especially in the recovering brain, with the Earth’s needs and natural cycles was a match made in heaven.
We weren’t always the best about documenting our progress, but we did grab a few shots and videos along the way. More importantly, our time and connection lives on with me, and I hope with the recovering residence too.
Artifacts :)
Snippets from the 2021 season
“A shorter season of Earth Connectivity Group this year, but seeds were sown and reaped.”
Bless up and big love, E.C.G.
