Community Garden

Nadine Ford is a native Charlottean who grew up in the Druid Hills neighborhood. Mrs. Ford’s love for growing things began in her early childhood where she lived on a farm and learned gardening from her parents and grandparents. As she grew up, this love for gardening transcended into a desire to help her community through teaching, sharing and growing food. She found the opportunity to follow this dream when in 2009; she obtained permission to revive an untended community garden in Charlotte’s Belmont neighborhood. The garden became a success, reflecting both her spirit and hard work. Nadine Ford was eventually asked to open another garden in her own Druid Hills neighborhood, which she did in 2016. In this interview, Mrs. Ford discusses the history of Charlotte and its inner city, her personal history, and the history of the Little Sugar Creek and Druid Hills gardens. Also, a recent appearance by Mrs. Ford on Charlotte talks with Mike Collins on the topics of “food deserts” and “food insecurity” provides an interesting foundation for this interview, affording Mrs. Ford the opportunity to talk about what was said, and what wasn’t said, about Charlotte’s problems with food access, racism, segregation and displacement. Other topics included in this interview are challenges faced by the gardens, challenges for its volunteer staff, and of the challenges faced by female growers today in particular. Highlights not only include discussions of the growing, donation and distribution of the food from the gardens themselves, but for the opportunities, dialogue, education and advancement provided by those who have volunteered and participated in the gardens growth. Mr. Ford’s descriptions and accounts clearly illustrate the challenges faced by urban farmers and in particular, minorities in the Charlotte region during an era of demographic change and displacement.

[tabby title='Tape Log']

Time	Subject
0:00:11	Beginning of interview
0:01:35	North Carolina Community Garden Partners
0:01:59	Charlotte Talks
0:02:19	Food Deserts
0:02:49	Planned segregation
0:04:17	Charlotte History
0:04:37	Jim Crow
0:05:51	Land sovereignty
0:07:17	Definition of food desert
0:09:19	Labels
0:09:42	Access to food
0:10:32	Independent vs. major grocers
0:12:42	Food Freshness
0:14:17	Mentors
0:16:57	Youth participation
0:18:15	West Charlotte area, I-77 and separation
0:20:37	Displacement
0:21:52	Change in Charlotte demographics
0:22:57	Light rail, bike trails
0:24:27	Family history and farms
0:26:01	Beginning of community gardens
0:27:02	Enlisting help
0:28:07	How the gardens operate
0:28:45	Druid Hills Garden
0:29:53	Plants grown in the gardens
0:31:09	Herbs
0:31:57	Neighboring Gardens and networks
0:33:19	Expansion
0:33:34	Connections
0:34:56	All volunteers, support donations
0:36:03	Youth, radishes and the jail
0:37:37	Food education
0:39:57	Food preparation
0:42:36	Organic foods
0:44:05	Vandalism
0:44:47	Neighbor relations
0:46:37	Challenges for woman in gardening and farming
0:49:07	Lack of major grocers in low income areas
0:51:26	Incentives
0:51:57	Work ethic, fear of failure
0:54:31	Future of gardening

[tabby title='Transcript']

[00:00:12]

>> Adam Hussein: Okay, hi, this is Adam Hussein, I'm a graduate student from UNC Charlotte. Today's date is Thursday, April 18th, 2019. This interview is conducted in the Building at approximate 9:05 AM. I'm here with Nadine Ford of Little Sugar Creek Garden, and we're here to talk about the Queens Garden World History Project, which is through the class of UNCC.

[00:00:42]

The project seeks to collect the stories of those who grow, cultivate, produce and distribute fresh food in the greater Charlotte region. Nadine if you would state for the record your full name for us.

>> Elaine Nadine Ford: Elaine Nadine Ford, but I prefer Nadine.

>> Adam Hussein: Okay, and your age only if you want to.

[00:01:02]

>> Elaine Nadine Ford: 56 years old.

>> Adam Hussein: Okay, and what is your association with, I guess I had Belmont Garden but Sugar Creek Garden?

>> Elaine Nadine Ford: I am the garden manager, I revitalized that garden in 2009 along with staff from Johnson and Wills, and friends from around the city and the county.

[00:01:28]

>> Adam Hussein: And you also part of North Carolina Community Garden Partners?

>> Elaine Nadine Ford: Yes I am a new board member, I've only been on there for about a month, although I've been an active member since their inception.

>> Adam Hussein: And actually I saw that, and that's where I'm gonna start with before I get into other questions, that you were on Charlotte talks with Mike Collins, and if we could talk a little bit about that.

[00:01:54]

>> Elaine Nadine Ford: Sure.

>> Adam Hussein: And could you tell me who was on the panel and what were the main talking points?

>> Elaine Nadine Ford: Okay, so we had Reggie Singleton, who was the founder and executive director of the Male's Place. Dr. Katherine Metzo, who was a past chair of the Charlotte Food Policy Council, and India Solomon, the mobile market manager for the Bald.

[00:02:14]

And the original topic was about food deserts, and food insecurity in Charlotte. And we worked to, once we began talking, we realized that he did four shows previously on the same topic. And he came to more or less the same conclusions and the same topic points, so we intentionally tried to steer it away from the norm to talk about things that aren't normally spoken about, the unspeakables.

[00:02:44]

So you end up in the conversation you heard things such as plant segregation. We talked about sovereignty, land sovereignty. We had a perspective of it coming from the work of community that Charlotte is currently experiencing, but we talked about white supremacy and how a lot of these items go into red-lining.

[00:03:06]

A lot of these items go into making food access hard for some people. We wanted to get into but we didn't have time, actually the history of using food as control when the British used it against the Irish for the Potato Famine. And even when colonizers used it against enslaved people they would often feed the enslaved people that did well more food.

[00:03:31]

And the ones that didn't do so well, they would give them minimal food which was kind of counter-productive because the ones that didn't do well may have been weak due to hunger. So you think that they would have given them better food but they didn't. But so the topic was again, how did Charlotte get to where it is and with the food access and how do we solve it.

[00:03:53]

>> Adam Hussein: Mel, this is your chance to elaborate more to what you didn’t get to say, these topics, I guess he was trying to stick to a narrative but you guys had some points you want to make. So if there’s any you didn’t get to make there this is gonna be in the USCC archives hopefully for 100 years or more, so now’s your chance.

[00:04:12]

>> Elaine Nadine Ford: Well, one of the things that I look at is Charlotte has a fear of its own history. And this is something that I did mention on the show. Tom Hanchett, who is the area specialist on history, wrote a great book that talked about Charlotte history, Sorting Out the New South City Charlotte.

[00:04:28]

And it explained how Charlotte actually started out as a very integrated city, both racially and economically in the First War. Then, when the Jim Crow Laws hit is when Charlotte gave in, went the way of the South and began the segregation. When you looked at Charlotte make up, you will see you have that Meyer's Park, Eastover wedge.

[00:04:50]

And he talked about how that was formed, which was basically, people from out of town wanted to invest in Charlotte. Well the planners would guide them to this wedge. This is the wedge they wanted to develop for their well to do, and it allowed the outlying areas to come what may, become ghetto, so to say.

[00:05:08]

So that was the planned segregation. Then you had the area's Second War, which was a prosperous black neighborhood. It was deemed, right after the Jim Crow laws, the city planners decided they didn't want black people living there. So it didn't happen until the 1960s, and then when it happened, the area was repainted 1960s, 1970s, when the area was torn down, it was repainted as being a ghetto.

[00:05:35]

Well, my grandmother lived there, and I can promise you she did not live in the ghetto. It was a very mixed income neighborhood that was very prosperous. So we want to talk about that, we also just want to talk about land sovereignty, about the fact that when the land was being divided, you had state colleges that would give white farmers land to grow food, and wouldn't give black people lands to grow food.

[00:06:05]

So right then and there you start with this food inequity situation. And that's one of the things people don't talk about. They always want to talk about, well how do we get to food here and now? Well let's go back and look at what happened? How do we get here?

[00:06:19]

Because until you know your history you can't move forward with your future, so.

>> Adam Hussein: So you need to do that to get to the root of the problem, you can't do your thing, you just can't bring food in and solve the problem.

>> Elaine Nadine Ford: No you can't, and that's what a lot people try to do.

[00:06:32]

I liken it to swapping hogs. You just go in, throw food at the hogs the hogs will eat it. And people tend to think if you just go in and throw food at people who don't have it they're going to eat it but it's much more than that.

[00:06:46]

You have to look at hows and you have to look at medical, you have to look at what is missing from this neighborhood that doesn't have versus this neighborhood that has, and where is that balance? You wanna treat those that don't have with as much dignity and respect as you do those that do have.

[00:07:04]

And again, these are things that when we talk about the topic of food access, even when you look at the definition of food desert, and this is what I told Mike. Technically it doesn't, it's so nebulous, it makes no sense. A food desert is described by the FDA as an area that lacks food.

[00:07:21]

And that the nearest grocery store, I've seen it from being half a mile in distance to being a mile in distance. So it depends on where you're looking. But, and as I also told Mike, when I grew up in an area that was called a food desert, I never knew I was in a food desert until the Food Positive Council started up 10, 15 years ago here in Charlotte.

[00:07:45]

And then I kept hearing this term. Food desert, you live in a food desert. I never went hungry. I don't know of any neighbors that went hungry, because we had that sense of community. If somebody fell upon hard times then the rest of the neighborhood got together to help them out until they made it through.

[00:08:02]

And it wasn't so much a handout, because it may be if Mr. Martin fell on hard times, well, he's a bricklayer. So while we may,

>> Elaine Nadine Ford: Feed him, he would come by and do some brick work for my father, or something. So it was that sense of community, but we don't look at it like that.

[00:08:19]

We want to honestly look at these organizations that come in, well, we're gonna have a food drive. We're going to give food, but then when you're gone, what's going on?

>> Adam Hussein: So the desert is not so much that people couldn't find food and are starving, is it more like access to healthy foods?

[00:08:36]

>> Elaine Nadine Ford: To me the term food desert is more of a have and have-not situation. I'm going to tell you that you live in a food desert, and I'm going to tell you that you need to do this, that and the other. So it's control, I'm telling you what your situation is, as opposed to, and this is one of the biggest problems we have.

[00:08:58]

We don't listen to the voices that are in there. So by you telling me I live in a food desert, you're setting me up for almost a psychological warfare. What do you mean I live in a food desert? My god, I'm less than? So it's more than just about food.

[00:09:11]

Like I said, when they started saying that, I'm like, what are you talking about? We've always had food.

>> Adam Hussein: So it's just a label.

>> Elaine Nadine Ford: It's just a label and it's designed by outsiders.

>> Adam Hussein: Well, since we're talking about that and fresh food, tell me a little bit about the problems in not having access to fresh and healthy food.

[00:09:37]

>> Elaine Nadine Ford: Well, and then again, you have to look at what's the definition of access? Because now I mean there are so many ways, you can grow your own food. You can get with a neighbor and do a neighbor garden. I don't want to say community garden because that's confusing.

[00:09:54]

You have delivery services, Amazon will deliver food within two hours if you get the subscription. And sometimes, I wanna say and I'll go back to look to see that they even discount it for people who have a marginal income. You have Uber or Lyft, (I won't take Uber) so you could call and say, hey can I get a car to go to the grocery store?

[00:10:18]

So what is that concept of access, now what do they mean? And back in the old days when I was a kid, you just got out there and walked to the grocery store. So in my neighborhood there are two grocery stores, that's probably from my house. One is less than a mile, the other one might be two miles at the most.

[00:10:42]

But the city says I live in a food desert, because they're not major grocery stores. They're not major, they're not a Publix or a Harris Teeter or an Aldi's. So again, why is that definition? What does the concept of a major grocery store have to do versus the store in my neighborhood is Wayne's.

[00:11:02]

It has all of the same material as a Food Lion, but because it's not a Food Lion, I live in a food desert

>> Adam Hussein: So you don't really feel there's a difference in these independent grocers as far as what food you can get being healthy. Or so forth versus a Harris Teeter or a Food Lion, or anything?

[00:11:23]

>> Elaine Nadine Ford: No, only difference may be the prices

>> Elaine Nadine Ford: May be a little bit more expensive because they don't have that bulk buying. You may not get the freshest of the fresh, but it's not inedible. It's not gonna be as pretty, and that's one thing also with Americans, is that we're used to the pretty fruit.

[00:11:46]

I went the other day, I was at a Harris Teeter, had to get some food. And they had bananas on sale for $1, the bananas that they wanted to get rid of quickly because they don't look pretty. So I grabbed them and said I'll put them in the freezer for my smoothies.

[00:12:02]

When I started peeling them, to take the skins off, the banana part was fine. The skin was a little mottled up, but the bananas weren't bruised, I mean, they were great. But again, because Americans are trained, I want that pretty yellow Chiquita banana, I don't want one that has spots on it.

[00:12:22]

So the food that is still good, but it was gonna go to waste.

>> Adam Hussein: Have you seen the opposite, where you get the food that looks wonderful on the outside. And it's probably come from another country, South America or something by the time it gets here,. And they've made it look pretty, they've coated it or whatever.

[00:12:39]

>> Elaine Nadine Ford: And it has no flavor, so tomatoes, for instance, I'm a Southern, and I know when tomato season is here and when it's not. But we've gotten to where we have access to tomatoes 24/7, and if you look at the nutritional value of some of these tomatoes. They don't have any, because they're just like the chickens.

[00:13:01]

You go out and when I was a kid a six-month-old chicken wasn't but yea big. Now a six month old chicken about the size of a emu, because they pump it up, but it has no flavor, it has no nutritional value. Same thing with all this food you get, they grow it fast, they grow it in a sterile environment, so to say.

[00:13:18]

In that the soil doesn't they have the

>> Elaine Nadine Ford: The germs, the microbes that give it flavor, so you get this beautiful tomato, it has no flavor. Apples, sometimes I'll get, if it's off-apple season, but I really just want an apple. And I don't get a North Carolina apple, it has no flavor, so avocados.

[00:13:48]

So it's, yeah, you can get food and it will be pretty, but it won't have flavor. It's off season, it probably won't have much nutritional value, but that's the way we're being trained.

>> Adam Hussein: Going back to the interview, one topic that was interesting was the mentorship for the young men.

[00:14:11]

Being involved in growing and producing food, I thought that was really interesting. Could you elaborate a little bit on that?

>> Elaine Nadine Ford: Yeah, so that's Reggie Singleton's project and it started out of the Health Department, the Males Place. He started in 2009, and they have a garden in Fred Alexander Park over off of.

[00:14:34]

It's on McAllister, it's over off of Beatties Ford Road. And he takes the gentlemen from age 12 to 18, basically his program is to break that prison pipeline. So he teaches these young men how to be men, how to take care of their family. One of the aspects of it is growing food, he's teaching them how to reclaim our heritage of being farmers.

[00:14:59]

Southern heritage, black heritage, but just being farmers, they are broken up into tribes. In each tribe the gentlemen are called warriors, so each tribe has a section of the garden that they tend to. And they bless the garden with a opening day, they harvest, they work this garden with the crops, with the seeds.

[00:15:25]

Then they have a harvest day and then they have a closing day. And they'll present at farmers markets, they'll sell at the farmers market and all of the money they raise goes to a big event. So this year they're going to Cuba in June, so all the food that they raise and they sell will go to that event.

[00:15:45]

So it gives these guys that may normally not have a chance to get out and see the world, it gives them a chance to go out. They've gone to South Africa, like I said they'll go to Cuba, they'll do volunteer work over there. They'll look at gardens over there, or the agriculture so they can bring these things back and tie everything together.

[00:16:06]

>> Adam Hussein: That sounds like an amazing program.

>> Elaine Nadine Ford: It is, and they're great guys, for instance But I've known Reggie, we've started at the health department, so I've known him for a while in this program. But, they will come out because he is about letting these young men learn how to give back.

[00:16:22]

They come out to Magaluf, Sugar Creek and Tilburg with this little tiller, and it took them about half a day to get it rolled on but again, to get to learn how to give back. They've gone to the elders' houses and done lawn care for them, cut the grass and clean up.

[00:16:38]

So he is making these young men fitting into society or to make sure that they are a benefit to society, and that society benefits them as well.

>> Adam Hussein: Now, how's the participation? It's seems like the incentive to be able to give back and also to make impact other places in the world, would be a great incentive for the participation in the program.

[00:17:02]

>> Elaine Nadine Ford: It's very well attended. He has a lot of neighborhood support. So he has the young men coming, he has their parents participating. He gets the elders from around the neighborhood, elected officials often will stop by. So it's very prosperous, and it's a great program. It is a hidden treasure, people are starting to find out about it now.

[00:17:26]

But it is one of Charlotte's truly hidden jewels.

>> Adam Hussein: And actually, that's the first, when I listen to the, Mike Collins it was the first time I heard about that, I said wow what a great opportunity, not only travel another country but when you're learning about producing food, and you're going to another country, and you're sharing that with somebody else.

[00:17:46]

I thought that was awesome when I heard that.

>> Elaine Nadine Ford: Yeah, it's a great program.

>> Adam Hussein: Now going back to another topic. So you're talking about the divide, racism that actually created the inequality in the first place. Couple things I ran into also talking to people in and the Lockwood project that I was involved with, also had mentioned that when they built 77, that was a dividing line.

[00:18:11]

Just give me your thoughts on that.

>> Elaine Nadine Ford: So, when the whole area was, sorry about that. The.

>> Elaine Nadine Ford: Drip Hills Lincoln Heights, Newland Road, that whole west Charlotte area was hugely connected. And this is a pattern across the country.

>> Elaine Nadine Ford: For some odd reason, the government gets concerned when like-minded people that they don't want to have together get together.

[00:18:55]

So for instance, you had at one point where during the Jim Crow years, the progressive white people and the black republicans got together, so when the democrats were the client. And then they got to they start saying, hey look, these are some things we need to do to fix.

[00:19:13]

So, once the democrats saw that, and they knew they didn't want these people in power, they developed a method to separate them, with the same last ten come up now. Well, to the progressive whites who are usually lower income and does all the black people don't take your jobs.

[00:19:33]

To the black people I don't know what was I said but, it was enough to put that wedge in there. And then even with blacks from being Republican over to Democrats, things were being said that my father was Republican. And by the time I came up the boat, there was no being a black republican was not, being a republican was not a thing because it was no longer for black people.

[00:20:00]

Same thing with 77, you have this great industrial area with Charlotte, and in other to from what I was always told, in order to quelch some of that power, they did. They came through and they put 77 right through the black side of town. And when, for what reason, just to, I mean you look at it, it just goes through all the black neighborhoods.

[00:20:25]

So-

>> Adam Hussein: What about, in relation to that, what about the gentrification and the light rail line now?

>> Elaine Nadine Ford: Well, and I don't use the word gentrification, I call it displacement because that's what happened. So, if you want to look at that even that topic in itself. What's going on in Charlotte right now, is housing is very hot the price of housing is very high.

[00:20:49]

You have the young man transplants what we wanna come, come in and they're fine if they can't afford these higher in neighborhoods. So they still have a decent amount of money, so they're moving into what are now the lower end black neighborhoods. Well, physics, two objects and they occupy the same space at the same time.

[00:21:14]

So by them going out and buying the black neighborhoods, they're displacing the black people. Or, I'm not going to say black people, the lower income people. Because some of them are white too and brown. So that's one step. And Charlotte to me has always, well not has always.

[00:21:32]

But since, I remember shift being world insurance came down, that's when Charlotte went from being a southern town to actually losing its identity. And now it seems to me its hooked on being young. So, its doing everything it can to populate this younger generation, its like in Logan's Run, when everybody hit 30.

[00:21:56]

They buzzed him off, they killed him. I tell people, [LAUGH] Charlotte could do that. I really do. I think once you hit 30, they will get rid of you. So in the Lockwood community which actually started out as a White neighborhood, Lockwood, I think Heights, all these neighborhoods Benefitted from the work being done at what is now Camp Norfin when it was the Model T Ford factory.

[00:22:25]

So there were red-lined neighborhoods which meant that black people could not purchase a house in that area, but once the Model T Ford Company closed down these people, Were out of jobs, so they moved out, which opened up these neighborhoods for black people to move in.

>> Elaine Nadine Ford: So what was the question?

[00:22:46]

[LAUGH] I got sidetracked. We were talking about, gentrification.

>> Adam Hussein: Yes.

>> Elaine Nadine Ford: And 77.

>> Adam Hussein: Yes.

>> Elaine Nadine Ford: And the light rail. So now the light rail is coming through, but the light rail is a little more glitzy. It's cool and it's hip, so it's gonna go and serve that population, it's gonna serve the hip and cool population.

[00:23:08]

If you even look at the Carolina trail, trail, trail, the bike trail. That doesn't go through, you'd think it would go through lower income neighborhoods so that people can hop on it. And get the places now is again it's going into the higher end glitzy neighborhoods. Charlotte will destruct or what I've seen is there's a lot of destruction, but there's not a lot of repair.

[00:23:34]

Okay?

>> Adam Hussein: Make sense.

>> Elaine Nadine Ford: [LAUGH]

>> Adam Hussein: It does. it does and I can see why the special people working down town wanna live near the, The rail line in our situation I have one of my sons has actually learned that he's renting a place that's by the light rail he works downtown and he thinks he's it..

[00:24:03]

>> Elaine Nadine Ford: Yeah and its expensive. Yeah.

>> Adam Hussein: Okay, yep. So, let's go towards the questions but more towards yourself.

>> Elaine Nadine Ford: Okay.

>> Adam Hussein: And how you got involved in this And I guess if you could begin with your history about how you learned about growing food and things.

>> Elaine Nadine Ford: Like I said a few times, probably, I'm from Charlotte.

[00:24:26]

My maternal grandmother grew up on a self-sustaining farm. The only time they left the farm was to get sugar and fabric. So she taught my mom and my aunts, my uncles, excuse me, how to grow food. My dad's mom was a herbalist and she was also a gardener.

[00:24:44]

So she taught him how to grow food. With all of that influence around me, I had no choice but to learn how to grow food. If I was really into it, I probably could have learned how to butcher a hog and choke a chicken. But I was like, no.

[00:24:58]

[LAUGH] We okay with that. You passed on that. I passed on that. Or strangle a chicken. So it was the norm in my family for everybody to have even just a little garden. It didn't have to be big, but to always be in the soil.

>> Adam Hussein: So you each had your own little patch?

[00:25:17]

>> Elaine Nadine Ford: At the house, everybody had to help my mom with her garden. And then, as we grew up and went our separate ways, everybody still has just a little, it might be like three tomatoes. But it's just something about putting plants in the ground and growing things that's edible.

[00:25:41]

I think my niece, because my nephew just started his garden. She just got her house so she'll probably start hers this year. But I think it's something in our blood. So with that being said, I've always grown food. Just in a small scale for me. The way the garden came about, I was a health inspector.

[00:26:02]

So I saw food out there and I just saw food out there in ways that being a health inspector you just see food. Then I switched over to solid waste, waste reduction. And after a couple years, first, I worked with businesses to encourage them to recycle. Then an opportunity came up for me to do organic waste reduction, gardens.

[00:26:27]

And I was driving around one day looking at the community gardens, and I saw the one in the Belmont neighborhood, North Alexander Street, that was abandoned. So I reached out to Park and Rec and was literally like hey, you got this piece over here, can I have it?

[00:26:42]

And they were like yeah, because nobodies doing anything with it. So I reached out to Don who's my mentor and I said hey, I got this great opportunity to open up this community garden. Can you help me out because this was bigger than my backyard garden. He told me some in and outs, some things to do.

[00:27:00]

We started enlisting people, like I said, just from the area. Not so much from the Belmont neighborhood, but just from around. And hey, let's go ahead and do this, let's grow some stuff. Totally independent of that, Johnson and Wells chefs reached out to me because they wanted to do, what we had at the time, a master composters program.

[00:27:18]

Which was a 40 hour program that taught you how to compost and how to teach others to compost. They asked if they could do it. But their work schedule only allowed them to do it on weekends, Saturday mornings. I said, you know what? This is great. We can do it a hands-on approach.

[00:27:33]

We'll spend four hours in the garden every Saturday. The first hour will be dedicated to education and the next three will be working to revitalize our garden. So we did that. We knew we didn't want to rent the plots to people, we wanted to have a communal feel to it.

[00:27:51]

You come, you work, you harvest, you eat. And that's how it started out, so even now, we don't rent plots. You come in, we have a punch list every Saturday of things that need to be done. You decide what it is you can do and what you can't do.

[00:28:08]

If you only know how to pull weeds, then you pull weeds, but you'll learn how to plant seeds. You'll learn how to harvest. You'll learn how to identify issues going on. Our goal is get you in there and then to teach you. And then if you decide that you want to do it on your own and you wanna do a home plot, that's fine.

[00:28:30]

At least now, you have the tools and the knowledge to get it going. So it's one of three communal plots, I think in Charlotte, of communal gardens. The other one is Druid Hills, which we just started that one, three seasons ago. It's in the Druid Hills neighborhood and that's a communal garden, people come in and help with it.

[00:28:56]

>> Adam Hussein: How big are the gardens?

>> Elaine Nadine Ford: Little Sugar Creek is 960 square feet. It used to be a house and what's pretty cool is the fella that used to live there, he's a older guy. He's like 80 something years old. He came by one day two years ago and we see this guy walking around.

[00:29:14]

We're like, can we help you? And he was with his wife and they just happened to be in the neighborhood and he wanted to see whatever happened to his old home. And so that felt good because he approved of it. He's like I like what you're doing with the property.

[00:29:28]

It's like thank you. And the Druid Hills has 15 plots, it's raised beds. Eight by four raised beds, so it's 15 of those. Little Sugar Creek is laid out in ground as production, whereas Druid Hills is more your traditional community garden with the wooden beds.

>> Adam Hussein: And what kind of plants are you growing?

[00:29:50]

Do you grow the same ones at both places?

>> Elaine Nadine Ford: Yes and no, because of land restrictions. Druid Hills is more your traditional tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, beans, flowers, I'm trying to think what else we've got. We do okra over there, that's Druid Hills, whereas Little Sugar Creek is a little more exotic.

[00:30:23]

So we'll have okra, corn, peanuts, sweet potatoes, eggplants, peas of sesame seeds. I'm trying to think of what's on the list of stuff. I would say everything from Druid Hills would have come from Little Sugar Creek but not everything that's at Little Sugar Creek will be at Druid Hills, I think I said it right.

[00:30:56]

Everything at Druid Hills, we run at Little Sugar Creek outside of Bacchus. But not everything at Little Sugar Creek can be grown at Druid Hills. That was it.

>> Adam Hussein: Having an herbalist in your history, do you grow anything from that influence?

>> Elaine Nadine Ford: We do, we have medicinal plots.

[00:31:14]

So we have St. John’s wort, dill. You can use the dill seeds and mix it with honey to help with internal issues. Peppermint. We have obviously peppermints and spices. Trying to think what else we have going on out there. We have a lot of stuff.

>> Adam Hussein: I know you've networked obviously with other people with some of the same goals and things you have.

[00:31:48]

Are there any other neighboring gardens that are close by yours that you work with or exchange ideas and so forth?

>> Elaine Nadine Ford: So this is one of the cool things about Charlotte, the community gardens scene is very connected. We work with Belmont, the Belmont community garden which is part of Charlotte Greens.

[00:32:04]

Charlotte Greens is the oldest urban or inner city garden association in Charlotte. So they have the Belmont neighborhood, community garden, Willmore. Bethlehem Center, Genesis Park, two more. The rose place that's in North Davidson, the rose shop that's right by the cat station. Anyway, they have a community garden there.

[00:32:38]

Or they help with the roses over there. So, Sissy Schoal used to be the head over that. I think she retired so now it's Anna somebody. I haven't spoken with Anna in a while. But I work with them. Of course with Reggie. When we started out, we did a lot with Urban Ministries and Hope Haven.

[00:32:58]

I just left Assurance Sharing Garden at Assurance Methodist up near Huntersville, so yeah, we have quite a few.

>> Adam Hussein: Do you have any plans? You're involved with these two. Are you expanding beyond these once you get them established?

>> Elaine Nadine Ford: If people want, I'll come out and help download, I forgot about downloading.

[00:33:26]

So probably, but our thing is not just to supply food, but it's also to build a connection. Our biggest pride is that we get a lot of people that may never associate with each other in real life or outside the garden, but once you come into the garden, everybody's equal.

[00:33:47]

I mean we've got Trump lovers and we've got complete Obama lovers. And we start working the soil, and there are no issues and no problems. We're concentrating on getting these plants to grow. So it's these kind of things that we love to see, that sense of unity and community.

[00:34:11]

>> Adam Hussein: So you would say growing food brings people together?

>> Elaine Nadine Ford: It does, mm-hm. You're growing the food and being in the soil. I think more so being in the soil because half the time we're pulling weeds. And we're pulling weeds and we're chit chatting and joking. So it's just the connection back to the earth.

[00:34:31]

>> Adam Hussein: I will say pulling weeds by yourself is boring.

>> Elaine Nadine Ford: My Lord. Yeah.

>> Adam Hussein: So if you've got an interesting conversation going to be pulling weeds, then no problem, no problem. You do say everybody's a volunteer. There are no paid employees, everybody's a volunteer.

>> Elaine Nadine Ford: Everybody volunteers. We've been fortunate enough that we don't even really pay for our material.

[00:34:54]

Our seeds, we pay but usually we'll catch donations. We'll have gardeners that may grow too many. We have one woman, Holmes, that lives up in Davidson. She's been great. She loves to grow and she always has a surplus. So she will bring us her surplus of plants. We have another woman, Shannon, that's a realtor.

[00:35:17]

If she has too many seeds, she'll give me a call, hey, I got too many seeds. Friendship Trace Community Garden has been a really big supporter with seeds. The jail north on Spectrum Drive has a horticulture program that they've supported us since we started. And they are part of the 4H program ag extension.

[00:35:36]

So a lot of people want to see us succeed and they help us out immensely.

>> Adam Hussein: Yeah, and actually I was gonna ask you about that. Where do people hear about it, and where do you get them from? Actually I did read something about the jail. The Sheriff's department had a program that was really successful in getting them to come out and help out there.

[00:36:03]

>> Elaine Nadine Ford: Yep, they will, they grow the plants. And one of the coolest things ever was, I guess this was our third year. We partnered with the Trinity Principle. Lots of little kids and we picked up some radish from the jail. Which, radish is very hard to transplant because it's a root crop.

[00:36:24]

So I'm teaching the children how to, you don't want to disturb it. You basically want to put the whole plot of soil Into the soil and hopefully the radish will take. Well, it did, and they sent back the greatest emails or letters, handwritten letters to the inmates. And those guys they were beaming because here they are in jail, being looked upon by society cuz you're in jail.

[00:36:48]

You serve no purpose in life. But with them growing them radish seeds, they were able to feed families, that weren't their own. No, they couldn't do directly for their own family. But here, they were able to feed a whole grade of children and their parents. So it's like yeah, you do have a purpose in society in that you're feeding folks.

[00:37:13]

You're giving these people a chance to taste real homegrown food. And usually, when we talk about that, folks automatically think, when we talk about feeding folks. Well, they're poor people, we gotta feed poor people. No, I have met people that have really nice six figure incomes, and their pantries look like crap.

[00:37:33]

So, and that was one of the things that I mentioned on Mike Collins' show is that we've lost that sense of education. You can have all the food in the world, we can put food everywhere. But if you don't know how to cook it and you don't know how to prepare it, that's just like me giving you a Maybach, you don't know how to drive.

[00:37:50]

Here's the keys, a tank full of gas and you don't even know how to turn the car on. What good is it gonna do you?

>> Adam Hussein: And actually that was actually one of my other questions I had coming up. So since you mentioned the importance of the education, you were touching on that, touching a little more about the importance of education, and I guess accomplishment.

[00:38:10]

And doing good and all the other benefits of education. Could you expand a little bit more on that?

>> Elaine Nadine Ford: Well, if you don't know where you come from, you don't know where you're going. And like I said, one of the things that I've noticed is when we give food to people, and we're dying to say, you want some cucumbers?

[00:38:29]

Cucumbers, I don't know what to do it. And I do have a tendency to come from a place of need, so I'm, well, what do you mean you don't know what to do with it? You peel it, you put it in some vinegar, and you eat it. But to think, you're so disconnected from your food supply that you don't know what to do with a cucumber, which again, that's kind of obvious.

[00:38:50]

So if you can't handle a cucumber, then I don't expect you to really be able to handle collard greens. And maybe I see people with so nutritional, and that their diets are like mostly fruits. Well, that's gonna spike your blood sugar. You have to put nuts in there.

[00:39:07]

Or they'll cook collard greens until they're just all the nutrition's in the pot liquor. And they don't know what to do with the pot liquor. But it is an education of how to harvest the food, how to prepare the food, how to preserve the food. You don't want to just,

[00:39:27]

>> Elaine Nadine Ford: Take, I don't know, say, potatoes. You can freeze potatoes but you wanna blanch them first to make sure the sugar and everything is out, I guess. I don't know why you blanch them. I just know to blanch them.. But people don't know how to do that anymore, so they go to the alternative which is all fast food.

[00:39:47]

>> Adam Hussein: Now is that, not just growing it, but is that preparation thing part of the education?

>> Elaine Nadine Ford: Yes, we have one woman that's awesome, Hilda. She's from Jamaica. And their eating patterns are totally different from ours. So I would say they're almost more natural, or hers are. So she'll come in and she'll tell us, okay, this is how you wanna do.

[00:40:14]

She cooks, she grows callaloo, which is a green. All right so this is how you wanna do callaloo. You don't cook it until it's really soggy. In the beginning, because we have the four chefs, they would bring in all these really cool things. And well, this how you cook everything.

[00:40:29]

One chef, Chef Ellsworth, everything was sauteed with garlic and olive oil. That was her answer for everything. Just sautee it with garlic and olive oil and you'll be fine. Okay. So we do teach preparation. And what we don't know, because some things you know but you don't know how to explain it.

[00:40:48]

I would send to Kristen Davis who works for NC Cooperative Extension. And because that's what she does, that's her job is local foods and local food preservation and preparation. So we use resources, and we've got people, again, because that's part of education. I don't want you to think that I know everything.

[00:41:09]

I want you to get out there and talk to others. And find out, on a collaborative, find out what, a collective, what everybody knows. And then use common sense to filter out what you need and what you don't need.

>> Adam Hussein: That makes sense, definitely makes sense. Knowledge is power.

[00:41:29]

>> Elaine Nadine Ford: And read up. I have my volunteers when I send out a e-list, I have books that I'll suggest to them. Or if I see a really good article, I'll send it to them because that's how a lot of myths. People think, for instance, with community gardens that if you go into a low income area, you put a community garden that your food access problem is solved.

[00:41:47]

But it's not because it's a lot of work. You have to, if you're a single parent with three kids, with stair step kids, you don't really have time to go to a plot, turn that soil over. You may not be lucky enough to get free plants, so you have to go and buy plants.

[00:42:05]

You have to go and buy seeds. You may have to pay a rental fee for that plot. You have to go out there and water that plot. Or if a storm comes you have to wonder what's going on or if I have plants. So it's a lot of work and they're not going to be concerned with that, so.

[00:42:23]

>> Adam Hussein: And talking about the healthy food, and you mentioned earlier about organic. Do you guys- No. That's not?

>> Elaine Nadine Ford: No, because it's to me, organic it's become a label that, it's just, I think it's something you pay for. I mean, you have to jump through the hoops to get it, but at the end of the day, what does it really mean?

[00:42:59]

We grow our food eco-friendly, which means we companion plant. We pick bugs off with our hands and put them in a box of soapy water. The only time we use chemicals is if we have hornets. And we will pull out the hornet spray and take them down. But for the most part, we have volunteers out there, we didn't need anything else.

[00:43:24]

We don't need any RoundUp, we go pull weeds.

>> Adam Hussein: And that's part of what they call, there's a difference of being organic certified and just trying to be as organic, I guess that would be natural as possible. And that sounds like that's what you're doing anyway. So it's just not certified organic.

[00:43:40]

>> Elaine Nadine Ford: Well, like they say, our grandparents ate organic food but it was never called organic.

>> Adam Hussein: That's true, that is true. Okay, and let's see. This is a hacker's question and a questionnaire. It's have you experienced any acts of vandalism or setbacks at your gardens?

>> Elaine Nadine Ford: We have, but we're part of a park.

[00:44:07]

So we had somebody go in one day, break into our shed and steal all of our tools. Okay, it happens. It was covered on the news, and people came and helped us out. So we had somebody, that was at Little Sugar Creek. We had somebody cut the fence, break into the shed, and stole a bunch of tables that we had.

[00:44:31]

It's all okay, it happens. You just know that they needed it for some reason and they got it. That's okay.

>> Adam Hussein: How about the neighbors around your gardens, how do they feel about having the gardens there?

>> Elaine Nadine Ford: The one in Belmont is in heavy displacement and change, so it’s different.

[00:45:00]

We’ve got a different set of neighbors. So the first, when it was in transition, actively going through it, the neighbors were actually happy to see the land being used because it brought a sense of calm to the area. Now we got a lot more dog walkers, and to me it seems almost as if the neighbors are a little more disrespectful in that we've actually had them allow their dogs to poop on our plots.

[00:45:33]

We have plots outside the fence that we would use to feed people when we weren't there. Well, because they keep letting them use them as bathrooms, we've just converted them to flower beds. So it's kind of irritating in that sense. Druid Hills, the neighbors didn't originally want the garden.

[00:45:51]

They wanted a fountain, because it's an older neighborhood. It's either, it's mixed, old or young. And the with this. So they wanted a fountain. But because it was a low income area, they were like, well, we're gonna give you a community garden. And they didn't want the community garden, and so they don't mess with the community garden.

[00:46:09]

We have, I have three or four, three. I have three ladies that help me with it, and we just bring groups in to do the big stuff, so.

>> Adam Hussein: Speaking of ladies, there's actually another student in my class wanted us to ask this question cuz she's studying the angle of women and farming.

[00:46:30]

And we're asking, are there any unique challenges that women face in the food growing industry?

>> Elaine Nadine Ford: Well, outside of, now I'll get this stereotype. If I'm in the garden, and we laugh about this, we have a white guy, Kurt, that's been there for a few years. When people come, they automatically go to him, start asking questions.

[00:46:59]

And he'll kinda look at them and he'll let them ask the questions. And then he'll point, well, she's the one you need to ask. And without fail, they'll look like what, what? So there is a stereotype that even with the term garden, I think if I would actually call it an urban farm, people would freak out.

[00:47:20]

Garden, we can say, it's a garden, okay? So okay, it's a lady thing. But with a farm, yeah, because people don't expect that it's not a woman's job even though we are making strides there. It's still looked upon as a white man's territory.

>> Adam Hussein: It's interesting you said that because there was an interview I listened to, and the man, and the farmer and his wife are both in the interview.

[00:47:46]

And she would interject at places. And then basically at the end she basically she wanted to have her piece cuz the questions, I guess she felt like she was left out, whatever. She said her piece at the end. She said, don't forget about me. I support him. I'm the one that takes care when he's not here and I'll support stuff.

[00:48:08]

So it's the same thing, that we were so focused on the man that we forget about Forget about the wife or the woman being able to do just as much and we're a fair partner in the operations.

>> Elaine Nadine Ford: And that's if you look at most cultures, the women are the ones that grow the food.

[00:48:28]

And if you again, if you research the history even of America, Southern rural gardens, that was what the women did, but- It's just a perception that we have.

>> Adam Hussein: Okay, let me go back to a couple questions actually.

>> Adam Hussein: Back to what we talked about earlier in the interview, what you wanna talk about with the Mike Holmes interview.

[00:48:59]

Why don't you think the major grocery stores don't wanna open up branches in their areas yet, in these areas?

>> Elaine Nadine Ford: Well from what I was told, grocery stores don't make a lot of money off of their food. They make a lot of money off of the, I don’t know the exact term but the paper towels, the cigarettes and the non perishable items.

[00:49:24]

So, if you put a grocery store and they also wanna look at home ownership. These are the reasons they've always given us. We can't get a store in the Druid Hills neighborhood, because we don't have any area that has adequate parking. We don't have enough home ownership. We don't have a high enough income.

[00:49:52]

But yet we have a brewery, that is as big as a grocery store that has ample parking. If we had nice walking trails, we wouldn't need the parking because we could walk to the store to get what we need. So we wouldn't have to drive there. But yeah, from what I understand it's just that the grocery stores don't make their money off of selling food.

[00:50:19]

So I guess if you're not gonna sell food, why go into an area that needs food?

>> Adam Hussein: So I guess it's all about profit.

>> Elaine Nadine Ford: It's about profit, but at the same time that whole and this is what was mentioned yesterday, was the city could give incentives to independent growers.

[00:50:36]

There's tons of stories even Talley's Green Groceries which was over in off of East Boulevard, they kept their overhead low by buying in bulk. So if you wanted beans, you went in with your container and you pulled the bulk of beans. So they didn't have to worry about packaging or things like that.

[00:51:00]

Another there's a co op and I don't remember where it was or where it is. It's the same concept, if you want eggs, they get the flat of eggs, 2,000 in the case. If you want eggs, you go in with your egg holder or your egg carton of 12 carton.

[00:51:17]

And you pull the eggs from the bulk of the eggs. So if they can give just somebody or group of people in citizens going to this neighborhood say. Hey look, if you build this grocery store we will help you out, let's just try it for a couple years, see how it goes and give them something to do it.

[00:51:38]

And it's a win win because you've got food in these areas, you're pushing for small businesses in the city. And it actually probably can give the city a sense of identity, because Lord knows it doesn't have one.

>> Adam Hussein: That's a whole other.

>> Elaine Nadine Ford: That's a whole other project, I know.

[00:51:57]

>> Adam Hussein: Okay, is there an aspect of our growing food that people wouldn't consider or is misunderstood by the general public?

>> Elaine Nadine Ford: They want it to be easy. And they don't understand that it is but it's not. What we'll get people that will start their seeds and then they start, well, my seeds not doing well.

[00:52:17]

Well, it's nature, you can't control it. Some days you're gonna have a really good crop, some days you're not gonna have a good crop. And that's one of the things that concern me too with I see farmer's markets that or people that wanna put in farmer's markets. Organizations in low income areas which is great during the summer.

[00:52:36]

Well not the farmer's market but the community gardens, it's great during the summer but what are you gonna feed the people in the winter when you can't grow in these community gardens? But the people are afraid of failure now. And I think that shows up a lot in growing food.

[00:52:52]

If you're not doing it for profit, like if you're a farmer, yeah, you don't want the failure. But, if you're in the community garden, and you're trying to grow, it's okay to have a failure.

>> Adam Hussein: Do you think the way society is now has an impact about patience?

[00:53:06]

>> Elaine Nadine Ford: Society has no patience. They have no patience and everybody wants to be so connected. We'll get people and I've have to do this that went to Facebook every action that they did in the garden so they get nothing done. I'm like, put your Facebook down for a second, put your phone down and look at what you're doing, reconnect to the soil.

[00:53:32]

I think one of the things that kills me is when you get grown people and they see a bug and they freak out. I'm like, or the little carpenter bees that don't bother anybody. This one lady was professing, I just love nature, and she saw one of those bees and next thing I know she's telling me how she created a solution to kill '.

[00:53:54]

It's like these bees don't bother you. Why would you want to kill them? Well, cuz they're bees. It is that the automatic, like with snakes. Any snake is a bad snake. No, no copperheads. Yes, take those out. But don't take out black snakes, don't take out garter snakes.

[00:54:08]

So again, it's that huge disconnection. Kids would rather sit at home playing on video games instead of getting out in the yard getting dirty.

>> Adam Hussein: We need the bees to pollinate for us. What do you see the future for your gardening, say the next five years and next 20 years?

[00:54:31]

>> Elaine Nadine Ford: Well, I think it's only gonna grow. Hopefully, I will retire within the next couple of years, so I can devote even more time to the garden. And I definitely want to and I started working on it a little bit last year to incorporate more history, more Southern history into the garden.

[00:54:52]

Start doing more heirlooms that are lost or incorporate some open hearth and cooking, something that brings back history. Because I think if people learn our history, they would learn to love our history. And it would actually shape the way Charlotte is going. I also want to, and this is in both gardens, I want to start having more.

[00:55:23]

I'm not going to say I want because that's always in the future and you never gain it. We have on the books for the fall open conversation, so we may talk about, we call it biscuits and tents, sconces and teas. So everybody can bring a biscuit and tea is biscuit, you bring your favorite biscuit, you bring your favorite tea.

[00:55:42]

We sit around, we chitchat and we talk about things. Anything from politics to religion, to growing, the unspeakables, start those communications back up. I think one of the things that's happened in society is people are so sensitive because they don't talk about stuff. When I was growing up if you were fat, somebody calls you fat, and you just you might kick their **** a little bit, but it's just different.

[00:56:06]

It's like nobody knows how to take insults or the truth nowadays. So but as far as how it applies to the garden, we planned, we have on the books more activities to open up communications. So [SOUND] but yeah. So we're only gonna grow. We're only gonna get better, and we'll eventually take over the world.

[00:56:26]

>> Adam Hussein: Okay, well that sounds like a good plan.

>> Elaine Nadine Ford: Yeah, thank you.

>> Adam Hussein: Do you have any pictures or better yet, maybe I could come by you sometime and take some pictures of the gardens?

>> Elaine Nadine Ford: Yeah, we've got tons of pictures, on a Facebook page, I can send you, and you always welcome to come and take pictures of the garden.

[00:56:48]

>> Adam Hussein: Yeah, if you could send me some pictures too and ones that's okay for us to use. I don't want to use anything that anybody doesn't want me to take and has rights too. But if you have some pictures it's okay for me or for the project to use.

[00:57:03]

And if you can send those to me it would be great.

>> Elaine Nadine Ford: Okay, and there's a great aerial, somebody did it with a drone on YouTube that our Charlie Checkers did it. So I think, I mean, it's on YouTube so it's open for anybody. You can probably be in any project.

[00:57:19]

>> Adam Hussein: Okay yeah, if you could send me the link that would be great. Actually I have some other video and I could maybe put it with a project. And combine the other videos on my project, so that would be great.

>> Elaine Nadine Ford: I can do that.

>> Adam Hussein: Well thank you, Nadine, it’s been a pleasure and a great interview and thank you for your time.

[00:57:38]

>> Elaine Nadine Ford: You’re welcome.

>> Adam Hussein: And hope you have a great day.

>> Elaine Nadine Ford: All right, you too.

>> Adam Hussein: Thank you.

[tabby title='Captioned Audio'] [tabbyending]

Ed Williams recounts the foundation and continued growth of the Myers Park Baptist Church Community Garden. Ed discusses the way the garden was founded through church members, the collaboration of the garden with Friendship Trays, and the everyday use of the garden. He explains the life cycle of the produce grown in the garden, including how it is planted, harvested, and finally distributed. Other subjects in this interview include using a volunteer labor force, organic gardening, composting, life lessons, and fond memories of gardening. Ed concludes the interview by talking about the future of community gardens in Charlotte.

[tabby title='Tape Log']

Time	Subject
0:00:07	Interview Begins
0:00:47	Foundation of the Myers Park Baptist Church Community Garden
0:01:15	Fred Allen and Ed Williams begin the garden
0:04:24	Layout of current garden (plots/beds/size)
0:04:41	HVAC problems and closure of original garden area
0:06:21	Using raised beds in the garden
0:07:42	Using a mix of seeds and seedlings
0:09:16	Joys of being outdoors and community gardening
0:10:29	Church members and volunteering
0:12:19	Watering system in the garden
0:13:02	Types of produce grown in the garden
0:14:39	Growing methods for produce
0:15:25	Pollination methods and lack of pollinator beds
0:16:13	How they fertilize the garden and keep it organic
0:16:59	Utilizing the compost system at the garden
0:18:35	Confidence in their garden and their concept of simplicity
0:19:42	Sustainability of community gardens and volunteerism in Mecklenburg County
0:20:19	Insect Infestation in the garden
0:21:29	No vandalism in garden and location of garden
0:22:49	Food Distribution to Friendship Trays
0:24:52	Cross pollination and strange fruits in the garden
0:27:41	Types of volunteer gardeners
0:28:24	Story of a neighbor sewing on strawberries
0:30:49	Volunteer base and the church community
0:31:33	Challenges of the community garden
0:33:03	Benefits of Community Gardening
0:37:42	Future of community gardening
0:41:16	Final words about community gardening
0:43:33	Interview Ends

[tabby title='Transcript']

[00:00:07]

>> Savannah: Hello, my name is Savannah Brown, and today I'm interviewing Ed Williams. The date is Friday, March 29th, 2019, the time is 1 o'clock PM. We are interviewing in Charlotte, North Carolina. And today we will be discussing the Myers Park Community Garden and Ed's involvement with the organization in tending of the garden.

[00:00:26]

The garden donates fresh produce to Friendship Trees, a non-profit organization that delivers meals to the elderly in [INAUDIBLE] communities located throughout Macklenburg County. So my first question is kind of a two part. Can you tell me a little bit about the history of the garden, kind of how long it's been in operation, and then when did you become involved?

[00:00:48]

>> Ed Williams: Well, the idea for the garden has been around since the Garden of the Eden [LAUGH].

>> Savannah: [LAUGH]

>> Ed Williams: We have a group at our church that's very interested in environmental matters and they meet and talk about good ideas. And they've been talking for some years about doing a vegetable garden.

[00:01:08]

And it's a kind of place where good ideas go and they sit there like the library until somebody comes and checks them out. So Fred Allen is a doctor who lived in the neighborhood of the church, and I decided instead of talking about it this year, we'd just plant some stuff and see what happens.

[00:01:27]

So we were kind of ready plant a, and we didn't know exactly where we were going, but we figured if we got the plants in the ground, they knew what to do. And this was, I don't know, five years ago, six years ago. You have the dates and some of the material I gave you.

[00:01:42]

It was just the two of us and we decided we would do it at no expense to the church. So we went around to people members of the church and raised money to build some raised beds. I think we started with eight or ten raised beds and we wanted to do two things.

[00:01:59]

One is minimize the requirements for maintenance and the other was have really good soil. So I looked around and found this place in Gaston County that makes composted soil for gardens. And I called them and told them what we were doing and they said, well I'll tell you what, we'll give you all the soil you need if you'll just pay for hauling it, so that was a great breakthrough.

[00:02:30]

And then we worked with Lowe's and some other supply stores to get lumber and things at a reduced price and I think we wound up spending $500 or so to build all those beds, get the dirt, buy seeds and plants and get everything started. What made it possible was that Fred who lived in the neighbourhood and walked by the church every day so he could come by and do the watering which removes one of the great barriers to having a successful garden without water.

[00:03:03]

It doesn't work and he was there every day as needed doing watering. So we planted and we watered and we got started. We had a big kickoff with the people from the church who loved the idea and kids helped plant things, all sort of stuff like that. Since we did it on a Sunday and it was essentially a no news day in the world, the local TV came out and covered it.

[00:03:32]

It was a great find and then we just did it. I paid pretty close attention to it. We had maybe four or five other members of the church who would pitch in as necessary. The routine devolved into this. Fred would take care of the watering every day in dry season, less if conditions indicated.

[00:03:55]

And we would harvest on Mondays and Thursdays and take it to Friendship Trays, our church has a long relationship with Friendship Trays. So we knew that all the stuff would be well used if we took it there. And that's it, and then we just did that year after year [LAUGH].

[00:04:16]

>> Savannah: Thats great. Can you tell me a little bit about the garden, how many beds you have and just kinda the layout of it?

>> Ed Williams: Well, we had I think maybe 12 or so. And my wife and I were out of town and somebody sent me an email, most of it saying the garden has exploded.

[00:04:34]

[LAUGH]

>> Savannah: [LAUGH]

>> Ed Williams: Which I thought odd [LAUGH] But sure enough it had. A lot of the heating and air conditioning stuff that serves the Cornwall Center, the big recreation and education center next to the garden, it goes under there, and one of the pipes had broken. And it really, it looked like a volcano had erupted.

[00:04:59]

[LAUGH] The gasses and liquids and all that stuff shot up through the garden. And so the powers that be decided gee, you probably need to let us take care of this HVAC stuff and put the garden somewhere else so they moved it to the spot where it is now.

[00:05:19]

Also next to the Cornwell Center but far away from any underground [LAUGH] piping. And we have let's see, ten beds now, four by eight each of them, again filled with wonderful garden soil.

>> Ed Williams: And,

>> Ed Williams: Water access right there, and we've just built a compost bin, and that's part of the garden.

[00:05:48]

And we'll be planting next week, and we'll have tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, beans, cucumbers.

>> Ed Williams: Probably something else [LAUGH] that I don't remember, and whatever else fits. I mean we'll have three or four people involved, and each of them has something favorite they'd like to grow, so we accommodate people's wishes pretty much.

[00:06:15]

Everything we produce will go to Friendship Trays.

>> Savannah: Can you tell me a little about why you use raised beds?

>> Ed Williams: Because you don't have to worry about how good the soil is. In any soil around a public building that's heavily used, there's going to be packed [LAUGH] To a consistency that nothing would grow in.

[00:06:48]

And here, it's gonna be clay, so it's just messy to work with. And if you build your garden on top of that, and put in soil that you know will grow things, you don't have to worry about preparing that soil, or anything. So that's, as I said, one of our goals was to make it as low-maintenance as possible.

[00:07:08]

And if you get garden soil, it doesn't come with weeds. So that can raise beds about eight inches, which is deep enough to grow everything we're growing and we don't have a weed problem and we don't have a fertility problem. So the raised beds made sense for us and since we were doing it on the cheap, and got good prices on things, it worked out well.

[00:07:40]

>> Savannah: Do you plant seeds, or seedlings, or a mix of both?

>> Ed Williams: Both, tomatoes we usually plant seedlings. Squash, cucumber, beans seems to be just fine. My own personal thought is that seeds give you a healthier plant than transplanting seed lengths but the availability of so many varieties of tomatoes, it makes it tempting.

[00:08:07]

The Burpee's catalog comes, and I begin to tremble.

>> Savannah: [LAUGH]

>> Ed Williams: [LAUGH] So we do both. Eggplants and peppers we'll use Ceilings. But, as I say, you're not talking about a bunch of money, so we just get the ones that are easiest and healthiest to her.

>> Savannah: Where do you get the seedlings?

[00:08:33]

Do people bring them or pick them up from a nursery?

>> Ed Williams: We've done a little bit of both. I think this year I'm gonna order them from Burpees. And then we'll go to the hardware store over in Matthews. His name I've just forgotten. But it's a wonderful Renfrow's Hardware.

[00:08:54]

They have a wonderful arrangement of plants and they know a lot about gardening. They're gardeners themselves and they really love it so they're free with advice and have good prices and a wide variety of stuff. And I just like going there. [LAUGH] So there were two things we want to do.

[00:09:12]

More obviously, but two things really stood out in my mind. We wanted it to be something we could do so that it didn't become a chore but was a joy, and we wanted it to be beautiful. [LAUGH] And so a lot of the plants we chose, we chose because, my goodness, they're great to look at.

[00:09:32]

Eggplants, how could you beat an eggplant or a tomato? And we grew some foot long beans that people are just thrilled by to see how long they are. And we grew some foot long cucumbers last year. I don't know really about this year. But we wanted to make it interesting.

[00:09:52]

And we have a lot of people who just stop in and look. There in the city, it's pretty hard to do gardening unless you're dedicated to the task. And a lot of people just enjoy being there and walking through it.

>> Savannah: Yeah, [COUGH] one of the things that's been a theme is just the joy of being outdoors.

[00:10:13]

>> Ed Williams: Yeah.

>> Savannah: And especially the small pockets of space community gardens can create in this urban landscape.

>> Ed Williams: Yeah.

>> Savannah: Which is really nice. Is your garden for, you don't rent out any beds?

>> Ed Williams: No.

>> Savannah: No, okay. Are most of the people working there just volunteers at your church?

[00:10:33]

>> Ed Williams: Yeah.

>> Savannah: Okay, have you had any difficulties with the volunteer base or has it been pretty steady?

>> Ed Williams: Well, gardens are pretty forgiving except for watering. If you don't harvest, well, you'll have to throw some stuff away, but it's not bad, and if you harvest too early.

[00:10:51]

Well most of the stuff we're growing, if it looks like it looks in Harris Teeter it's time to harvest it. So it's not really complicated, and I haven't had any problem. We've depended on people who express an interest, and I've called on my Sunday School class at the church a few times to do stuff.

[00:11:08]

But the only real problem is organizing volunteers. I mean, there's no shortage of people who are willing to help, but figuring out when they can be there, and when they're needed and all that. As I say, we're on an as-needed schedule watering, so you need somebody who is there at the appropriate time to do that.

[00:11:30]

And then we harvest on Mondays and Thursdays because that's convenient for friendship trades. If you take a bunch of stuff on Friday, they're closed for the weekend. They don't reject it, but they look at you with [LAUGHS] less than a generous view. I'd say there aren't more, if we need people for a project, building something, we can get all the people we need simply by asking through the church communications system.

[00:12:04]

But really people tend to incorporate it into their daily lives. It's easy to get people who are going to be at the Cornwell Center for an exercise class or an educational class to spend a few minutes on the garden. So it hasn't been a big problem.

>> Savannah: Can you tell me a little bit about the watering system?

[00:12:23]

Do you just have hoses?

>> Ed Williams: We have one hose and one faucet and one garden, [LAUGH] and that's been fine. It's just obvious. If things look like they need watering, you water them. The raised beds have really good drainage. So it's not as though you're going to drown something.

[00:12:42]

So the only real concern is that things are gonna dry out too much, and one summer they did because we just didn't organize the watering very well and someone went on vacation. But mostly this is not highly complex scientific stuff. This is if it's dry, water it. [LAUGH]

[00:13:02]

>> Savannah: Yeah, [COUGH] I know you told me a little bit before, so tomatoes, eggplants, cucumbers. What are some of the main produce you grow in the garden? Well, one thing we brought in the past that we're not growing this year is sweet potatoes.

>> Ed Williams: There's a wonderful brand of variety of sweet potato called the vardaman sweet potato developed in Mississippi that we've had some really good luck with, and we had a couple of raised beds that were four by four feet wide and then three feet tall, so we had some depth there.

[00:13:40]

Sweet potatoes grow under the ground. So you'd put in the little sweet potato slips, they're called, little pieces of vines with roots on them, and let them grow all summer, and you never know what's there. And then when you harvest in the fall, sometimes you come up with a wonderous stuff.

[00:13:58]

The second year we did it, I think, my wife and I were digging up some sweet potatoes and we found one that weighed 14 pounds. And she held it up to have her picture made and it looked like a small puppy, I mean it was really huge. That was fun.

[00:14:15]

But I think we've got to figure out how to grow sweet potatoes again. Let's see, I can't remember what else is there other than what I mentioned. We usually have a couple of varieties of peppers. Usually a couple varieties of eggplants cuz they're so gorgeous. The traditional one you see in the supermarket, plus some long Japanese eggplants that are just nice.

[00:14:39]

>> Savannah: [COUGH] Do you have a specific type of growing method, like certain vegetables first, followed by others? Or do you harvest anything in the spring, and then again in the fall? We really haven't in the past, simply because of our commitment to keeping it simple, stupid.

>> Ed Williams: [LAUGH]

[00:14:57]

>> Savannah: [LAUGH]

>> Ed Williams: Cuz we figure if it's gotta be done by volunteers, you need to make it as light a burden as you can. So we've tended to plant things that grow in the spring through the frost. We haven't done much with lettuce. We haven't done much of the quick growing things like beats, and turnips, and carrots.

[00:15:19]

We've just planted things that you put them in the ground, and they stay there all summer and you harvest things all season long.

>> Savannah: Yeah, do you have any pollinator beds? Any flower beds?

>> Ed Williams: No, we don't. I wish we did. The whole problem with bee population and butterfly population is a great concern.

[00:15:36]

We have a woman in the church who has volunteered to help us do that, but we got caught up in moving the garden and haven't done it, but that would really be nice to have something that ouldl attract butterflies and bees and all of that. And it's easy to do, it's not any trick.

[00:15:53]

>> Savannah: Do you have to self-pollinate any plants or the-

>> Ed Williams: No.

>> Savannah: No, okay, most of it's just natural, yeah.

>> Ed Williams: Yeah, I mean, mostly if you plant stuff it knows what to do [LAUGH] if you keep watering it. And we try to use plants that are hearty and self-sufficient in that regard.

[00:16:11]

If they have to train us to do things they're in trouble. [LAUGH]

>> Savannah: [LAUGH] And can you tell me a little bit about the fertilizer? I know you mentioned that in the very beginning. Or the soil that you got. I don't know a ton about this, about organic or not organic fertilizer, so if you could speak to that.

[00:16:27]

>> Ed Williams: Well, ours is fully organic and we haven't used any fertilizer other than compost. You could increase your yield some if you did, and I just don't know enough about fertilizer and stuff to do it. And no one has come forward who does [LAUGH] so in keeping with our simplicity, it's best we've just used very fertile soil and we supplemented it with compost.

[00:16:59]

>> Savannah: How does your compost system work?

>> Ed Williams: Well, we're about to find out. [LAUGH] We just got this compost built by a young woman as a school project. And I think what's gonna happen is you throw stuff in there and you let it compost, natural. We had a women in the church who wanted to do kind of aggressive composting, which involves turning stuff and all that.

[00:17:27]

And then she moved to Davidson. So we haven't done that, we just used it to mostly throw waste from the garden. The young woman who built this compost Ben, that's out there now, hopes to get people from the church kitchen involved in throwing coffee grounds and left over vegetable matter in there, which would speed things up, but we've just been content to let nature take it's course.

[00:18:01]

>> Savannah: So the compost is fairly new, they can't-

>> Ed Williams: Well, we had a nice compost system in the old garden. That was destroyed when the whole garden was destroyed, that had three large bins so it could shift stuff from one to another. But as I say the woman who was in there moved, so we just kinda threw stuff in there and let it compost itself.

[00:18:23]

If we were interested in efficiency and maximum productivity, there's a lot of stuff we could do. But the fact is, we're interested in having a project that we are confident we can do, and that people are willing to work in. That doesn't require of anybody a great deal of expertise.

[00:18:44]

I think the danger in community garden projects is that you'll let the perfect, the old saying, the perfect become the enemy of the good. So in seeking perfection, you neglect doing something that's simply good, and then you find that seeking perfection is more taxing on people's energy and interests than you'd anticipated, so we wound up with nothing.

[00:19:10]

We have a pretty good garden that gives pretty good yield and it goes to a good price, and that's what we've been trying to do, and we've been happy with it.

>> Savannah: Yeah, I think one of the things I've realized as I look at community gardens is, they start with really big ideas, and then they seem to be fizzling out.

[00:19:31]

So contacting people in McCumber county about this big list of community gardens. There's really only a handful of them that are sustainable. So that makes total sense, what you're saying.

>> Ed Williams: Well, yeah and when you're talking about sustainability, you're talking not only about the garden, but about the people who run it.

[00:19:48]

You don't wanna require too much of them, you don't wanna wear them out, you want them to enjoy the experience. And you want the people to be, essentially, replaceable. That is, if you can't do it, that's okay, we can find somebody who can, cuz it's not complicated. And I think keeping it simple has been one of the keys to our success.

[00:20:12]

>> Savannah: Have you ever dealt with an insect infestation, any kind of bug problem, or-

>> Ed Williams: Yeah, they're nasty.

>> Savannah: [LAUGH] yeah.

>> Ed Williams: Yeah, and that's a problem, when you're trying to do an organic garden. We had some kind of nasty-looking, nasty-smelling weevil that would get after our squash a couple of years ago.

[00:20:33]

And at first, I was dealing with them by picking them off and squishing them, between my thumb and forefinger. [LAUGH]

>> Savannah: [LAUGH]

>> Ed Williams: Which was, I was not keeping up [LAUGH] with the growth of the infestation. Sometimes you just have to give up on plans. And, it's gonna take more than you're willing to invest in savings but there's usually something you can plant into a space, but we haven't had any massive infestations, no problems with tomato wilt or anything like that.

[00:21:05]

The bugs on the squash have been the big problem.

>> Savannah: Any problem with rabbits or squirrels?

>> Ed Williams: No we're pretty lucky. We don't have deer munching on anything, or rabbits, or squirrels, where we are.

>> Savannah: My next question is do you ever have any kind of vandalism? Anybody like littering in the garden or anything like that or it's-

[00:21:28]

>> Ed Williams: We have people who come by and take samples, but no one's ever done anything that seem to be at all malicious. I mean, it's a church next to a very busy building. So you'd almost have to plot [LAUGH] to do something malicious and most people are not that mean-spirited and we haven't had any problem with that.

[00:21:56]

>> Savannah: Nice, that's good.

>> Ed Williams: It is.

>> Savannah: Yeah.

>> Ed Williams: But it's not out in a really public place, either. It's kind of tucked away around a corner of a busy building.

>> Savannah: Think that was one of the, I interviewed someone from the UNC Charlotte community garden on campus.

[00:22:11]

I think because it's kind of a well trafficked area, it attracted some, just more options for littering, or people being in the garden a little bit more. So, that was the first time I'd ever encountered a garden having vandalism or just something wrong, so I just wanted to ask what, usually it's squirrels or rabbits.

[00:22:33]

>> Ed Williams: Yeah, but you guys are college students, we're more cvivilized than you are. Come on, we're what you're hoping to become.

>> Savannah: [LAUGH] True. [LAUGH] So, can we talk a little bit about the food distribution and what you give to Friendship Trays?

>> Ed Williams: Everything we do goes to Friendship Trays.

[00:22:51]

So we don't have any distribution challenges. We just take it over there and they know what to do with it. As I said, we try to accommodate our schedule to theirs, so that's the only thing. We know where it goes. As I said, we've had a long relationship with Friendship Trays, and a good one.

[00:23:10]

So that's it. We're not trying to create a new system. There's a perfectly good system that we can fit into well. And that's what we've done.

>> Savannah: How much, do you only harvest at the end, like, one harvest? No, you said you harvest on Mondays and Thursdays?

>> Ed Williams: Yeah.

[00:23:28]

>> Savannah: Okay, how much produce would you say you take overall?

>> Ed Williams: Well, let's see, it's in that material I sent you.

>> Savannah: Yes.

>> Ed Williams: And I'm sorry I didn't memorize-

>> Savannah: It's okay.

>> Ed Williams: Any of those numbers, but half a ton, or something like that, on a good year, and if there's going to be a narrate rather than leave the space you could see how much we did.

[00:23:53]

And we had the second and the most productive year, the second most productive garden in the friendship trade system. But I don't remember how much that was. I would have to say the first, most productive, was about ten times what we got. It was the one connected with the school.

[00:24:13]

And they really did some stuff. But we were pleased with what we were doing. It was basically then.

>> Savannah: So you don't ever sell farmer's markets to trees?

>> Ed Williams: No.

>> Savannah: Okay, so in the material you sent me, I did really enjoy the strange fruits.

>> Ed Williams: Yes.

>> Savannah: So can we talk a little bit about what I kind of wrote down being a gardener or a farmer sometimes comes with being a scientist a little bit.

[00:24:44]

>> Ed Williams: [LAUGH]

>> Savannah: So that cross pollination of squash and zucchini and pumpkin. So what types of surprising fruits or vegetables have you found in there?

>> Ed Williams: Well, that's basically it. One year from our compost bins which were right next to the garden, we'd throw in a bunch of squash and stuff in there at the end of the previous growing season.

[00:25:05]

And in the spring, this vine popped out, and it just looked so vigorous, I was kind of afraid to do anything to it. And it started growing, and it grew maybe 40 feet along the driveway and the fence that was behind our garden and everything and started producing these giant squash, melon looking things.

[00:25:29]

And we didn't know what it was. It didn't look like anything I'd ever seen before. And I looked up and found that there are 46 million varieties of squashes on the Internet [LAUGH].

>> Savannah: [LAUGH]

>> Ed Williams: So that didn't help. So I took one of them home, and my wife cut into it to see if it was edible, I let her take the first bite.

[00:25:49]

>> Savannah: [LAUGH]

>> Ed Williams: And it was great. So I took some over to Friendship Trays and showed them to some of the people there and someone said, yeah, that looks like something I had in my home which is in Central America. And they started using it. And I mean, these things were growing 20 or 30 pounds.

[00:26:08]

>> Savannah: Wow.

>> Ed Williams: So that's the year we had the fantastic production [LAUGH].

>> Savannah: [LAUGH]

>> Ed Williams: Nature had provided us with that edge. And I never knew what it was and the next year it came back and it was a little different. A lot of the seeds we use, if you harvest from them and use the seeds from the harvest, they won't produce the same plant because they're hybrids.

[00:26:35]

And I think what had happened was a couple of plants had gone back to their natural state and who knows what they did on the dark out there? At any rate, and interbred produced these wonderous miracle fruits. You know nature knows what it's doing. It doesn't tell us sometimes, but that's been the nice thing about the garden.

[00:27:01]

You just don't have to know much to grow a good garden if you got good dirt and sunlight and water. The seeds and the plants know what they're supposed to do. And if you just let them do it, it would be all right. But you do have to make sure you've got the sunlight and we did so all that and particularly the water.

[00:27:22]

>> Savannah: With some of the people I've interviewed I've kind of noticed that there's a trend with people who had past experience with gardening really enjoy it. Is that kind of, with your volunteer base, do you find that people were either their grandparents gardened or are they brand-new gardeners or a mix of both?

[00:27:41]

>> Ed Williams: It's a mix of both. In my case, I lived in a very small town and my mother's father was a kind of jack of all trades. If you needed a garage built, he'd build you a garage. If you needed a garden planted, he'd plant you a garden.

[00:27:57]

So he was actively involved in the garden business, and as was my family. But my experience with the garden was mostly weeding. I didn't like that at all, so I lost interest in gardens. And then my wife and I moved here, and at first we lived in a,

[00:28:15]

>> Ed Williams: A condominium, and it had a sunny backyard, so we thought we would plant some stuff. I'll tell you a story. We planted some strawberries. And every day I'd get home from work, we'd go out and look in the garden to see how the strawberries were doing. And one day we went out there and on what had been barren strawberry patch the day before, there were now huge red strawberries.

[00:28:41]

I thought, what on earth is that? And then we looked next door, and our neighbor who had watched us out of her kitchen window all these days was a nurse. And she had come over and sowed those strawberries [LAUGH] to the plants just for the joy of seeing us, we don't get many miracles like that.

[00:29:00]

>> Savannah: Yeah.

>> Ed Williams: We shouldn't have said anything maybe she'd do it again.

>> Savannah: Yeah.

>> Ed Williams: But I just kind of got interested because Earth Keepers which is this environmental organization at church that I was talking about, had been kicking around the idea of a garden. And I'd retired after many years as an editor at the Charlotte Observer and I was looking for something to do, and Fred Allen had retired from his medical practice.

[00:29:33]

>> Ed Williams: We just decided to make something happen. And once we got into it, we really, really loved it.

>> Savannah: Yeah, I mean there is a joy I think of being a long time gardener and a first time gardener, just being outside it's always nice.

>> Ed Williams: Yeah, and not having to weed is the joy [LAUGH].

[00:29:51]

>> Savannah: Yeah.

>> Ed Williams: I think people going into it need to understand that the things they think will be problems very often are [LAUGH] Don't think your weeds are gonna go away. You're gonna have to dig them out, and we have some friends who work on a garden, I think it's at Sedgefield Middle School or elementary school, I'm not sure what it is now.

[00:30:14]

But it has Bermuda Grass and what you know if you have a garden that has Bermuda Grass is that it's always going to have Bermuda Grass. Just take that as part of life. So I would've shunned that idea at the outset because I didn't, I've had my experiences with Bermuda grass and was content not to have it again.

[00:30:36]

But if you do the right steps, you have easy access to water. You have access to a few volunteers who will attend the thing, it's not a big chore. And if it's not a big chore, it's a lot more fun.

>> Savannah: [COUGH] Yeah, for your volunteer base, is it all members of the church or is it outside members?

[00:30:56]

>> Ed Williams: No it's all-

>> Savannah: Just all members of the church? Well, that's good, I mean it's kind of a built in volunteer base which is nice.

>> Ed Williams: Well we tell them they're going to hell if they don't, so that gives you some sort of leverage, I think.

>> Savannah: [LAUGH]

[00:31:09]

>> Ed Williams: That we haven't had to follow through on that. And we've got a couple of Sunday school classes and we have an email message group of people who have signed up, so it's not really normally that big a challenge.

>> Savannah: Which kind of leads to my next question.

[00:31:27]

What have been, do you think, the biggest challenges of the community garden?

>> Ed Williams: Organizing, organizing the volunteers. That's about it.

>> Savannah: I think we touched on this earlier, but it doesn't have to be your community garden, but what challenges do you think Charlotte's community gardens face?

>> Ed Williams: If there into distribution, that's a big challenge.

[00:31:55]

We, as in everything else, decided to keep it as simple as we could, and go to Friendship Trays. In some places it may be that you simply don't have a suitable place for it, and you try to transform what you know is an unsuitable place. So you have some challenges weeds, and soil fertility, and things like that.

[00:32:16]

But as in almost every endeavor, the big challenge is always the people. If you have people who are willing to make sensible decisions about use of resources, you can do most stuff. If you don't, if you're trying to overcome some significant natural barriers or you have people who want to run things to the exclusion of others, then you run into trouble.

[00:32:43]

As we were talking earlier, sustainability of the human effort and commitment as well as the, it's the soil and plants is the big challenge.

>> Savannah: What have been some of the benefits and it doesn't just have to be the Myers Parker but it could just be the benefits of community gardening.

[00:33:03]

>> Ed Williams: Well I think there's a little community building involved. As I've said, we've had some work days and things like that, where a lot of kids get involved. The Charlotte kids' yoga program always comes out-

>> Savannah: [LAUGH]

>> Ed Williams: Which has a presence at our church, comes out and works a day in the garden.

[00:33:23]

There are lot of things kids can do, it is not a highly demanding task to plant a bean. You push it in the ground and you cover it up and you're okay. So kids can do that, and one year we let each kid write his or her name on a little stick and put it by the bean that that kid had planted and their parents particularly love that stuff, and it's just fun seeing where stuff comes from.

[00:33:51]

I mean if you think everything you eat comes in on a truck to Harris Teeter you're missing a significant part of what the world is really like. And I think seeing that process of creating the food that we eat is particularly useful as a teaching tool for kids.

[00:34:12]

But also as a reminder for adults that we're not as far away from nature as we think we are. And I think it makes it a little easier to talk about the need to care for the Earth. If you're actually working in it and getting things out of it.

[00:34:33]

>> Ed Williams: And it's introduced me to some people I wouldn't have known otherwise. And there is a kind of enthusiasm about it not just from the people who work in the garden but from people who are just proud that we're doing it.

>> Savannah: Yeah, I mean I think that's the emphasis on community-

[00:34:51]

>> Ed Williams: Yeah.

>> Savannah: And community gardens. And especially in a city of Charlotte that's growing so fast.

>> Ed Williams: Yeah.

>> Savannah: And in an area where there is abundant food stores, and then there's areas where there's no grocery stores.

>> Ed Williams: Yeah, yeah.

>> Savannah: So the knowledge of learning about these vegetables and learning that we can grow things in this area is really important, which is why I've really liked community gardens and talking about them.

[00:35:15]

>> Ed Williams: Well, it's fun to take some kids through the garden and just see what they can identify, cuz a lot of them have never seen things growing in nature. And to see a little tomato that becomes a big one, or a little bean that becomes a big one, or all of this mass of vines that is masking a sweet potato growing under the soil.

[00:35:40]

And if they're there through the cycle, they can see the beginning of that process, and the end when you dig things up, or cut them up or what ever. Nothing cuts a good thing. It's particularly good for churches. I think there's a significant part of the reason for being for any church is to feed the hungry.

[00:36:04]

And this is part of that commitment but it also ought to be caring for the Earth the Lord gave us and seeing how much of it just works on its own, pays no attention to you whatsoever as long as you water it. [LAUGH]

>> Savannah: I will say, plants are very hardy.

[00:36:26]

I had my tomatoes and my peppers on just to porch. I might forget about them for a few days and then but water, just a little bit of water and a little bit of sun and they did just fine.

>> Ed Williams: Could you hear them screaming? [LAUGH]

>> Savannah: Yeah.

[00:36:39]

I forgot to tell my roommate to water for about a week and then I came home and I was like, my peppers. And I mean they came right back.

>> Ed Williams: It is a sad thing to see a healthy tomato that has collapsed because you failed to water it, and sometimes it's going back.

[00:36:54]

Sometimes you water them and they just perk up, and sometimes they.

>> Savannah: I had two tomatoes that did really well, and one that I couldn't bring it back. But I think that's just the cycle of gardening.

>> Ed Williams: Yeah, yeah. Well we planted a bunch of beans one year, and these were maybe four year olds, five year olds from the church through the week school.

[00:37:16]

And one boy's little bean just didn't come up. And he was crushed. I said look, the germination rate on these seeds is about 99%, which means that you know starting out that one of them is not going to come up. You moved on that one, but here's what you do.

[00:37:34]

Here's another one, stick it in there.

>> Savannah: [LAUGH]

>> Ed Williams: We did, and it turned out all right, yeah.

>> Savannah: [COUGH], What do you see for the future of community gardens, here in Charlotte?

>> Ed Williams: Well, obviously, the number of them is growing rapidly, and Tom Duncan, who I suggested that you talk with, is kinda the overlord of community gardens, and they got a big grant from the Women's Impact Fund, which gives money to good things.

[00:38:05]

So Friendship Trays offers both an easy distribution network, and expertise if you're just getting started. My experience has been that gardeners from one garden are perfectly willing to help gardeners from another garden. We've got a number of people that have come by and wanted to know how we did this.

[00:38:26]

Business has been very supportive of our's and I had to nudge some of them a little bit by writing to the corporate headquarters, but they've been good about giving us discounts on this, that, and the other. So there's a lot of support for it. I think dealing with food deserts in Charlotte is gonna take a better organized and better financed effort than we have seen.

[00:38:53]

So far, but it is a way to do some things and I think once people begin to realize what they can do on their own, every little bit helps. So, I think there's more and more concern about sustainability of almost everything. As we become more and more reliant on our cell phones and the people who live in Silicone Vally to make everything happen.

[00:39:22]

And we're beginning to realize that we're giving up not just a lot of freedom but also a lot of self reliance, and I think reminding people that there are a lot of things you can do yourself is liberating. And I think community gardens contribute to that and are evidence of the strong hunger for it, you are not gonna hear it.

[00:39:51]

>> Savannah: [COUGH] something you mentioned, is there, maybe there's not but is there kind of a community of community gardeners when you said other gardeners came over and asked questions-

>> Ed Williams: Friendship Trays provides that with news writers and gathering of various sorts and all. So, there's never been a question I've wanted them to answer that they haven't helped me with.

[00:40:19]

And they have a couple events a year inviting. Community gardeners to come in. And then they have a garden specialist who will come out and-

>> Savannah: Really?

>> Ed Williams: Yeah, and help you do things.

>> Savannah: Very nice. Yeah, I didn't know that.

>> Ed Williams: Yeah, ask Lucy about that.

>> Savannah: I will.

[00:40:35]

She showed us her wonderful map of the garden. I mean it's fantastic and just how far they reach and she really touched on that. It's not a food growing problem, but a distribution problem.

>> Ed Williams: Yeah.

>> Savannah: And that's really kind of what people get mixed up sometimes.

>> Ed Williams: Yeah.

[00:40:50]

>> Savannah: So these are just two clarifying questions that I was thinking of, but so you don't use any kind of pesticide or anything on your garden?

>> Ed Williams: No.

>> Savannah: Okay, when we went back to the question, I was just thinking about the insects, and so I wanted to make that clear.

[00:41:09]

And is there anything else that you wanna tell me about the garden, a funny story, or any other anecdote?

>> Ed Williams: Well, people do interesting things if it's just that kind of out there and nobody's guarding it. When we were just getting started, someone brought us these wonderful little bent wire words that we put on the drawing bench.

[00:41:34]

Grow love, stuff like that. And one of them was opus dei which is God's work but is also the name of a Roman Catholic conservative organization that many people consider a cult. Mel Gibson is a member of it and we were having our opening of the garden. And I thought I wouldn't put that up, I didn't want to look like one of the dads that's sponsored by a Roman Catholic cult of questionable political leanings.

[00:42:06]

So we left that off, but then we put it back on. I have a friend named Annie Hart who makes wonderful outdoor welded metal sculptures, and she made a sign for us and gave it to us. I mean people are so enamored of the idea that they enjoy being a part of it and they'll contribute their skills even if their skills aren't gardening to help make it look better and work better, produce more.

[00:42:38]

So it's been an altogether rewarding experience. I've had to cut back quite a lot because of ill health, but people have stepped up. And it's been nice to see, and I suspect we'll have a new generation of gardeners. Nobody likes to see it not work [LAUGH]. So it's been a good experience for the church, and it's also good to have something that everybody knows is a good idea become reality.

[00:43:14]

Cuz you get kind of embarrassed if they're good ideas that just kinda hang around [LAUGH] like deflated balloons on the table, you know?

>> Savannah: [LAUGH]

>> Ed Williams: Somebody needs to blow them up. [LAUGH] Let them shine.

>> Savannah: Well that's all my questions, thank you so much for this, this was wonderful.

[00:43:29]

>> Ed Williams: It's been my pleasure, thank you.

>> Savannah: This was really great, thank you.

>> Ed Williams: Just send my check to the usual place.

>> Savannah: I will. [LAUGH]

[tabby title='Captioned Audio'] [tabbyending]

Rebecca Byrd was raised in Boston, Massachusetts, and is a current graduate student at UNC Charlotte. Prior to finishing her undergraduate degree at UNC Charlotte, she attended Queen's University and Howard University.  Rebecca transferred to UNC Charlotte in spring of 2016. As a way to connect with the UNC Charlotte community, Rebecca joined the Community Garden Club. After being a club member for the spring semester and throughout the summer, she became the president of the Community Garden Club in fall 2016. During her time as president, Rebecca worked to keep the garden running smoothly, attract new student members, and promote the benefits of the community garden. Some of the particularly interesting highlights of this interview include the involvement of college students in community gardening and the redistribution of food from the UNC Charlotte community garden to the student Jamil Niner Student Pantry. The Jamil Niner Pantry provides food to UNC Charlotte students that experience food insecurity, and the student community garden helps provide fresh produce to the pantry.

[tabby title='Tape Log']

Time	Subject
0:00:07	Interview Starts
0:00:46	Rebecca introduces herself and explains how she got involved in the Community Garden Club at UNC Charlotte
0:01:51	UNC Charlotte Community Garden Club
0:02:32	Foundation of Community Garden Club at UNCC
0:02:46	How UNCC students started the Community Garden
0:03:07	What produce the garden grows
0:03:54	Location of community garden on UNCC campus
0:04:57	Faculty and student community garden
0:05:25	Community Garden Club affiliation with McMillan Greenhouse
0:06:17	Logistics of garden (who buys the plants/when to plant/nurseries)
0:07:13	Student volunteering over the summer break
0:08:58	Landscaping and gardening upkeep
0:09:38	Raised bed and garden layout
0:10:17	Pollinators (i.e. bees) in the garden and a bed dedicated to them
0:10:58	The garden as a student community space and a space for students to host events
0:12:10	Vandalism and community gardens. What the student garden has experienced in terms of littering and stealing in the garden area. How to keep community gardens as clean as rural environments.
0:14:07	Urban agriculture and understanding community gardens in Charlotte. How well known is urban agriculture in city environments?
0:15:07	Produce distribution. Rebecca explains the garden harvest and food distribution to the Jamil Niner Pantry.
0:16:08	Rebecca begins talking about the UNC Charlotte Jamil Niner student pantry.
0:16:32	Describes what the pantry is and how students can get groceries and produce.
0:17:52	Talking about the life cycle of food grown at the UNCC community garden.
0:18:02	Who gives produce and groceries to the Jamil Niner Pantry.
0:18:31	Ask question about composting. Does the student community garden compost?
0:18:46	Rebecca brings up the idea of beekeeping on campus.
0:19:40	Advertising the Community Garden Club and her attempts to gain new student members.
0:20:17	Talk about the social media (Instagram and Facebook) outreach of the Garden Club.
0:21:45	Asked about the major benefits of community gardening. Rebecca talks about what she sees as the benefit to community gardening as a whole.
0:24:09	Talking about the benefits of growing and nurturing plants to fruition.
0:25:02	Asked Rebecca what some of the challenges were regarding community gardening. Rebecca talks about student involvement, commitment to the garden, and running a student organization over the summer when students are on break.
0:27:17	Asked Rebecca if she thought community gardens were helping alleviate some of the food issues currently happening in Charlotte.
0:28:00	Rebecca talks about how community gardens can be an advocate for food insecure communities in Charlotte. She talks about the limitations community gardens experience (in size and amount of food they can produce).
0:28:50	How community gardens can be a voice for communities in Charlotte, since they produce food for specific areas of Charlotte. How community gardens can help larger gardens.
0:29:26	Asked Rebecca what she sees for the future of community gardens. Rebecca talks about incorporating more aspects of gardening such as beekeepers and butterflies.
0:30:31	Rebecca talks about the inclusion of hydroponics in community gardening.
0:31:25	Talk about climate change and its effect on gardens.
0:32:29	Talk about the resources that UNC Charlotte provided to the Community Garden Club.
0:33:38	Discussing UNC Charlotte’s role in being involved with food insecurity in the larger Mecklenburg area.
0:34:23	Discussing food insecurity and how UNC Charlotte could better contribute to the growing conversation of food and communities in the area.
0:35:15	Talking about how much UNC Charlotte could realistically be involved in helping with hunger in Charlotte.
0:36:52	Explaining the location of UNC Charlotte in the “crescent” of the city and what communities surround the university.
0:38:19	Asked Rebecca anything else she would want me to know about community garden.
0:38:55	Rebecca talks about dropping off the food at the Jamil Niner Pantry
0:39:13	Ask Rebecca about what foods grew best at the garden. She talks about rainbow swiss chard and what is easy to grow in the garden.
0:39:38	Talks about the difficulty of growing blueberries and ph soil levels
0:40:34	Ph levels in the soil and help from the McMillan Greenhouse
0:41:37	Planting challenges included full sun, shade, and ph levels in soil. Talking about the location of the garden and how much sun it receives.
0:42:32	Types of flowers grown in the community garden. How flowers can be a benefit and a hindrance for a community garden.
0:43:34	Talking about what is in the garden including bugs, lizards, and bees. How this can make people nervous to garden. (Bugs, worms, stink bugs, bees, etc.)
0:45:46	Rebecca starts talking about her own personal garden at home. She talks about personal plants and water drainage in her apartment complex.
0:46:43	Challenges of urban gardens. We discuss how urban gardening could be seen as a nuisance or bother to neighbors.
0:47:19	Rebecca talks about different types of fertilizers and sales by gardner stores and nurseries. How inconcenancies of gardening (cost, lack of sprouts) can turn people off from urban gardening.
0:48:20	Rebecca talks about some “tips and tricks” of gardening to help beginners garden.
0:49:19	Talking about experimenting with gardening, looking at Google and Youtube to feel more confident in gardening abilities, especially if you are a new gardener.
0:50:48	Ask Rebecca about self-pollination in the community garden. Rebecca explains the process of self pollination and how to do it. Discusses self-pollinating strawberries in the community garden.
0:53:17	Asked Rebecca about her favorite part of being in the community garden club and being the president. She talks about the joys of being outside and the challenges of weeding the raised beds in the garden. She talks about the joys of nurturing plants to fruition.
0:54:51	Rebecca concludes the interview about tips for beginners who are interested in gardening, including ideas for plants for beginners to start, and where to pick up growing kits.
0:56:07	Talk about how sometimes there are “dud” seeds in a bunch of seeds.
0:57:03	:35 Rebecca talks about the benefits of gardening and how it helps people get back to nature and outside of technology. Talking about how gardens can be a place for relaxation, while also producing food for a community.
0:57:41	Ask Rebecca if there are any other questions I should have asked her
0:57:53	Rebecca talks about her childhood experiences in gardening and how it instilled a love for gardening in her. We talk about growing up gardening and memories of gardening.
0:58:41	Rebecca talks about her grandmother and a daffodil growing competition and how important family influence is for gardening.
1:00:13	06 Rebecca talks about loving nature and being outside and the value of the environment in self-care.
1:00:47	40 Talking about growing up with a garden and childhood memories.
1:01:32	25 Talking about how Rebecca’s gardening experience influenced her love for plants and her dream of having a farm outside the city. We talk about ideas of a future farm and dream ideas.
1:02:37	30 Interview Ends

[tabby title='Transcript']

[00:00:08]

>> Savannah Brown: Today is Wednesday March 20th, 2019 at 11:00 o'clock AM. My name is Savannah Brown, and today I will be interviewing Rebecca Byrd, past president of UNC Charlotte's Community Garden. We are interviewing on the UNC Charlotte Campus. The community garden is maintained through the community garden club, whose mission is to produce good healthy food by working together towards a common goal.

[00:00:29]

This garden will become a space that accommodates the community as a whole. Today we will be discussing the UNC Charlotte community garden, volunteering, and food distribution. So first, can you just introduce yourself and tell me a little bit about how you got interested in working with community gardens?

[00:00:46]

>> Rebecca Byrd: Okay, my name is Rebecca Byrd. I am one of the past presidents of the UNC Charlotte's Student Community Garden. And how I got involved, it seems like it was so long ago, but it wasn't that long ago. So I transferred to UNC Charlotte from Quinn's University by way of Howard.

[00:01:08]

So UNC Charlotte was my third school, so third time's a charm. And I came here spring of 2016. So I was kind of looking for student groups to be a part of, but just something different. And so I was like the student community garden, that seems really cool, I like gardening.

[00:01:32]

So I just became a member, and then after spending a semester and part of the summer really being a part they asked me do you wanna be the president? So I said sure, why not?

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah.

>> Rebecca Byrd: [LAUGH]

>> Savannah Brown: Cool, so it's a club, it's maintained. So the community gardens maintained completely by a club?

[00:01:55]

>> Rebecca Byrd: Yes.

>> Savannah Brown: Is it still going on?

>> Rebecca Byrd: I believe so, but honestly after graduating I haven't still kept in contact with Paula and the other people at the greenhouse who also kind of help with the club. But I still get emails from time to time, so I think it's still going on.

[00:02:16]

>> Savannah Brown: I think it is too. I was doing some research and I saw that they still have something on the student organization, so it seems like you can still join in. Maybe not as active as it was when you were president, because I read that it started like 2014-ish.

[00:02:31]

Is that right?

>> Rebecca Byrd: Yes.

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah, so can you just tell me a little bit about the garden itself, like where it is, and just what you guys grew, and what's there?

>> Rebecca Byrd: So it was started in 2014 by two students, I wish I remembered their names, it sounds so horrible.

[00:02:49]

But two students, they got a grant, and this was a part of their grant. And so they decided hey, let's have a garden on campus. So the garden is located in between stores in Robinson. And we have some hammocks out there, and we grew sugar snap peas, Swiss chard, broccoli, different varieties of lettuce.

[00:03:13]

We also did a couple of herbs, we did basil, we did chives. What else did we do? We did tomatoes, but tomatoes, that's always tricky because the birds, they tend to say that's ours. So that's where we're located. Although sometimes it's kind of hard, especially when it gets colder it's kind of like whoa, gotta start that stuff indoors, and then transplant and bring it outside.

[00:03:39]

>> Savannah Brown: Right, so I'll include a map for visual reference when I upload all of these documents. Is it up here, the community garden? Where are stores in Robinson?

>> Rebecca Byrd: Okay, so I know what you're talking about.

>> Savannah Brown: [LAUGH]

>> Rebecca Byrd: So there's the community garden which, that's actually faculty members.

[00:04:00]

They actually have that house. Do you know that house next to the visitor parking near, is it east deck? I think it's east deck.

>> Savannah Brown: Yes, yes.

>> Rebecca Byrd: That's the faculty community garden, so they have little plants and they do that. But the student community garden, it's between Robinson and store.

[00:04:19]

So if you're headed towards, like you're walking past hall. So keep going straight and then, where Robinson is, you see that modern sculpture out front, if you keep walking, on the left. It's right next to the BM center.

>> Savannah Brown: Okay, I'm gonna have to go do some-

>> Rebecca Byrd: [LAUGH]

[00:04:40]

>> Savannah Brown: Some investigation, because I see the little community garden sign by East deck and I thought that's where it was, but when I was doing the research, I was like, this is not the same thing. Okay, that makes sense. So you guys don't have anything to do with the faculty around the community garden?

[00:04:55]

>> Rebecca Byrd: No, right before I stopped being involved with the gardening club, there was a big thing, are we the community garden or the student community garden? Because the faculty members were like well, we garden too.

>> Savannah Brown: [LAUGH]

>> Rebecca Byrd: So I’m kind of like okay, everyone wants to have their own special space.

[00:05:12]

So we're the student community garden, but we don’t have any affiliation or anything with them.

>> Savannah Brown: Okay, that makes sense, but do you have affiliation with the greenhouse?

>> Rebecca Byrd: Yes.

>> Savannah Brown: Okay, so can you tell me a little bit about that?

>> Rebecca Byrd: So the greenhouse team, Paula and all the other folks there, they kind of serve as our, I guess, faculty advisers.

[00:05:32]

And so they help us plan what we're gonna grow each season, what type of activities we wanna do on the campus side of things, and it was good. I appreciated their help, especially as faculty members, to see that they were helping, being involved in this type of thing.

[00:05:53]

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah, I think that's really important for student organizations. Cuz you kind of need that authoritative figure, just to help you figure out how to navigate through all the stuff.

>> Rebecca Byrd: Yes.

>> Savannah Brown: You can see, [LAUGH], I totally understand. So for the logistics of the garden, do the students provide their own plants or how does that work, like the mulch and stuff?

[00:06:16]

>> Rebecca Byrd: So usually, we have weed by the plants, the mulch, all of that stuff, and then we start working on things. Usually in the greenhouse, if it's cold like right now, we probably would have had stuff already ready and already sprouted. And then, probably, as soon as it gets 60, 70-ish on a normal basis, then we would transplant things outside.

[00:06:40]

>> Savannah Brown: Gotcha.

>> Rebecca Byrd: So I know we had a couple of good people online, I know the Burpee, that sounds like a baby name.

>> Savannah Brown: [LAUGH]

>> Rebecca Byrd: The Burpee Gardening people, they have a great website, a lot of stuff to purchase for all your gardening needs. I know we also visited Pike Nurseries, and I liked them, they're really nice too.

[00:07:04]

They have a lot of good stuff too, for gardening as well.

>> Savannah Brown: Got you, and did students volunteer and help at the club over the summer?

>> Rebecca Byrd: Yes, so that was one of the biggest challenges, actually, when I started participating, because a lot of people leave and go home over the summer.

[00:07:23]

And so the garden, it could not be maintained by the landscaping people here at UNC Charlotte because they would wanna spray pesticides and all manner of things down. But when you're giving food away to the pantry, you can’t really spray some of those things down, especially cuz it’s toxic not only to people but to the plants.

[00:07:46]

So we had to be in charge of that area. Even though, still from time to time, landscape will just spray something down on a plant and it’s just like, what are you doing? But it was definitely a challenge, but students definitely, I think, will Hopefully now step up to the plate and say even if I'm still in the area, I'll come into Charlotte maybe one day a week or two days out the week to water the garden.

[00:08:15]

So definitely, summer involvement, it's key and it's probably, I'd say the most important time for members to really be active. But probably, arguably, the most important time, spring and summer, and early fall, to be really proactive in the group.

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah, because that seems to be the biggest growing season.

[00:08:35]

>> Rebecca Byrd: Yes.

>> Savannah Brown: So that's when you really need the most weeding, watering, taking care of plants. And I was thinking about that because I love to garden, but my plants did the best summer and then early fall. So I know with students coming and going, with this being a student organization, I could see where that would be difficult.

[00:08:55]

Now, did you guys have to mow any grass or anything, or did landscaping do that?

>> Rebecca Byrd: There's no grass.

>> Savannah Brown: There's no grass, okay.

>> Rebecca Byrd: There's no grass, it's just raised beds-

>> Savannah Brown: It's just raised beds.

>> Rebecca Byrd: So it's really good that the only amount of work we'll have to do is just keeping up with the soil, fertilizing it, making sure there's no weeds in there.

[00:09:15]

Just pruning plants as they grow, that type of thing. So I'm glad it's not too taxing [LAUGH] cuz if we had to mow the lawn, like how it is right in front of the school, that would be so much. That would be so much.

>> Savannah Brown: Yes, because I feel like landscaping is always working here, like they're always on our ground and they're always mowing something, so well, that's good.

[00:09:34]

So how many raised beds is it?

>> Rebecca Byrd: I have to think off the top of my head, we have one, two, three, four, five, seven, I believe we have around seven or eight.

>> Savannah Brown: Okay, and is each bed a different produce or do you have them kind of all mixed in?

[00:09:56]

>> Rebecca Byrd: We have them all mixed in, but there are certain plants that are planted next to each other, just because they, I don't know how to describe it, other than that they thrive being in the same environment. So that's usually how the beds are set up and how they work.

[00:10:11]

But one of our beds, I remember, is dedicated to pollinators, so we have lantanas, which are really good for butterflies and bees. And we also had strawberries too, so it was this nice little area over there, especially because we have to save the bees.

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah, no, I think one of my colleagues might be interviewing, I think there's two bee farms.

[00:10:37]

So that'll be really neat to see, kind of how that pollination aspect plays into community gardens and large gardens.

>> Rebecca Byrd: Yes.

>> Savannah Brown: So can you tell me a little about the space? Because I was reading online, the creators of the original garden, they wanted it to be more than a garden, kind of a place for students to relax.

[00:10:57]

>> Rebecca Byrd: Yes, so we have hammocks out there, and we've had some problems with the hammocks, of students stealing them. It's like we can't have nice things. But the space itself, we try to have events that will bring in other student orgs. So I remember we had the Turkish Club and they had Turkish tea as well at our end of the year event, we also had live music in the garden.

[00:11:23]

So I think it really could be a bigger space that's more centered on students, but I just think it'll take a lot to get it to be that. Let me rephrase it, it will take a lot for the vision of that garden to get to where it needs to be.

[00:11:45]

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah, and I think it's difficult too with students because sometimes they're so wrapped up in all their school work and things like that. So really pushing it to be that, you have to have a really dedicated not just student body but faculty advisor as well. I mean, that really helps getting it there.

[00:12:03]

That was one thing I wanted to talk to you about is one of our questions was vandalism with community gardens.

>> Rebecca Byrd: Yes.

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah, and apparently you guys experience that.

>> Rebecca Byrd: Yes, there's so much vandalism, but I think also, it speaks a lot for the culture down here.

[00:12:20]

There are certain things that you'll see that it's just, I guess it's not important down here. There will usually be a lot of cigarette butts in the garden, in the beds. And it's not good to smoke around the plants as they're growing because they take all that in and it could just wipe out all the plants, and those plants cost a lot of money.

[00:12:45]

[LAUGH] I mean, it all adds up. A $3, $4 plant here and there, that all adds up to over $300 worth of plants and products that you're having in the ground. There will also be trash bags, snack bags just in the ground, but also if you drive down the street, you see a whole bunch of people just littering and throwing stuff out of their cars.

[00:13:10]

So as much as if you drive outside of Charlotte and into, I call it the countryside of Charlotte.

>> Savannah Brown: [LAUGH]

>> Rebecca Byrd: The countryside of the small towns, unconquered, pass there. You see that there's a lot of land untapped, and it's beautiful, and there's no trash on the ground.

[00:13:34]

But if we did that here, there wouldn't be a lot of trash, or littering, and it just deteriorates the Earth. But I guess maybe it's just not, I guess, as important to people here, just having respect for the landscape.

>> Savannah Brown: Well, I think that could be something we could kind of segue into, just community gardens, do people not understand them?

[00:13:58]

Because in Charlotte we have a lot of community attempts to do community gardens, but it seems like people don't really like understand urban agriculture, I guess. So it's kind of foreign to them, so they don't maybe respect it as much as the outside country farmers, if that makes sense.

[00:14:17]

>> Rebecca Byrd: I see what you mean, yeah, I definitely agree. I like to drive up, I think it's Highway 49, and there's a cemetery right in Harrisburg and right behind it's like hey, we have plots for our community garden here. But every time I drive by I'm like, [LAUGH] where's the garden?

[00:14:36]

I just see headstones. So I've always wanted to figure out what are these other groups doing to get people involved, other than the flyers and all of that? And is urban farming, I guess, trying to help people that are in food deserts and lacking healthy food? Because good healthy food is very, very expensive.

[00:15:01]

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah, and so tell me, we could go to a little bit, how did you distribute the food from the garden and tell me just like where you distributed it and then kind of what and how the food was used?

>> Rebecca Byrd: So it was right before the end of the year, we would do our mass little harvest.

[00:15:19]

We would harvest all of it, but we would still have like a little bit there so we have our event people see there's stuff here.

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah. [LAUGH]

>> Rebecca Byrd: So it wouldn't be completely bare, but there'll still be some things there for people to look at. And so we didn't have a big membership, so it would be if you wanna take home a few things, that's fine.

[00:15:44]

But we had more than enough to give. We gave a couple of car-fulls, not the whole car-fulls, but the trunk was full [LAUGH] I guess trunk-fulls is a better word.

>> Savannah Brown: [LAUGH]

>> Rebecca Byrd: A few trunk-fulls' worth of fresh vegetables to the niner pantry. And I think that's been really helpful.

[00:16:05]

Also to see that we have a student pantry on campus, cuz I don't know if other schools do that too. Even though, I'm not sure if it's still true. I think the statistic is one in five students is hungry.

>> Savannah Brown: Mm-hm.

>> Rebecca Byrd: And I definitely think there's a place, there's definitely a need for that.

[00:16:26]

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah, so can you tell me what exactly is the pantry? Just kind of explaining the pantry-

>> Rebecca Byrd: So, the pantry, if you are a student, I'm not sure if it extends to faculty members. That sounds horrible. But, I know some of our faculty members, [GROANS] their financial situation is tough.

[00:16:48]

You have to meet certain criteria to be able to be serviced by the pantry but they have like everything there. In my head it's a full grocery store.

>> Savannah Brown: Really. And so can you just like, as a student like is there any, I'm not sure if you know this but is like an allotment of like how much food you can get or.

[00:17:06]

>> Rebecca Byrd: Yeah.

>> Savannah Brown: Yes, okay.

>> Rebecca Byrd: There's an allotment, I'm not sure what that is.

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah, that's okay.

>> Rebecca Byrd: But I know you can get a certain amount of things from each, I call each section of the grocery store but each section of the pantry. You can get like a certain number of items.

[00:17:21]

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah, honestly, I'll have to check out and see if other schools do that because it's really cool. And that's why I was really interested in talking to you because like food distribution, I think that Charlotte has the abundance of food but distributing it to people who maybe don't have access or live in food deserts or have a really tough time.

[00:17:42]

Getting the healthy produce. So, I really like that the UNCC Trinity Garden, it kind of like full-circle that makes sense?

>> Rebecca Byrd: Yes.

>> Savannah Brown: It was grown here and then went back to the students here. Do you know of any other community gardens contribute to the minor pantry or was it just guys?

[00:18:01]

>> Rebecca Byrd: I know it's just us but we also have you know, like Food Lion, Harris Teeter, they're also partners with the pantry so they'll donate you know some groceries every now and again, which I feel like is great. Now if we could get like Whole Foods Market or Trader Joes you know now that, that would be something.

[00:18:21]

But that's usually how it works.

>> Savannah Brown: One of the things I was gonna ask is, did you deal with composting at all?

>> Rebecca Byrd: No, but we wanted to get so many ideas especially about composting. I has like a brief idea but it was very brief. About having a beehive on campus.

[00:18:44]

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah.

>> Rebecca Byrd: Now, I know people are allergic to bees, and some people would try and go and take the bees and be vandals.

>> Savannah Brown: Right.

>> Rebecca Byrd: But I thought it was a good idea. [LAUGH] I thought it was a good idea.

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah, one of the things I'm interested in is food waste and composting.

[00:19:04]

So I was wondering and I think kinda what you're eluding to is more than just thinking of food as more than just produce, lettuce. Pollinators, I thought that was super cool, and bees, and the whole cycle of the food that we use. So, That's definitely a question I'm looking to ask all my interviewees is just kind of the life cycle of their food.

[00:19:28]

>> Rebecca Byrd: Yes.

>> Savannah Brown: So, well, you had kind of alluded to this, but did you guys advertise the club just here on campus, just kind of trying to get more members?

>> Rebecca Byrd: We did, we did the student organization fairs, we did both of those. We would have tabled events usually for Earth Day.

[00:19:51]

We would work with I think it's called the Campus Green Initiative, CGI. We would also work with, I think it's called the Earth Club. We work with them, too. Just to get the word out there like hey, we're a club, this is what we do. If you're interested in these other things, then maybe you'll interested in our thing too.

[00:20:14]

That's what we did. We also have an Instagram account which was just started so, we followed everybody who had- [LAUGH]. [INAUDIBLE] And you know most of them followed us back so we had the members of course like follow us, share the page. We also have a Facebook page and that gets like good hits as well.

[00:20:36]

So we try to do a lot to get the word out there, but I think it's also not everybody is into gardening like that as well, but I definitely think there's a place for everybody to be gardener. Cuz it's not hard. I know a lot of people say, I kill plants all the time, but I'm like it's at least in my years of living it hasn't been super hard to kill a plant.

[00:21:02]

>> Savannah Brown: Well, I think there's a difference too between like house plants.

>> Rebecca Byrd: Yes.

>> Savannah Brown: And gardening.

>> Rebecca Byrd: That's true.

>> Savannah Brown: That people can't really like, they'll like, like, kill all my plants in the house. There's a difference when they're out in the sun.

>> Rebecca Byrd: Yes.

>> Savannah Brown: Like, in the mulch, you know being fertilized.

[00:21:14]

>> Rebecca Byrd: Yes.

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah, I was thinking about, because I'm really looking at community gardens, and a lot of them are either are faith-based or

>> Rebecca Byrd: Yes.

>> Savannah Brown: They're working -- so they kind of have a preset community or volunteer base

>> Rebecca Byrd: Mm hm.

>> Savannah Brown: So I was wondering how you guys just get the word out to students.

[00:21:33]

But that makes total sense? And I actually found you guys through the Facebook page.

>> Rebecca Byrd: [LAUGHS]

>> Savannah Brown: If that makes sense? So what do you think are some of the major benefits of community gardening? It doesn't have to be like our community garden, just in general.

>> Rebecca Byrd: Why do you give people something to do and I definitely think there's just something like engaging about putting your hands in dirt.

[00:21:58]

I mean, maybe not like their hands, like especially if you've got a fresh manicure.

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah [LAUGH].

>> Rebecca Byrd: But if you know, putting your hands put some gloves into some dirt and you know, just feeling the dirt and if you get, I guess like maybe a flower or something from the store and you're transplanting it, just Getting those roots to loosen up a little bit.

[00:22:19]

Just, that process and putting it in the dirt, covering it, then watering it. It's just, there's something really relaxing about that. So I think that's also another benefit. There's just so much about it that's. Spun, the process of growing the plants, and watching them grow is the best part.

[00:22:41]

I think right now I've been bit again by the gardening bug. So I've started some sugar snap peas, and I started them, my gosh, I started them right before spring break. At the end of February. And I put them outside, which like I kinda felt bad about it just because it's been kind of cold too.

[00:23:03]

So I'm like, whoa. I was like, well, God, they'll just grow anyways.

>> Savannah Brown: [LAUGH]

>> Rebecca Byrd: So finally, two days ago, I got this really big long shoot out the ground and I was like, yes, yes, yes. So I was, I'm so happy about that. And I'm also working on some dutch irises as well.

[00:23:22]

But starting those bulbs is like, it's a process. So it hasn't been like the most, like rewarding yet, but it's still waking up in the morning to see, am I gonna get any new any new sprouts like coming out the ground. Am I gonna get new blooms on these flowers yet?

[00:23:39]

That type of thing is, it's the excitement of watching something grow that you worked on and that you helped become what it is, I guess.

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah.

>> Rebecca Byrd: Helping the plant become what it is. That's so weird but

>> Savannah Brown: No, I truly understand. I am I don't even like tomatoes, but I was growing tomatoes.

[00:23:58]

[LAUGH]

>> Rebecca Byrd: [LAUGH]

>> Savannah Brown: And I was so excited when I got my first bloom. And I was like, they're coming. And there is just truly something like. About nurturing something to life.

>> Rebecca Byrd: Yes.

>> Savannah Brown: Is such a good feeling. And also, being outside, just in the sun, and just kind of like what you said, putting your hands in something and really, I don't know.

[00:24:19]

I wish that, I think if you like gardening and you kind of grew up gardening, then even if it's just pots and, you know, plants. But, there's something special about, you know, just being outside and, so yeah. I think, I think exactly what you said. Definitely the benefits, and it's kind of hard to articulate those sometimes.

[00:24:39]

[LAUGH]

>> Rebecca Byrd: Yes. [LAUGH]

>> Savannah Brown: To be like, it's just fun to, like, get your hands in the dirt. But.

>> Savannah Brown: I definitely think that's true. And I think that's why there's such a thriving community garden community in Charlotte.

>> Rebecca Byrd: Yes.

>> Savannah Brown: Cuz I think people really value that, and they like to have their families and their friends get out and do it with them.

[00:24:59]

So what were the, I know you talked about vandalism, what were some of the other challenges you feel like you faced with the community garden?

>> Rebecca Byrd: Also just getting people to be involved. More than what they say they are. I think it's crazy, UNC Charlotte really thinks the community garden is a great thing.

[00:25:22]

And, you know, sometimes I feel like, in the past, some of the members we had just wanted to, like, be a part of the club, but when it came down to, like, well, who's gonna take care of the fence over the summer? Coming from someone, while I was in the club, I didn't have a car.

[00:25:41]

So I would walk over a mile in the heat, in the prime heat. [LAUGH]

>> Savannah Brown: [LAUGH]

>> Rebecca Byrd: In North Carolina. Every day, I would wake up every day at 6 AM, before it got too hot, to go to the garden to water. And sometimes, for me with my whole conditions, that would be way too much to do.

[00:26:02]

And so it just became, you know, I felt like I was doing all the work. And even though I'm the president, there have to be other people to step up to the plate. And I think a lot of people want to be, the community garden, they wanna be out there for the accolades, but they don't wanna put in the work and wake up early to go do the watering.

[00:26:26]

Or say, I'll help you out. I'll water two or three days here and there.

>> Savannah Brown: Right. I definitely can see where that would be challenging. And then it causes a little bit of burnout, if one person is just doing all of the work all the time. Even as much as you love something, it can't be 24/7, cuz I think that that can cause just a little bit of, if you know just somebody could help me.

[00:26:48]

So I understand where that would be challenging. I mean, I know we talked about this, but definitely with students over the summer.

>> Rebecca Byrd: Yeah.

>> Savannah Brown: That that would be challenging as well. So I read, I was just doing some some research before our interview, but I read in a 2016 article when you were the president of the club, you kind of talked about how you hoped it's sparked discussion surrounding food politics in Charlotte.

[00:27:11]

So kind of, what do you think community gardens are doing for this kind of food discussion that we're having?

>> Rebecca Byrd: That's a really good question.

>> Savannah Brown: That's okay, no pressure, I just think food, I mean, you alluded to it earlier, when you were talking about like food deserts and things.

[00:27:30]

I think Charlotte's going through, like, we have these really fancy boutique food sales, grocery stores, and then we have a really marginalized community of people who don't get healthy food. So do you think that community gardens are helping kind of alleviate that process? Or is it still just a problem of distribution?

[00:27:53]

>> Rebecca Byrd: I think that community gardens can take the role of being more advocating towards the issue of food distribution, because I think that's more what it, more when it comes down to. I know the community gardens, they can help with so much, and like provide produce and fruits and that type of thing.

[00:28:13]

But I think if they raise their voice and said, hey, we're doing this, but there's still people on this side of town that have to drive 30 minutes to get to a grocery store Or they don't have a bus line out there to, they can't take the, what is the bus system called down here, just the-

[00:28:32]

>> Savannah Brown: CATS.

>> Rebecca Byrd: Yes, they can't take the CATS to the grocery store.

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah.

>> Rebecca Byrd: I think that's really what the community gardening groups should, you know, focus on.

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah, and then just being maybe the voice, because as they deliver the produce, they can say that people are really hungry here in Charlotte.

[00:28:50]

People do really need fresh produce, and we're seeing it, and we're doing what we can to alleviate this, but maybe they just could be, like you said, the bigger advocate, or the bigger voice for the people. I totally, I think that's why I was so intrigued with community gardens, because I think there's a focus on community, but then there should be a discussion on, as much as we're providing for the people in our community, how can we help larger Charlotte.

[00:29:18]

>> Rebecca Byrd: Yes.

>> Savannah Brown: If that makes sense.

>> Rebecca Byrd: I agree.

>> Savannah Brown: So let's see, what do you kind of see for the future of community gardens?

>> Rebecca Byrd: Well, we might be gardening on Mars soon. I did watch that movie that came out, who was it? Not Ben Affleck. You know what movie I'm talking about.

[00:29:41]

>> Savannah Brown: I know what you're talking about. [LAUGH]

>> Rebecca Byrd: But I think the future of gardening, especially community gardening, will be more inclusive. Just reaching out to everybody, not just within the community, but reaching out to beekeepers, reaching out to. I don't think there's a real defined term for someone who's involved with butterflies.

[00:30:07]

I mean, I know their role within the ecosystem is important, but I don't think there's someone who houses butterflies, and just says, like okay, I send you off here. But I just think bringing in as many different people would be cool, and I also think maybe the future would be hydroponics, cuz that's like really cool, although I think that it might be a little expensive, but it doesn't have to be.

[00:30:37]

But I think that that could definitely be the future. And I think if they keep talking about, I know I'm looking out the window, I know I'm thinking of water. As the water levels start to rise, there's no water out here, as the water levels start to rise and the sea levels are rising, I think that might become more of a.

[00:30:59]

Not to say more of an option, but it looks like it might become like a reality that our coastal cities will be submerged underwater. And climate change, that's real too. So it's kind of like, what's gonna happen? So I think hydroponics might be the best option.

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah, I think climate change is something that's affecting farmers, and gardeners, and people who are outside, working.

[00:31:30]

And that's something we're kind of, with this project, want to kind of understand a little bit more where they're, how they're seeing it, and how it's coming from, but I think it's Johnson C. Smith who's doing hydroponics. I have to go back and double-check, but I think they got a whole program where they're kind of like getting that started.

[00:31:49]

So that'd be really cool if I could interview them, and kind of see how they're integrating that future of gardening in today's climate. I was gonna ask you about, my gosh, it just left me.

>> Rebecca Byrd: It's okay. [LAUGH]

>> Savannah Brown: [LAUGH] I was gonna say, when you were talking about hydroponics, I thought of Johnson C Smith.

[00:32:12]

Do you think that the university did enough to help you guys, just with the resources that they have? Kind of like, how could have the University of Charlotte maybe helped the community garden more? Or do you think they did enough?

>> Rebecca Byrd: Well, I think UNC Charlotte did more than enough for the community gardening club.

[00:32:34]

But what I do think is, maybe the student group itself could have done more.

>> Savannah Brown: Okay.

>> Rebecca Byrd: You know, I always think we could have reached out to, I think, Queens University. I had to think of the school. Queens University. I know they have a gardening club, and they have a really nice greenhouse, it's on top of the building, which I'm like, that's so cool.

[00:33:01]

We could have like reached out to them. We could have reached out to Johnson C Smith. We could have had a nice little intercollegiate community gardening network, but for future days.

>> Savannah Brown: [LAUGH] Yeah, I was gonna say, I ask that just because, I wonder how much influence the university could have on really promoting this idea of healthy food to people.

[00:33:29]

And it might not be something that the university wants to tackle, like kind of get involved in that discussion about food and food insecurity in Charlotte. But I do like that they, it's here within the system. Like it was grown here and given back to students. So I think in that way, they really did play a large role in helping kind of people who have food insecurities get healthy foods.

[00:33:53]

And I like that you said that they did a lot, because I think that sometimes, clubs that have really good intentions aren't supported by their universities.

>> Rebecca Byrd: I think it's funny you say that cuz, my gosh, I was gonna say something. And right as I was gonna say it, it left.

[00:34:11]

>> Savannah Brown: We both need a coffee.

>> Rebecca Byrd: Yes, I desperately need a coffee, even though it's like 11 something. Yes, it was about food insecurity, yes. I feel like the university, they could, you know, the university, I feel like they dip their hands in everything. As you can see, they're always dipping their hand into construction projects.

[00:34:33]

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah. [LAUGH]

>> Rebecca Byrd: Into gymnasiums that, we don't need five gymnasiums on campus, I just don't feel like that's necessary. But I don't want the chancellor to hear this and then-

>> Savannah Brown: No. [LAUGH]

>> Rebecca Byrd: I get a email. I kid, I kid, but I definitely think UNC Charlotte has the space, and has the resources to be for the people and, you know, be the voice for people in Charlotte.

[00:35:00]

Even those marginalized, even if you just drive down North Tryon, like you can see it. So, it's not too far out of the university's bubble. I just don't know if UNC Charlotte is really, if that's something they wanna be behind. And I don't, not to say I don't know why, I mean because.

[00:35:23]

They have people come to speak here all the time about racial politics, that type of thing, they even promote people going to vote. So I feel like this is just as important, cuz if the people can't eat, then how are they gonna vote? That sounds like?

>> Savannah Brown: [LAUGH]

[00:35:43]

>> Rebecca Byrd: Like one plus one equals apples, but I feel like they go hand in hand, especially when it comes down to the issues. And soon, election season's coming up, so I feel like it would be a good time for UNC Charlotte to really be the face of, not the face of the city, cuz that sounds a bit much.

[00:36:08]

But the face of the city, really, and, you know, speak up for things that not only like students, but the community and the city need to talk about. Because you don't see other people talking about it. I haven't seen, but then again my citizenship, I'm not a Charlotte citizen or a North Carolina resident.

[00:36:29]

I just live here for school. [LAUGH] I just live here for school. But I haven't seen any local council members talking about food insecurities in this area, and I just, not to say, I wonder why, but I really do wonder why, because it's a big problem.

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah, I think one thing you just said was how Charlotte is in, you know, they call us the crescent and the wedge city?

[00:36:54]

>> Rebecca Byrd: Yes.

>> Savannah Brown: It's like the wedge, there's kind of your wealthier population, and then the crescent surrounds it. And Charlotte, UNC Charlotte is in the crescent. And like what you said about the university's bubble. We are surrounded by communities that may experience food security, or be in a food desert.

[00:37:11]

And so it kind of is, we are kind of the face of this upper crescent that, you know. If we call UNC Charlotte a leading institution, we really should be practicing what we preach, and helping. And like you said, we host a lot of different things, and so maybe we should start talking about food a little bit more than we already do.

[00:37:31]

Yeah, I think that's super important, and I hope that the club can really revitalize, and incorporate all of this talk about food. And maybe this project could even, it's something sponsored by UNC Charlotte students. And so it could be something that kind of sparks that revitalization, again, at least in gardening.

[00:37:54]

But it does take a lot of volunteers, a lot of dedication, a lot of hard work, and not just by one person. And I think any farmer would tell you that, it's hard to run a big farm with one farmer, so.

>> Savannah Brown: Is there anything else about the community garden you kind of just would like to tell me about?

[00:38:18]

I think I was primarily interested in the food distribution, I thought. So you guys just did one harvest at the end of the growing season? And when would you typically take that to the pantry?

>> Rebecca Byrd: We would usually take it there like April, like end of March, actually no, not end of March, April, May.

[00:38:43]

Like right before it really starts to hot out.

>> Savannah Brown: Gotcha.

>> Rebecca Byrd: And sometimes we would do it in the fall as well, depending on what we planted or grew.

>> Savannah Brown: And would you just drop it off? You never-

>> Rebecca Byrd: No, we would go in there and put it in the fridge.

[00:38:58]

>> Savannah Brown: You would? Nice.

>> Rebecca Byrd: Talk to the people at the pantry. That type of thing.

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah. That's good. So there was some kind of interaction.

>> Rebecca Byrd: Mm-hm. And then we would record what we gave them.

>> Savannah Brown: Okay. Was there any best-sellers? I mean, that sounds like [LAUGH].

[00:39:13]

>> Rebecca Byrd: I don't know if there were any best-sellers, but I do know everyone was a fan of the rainbow Swiss chard.

>> Savannah Brown: That would be fun.

>> Rebecca Byrd: So it's definitely, not to say it's a easy grow, but it's really a easy grow, and it's a overabundant plant. So you cut it once, and it'll just keep growing.

[00:39:33]

>> Savannah Brown: Was there anything that was really difficult to grow? Well, the tomatoes, you said.

>> Rebecca Byrd: Tomatoes, but blueberries are especially difficult, because the pH in the soil has to be at certain level. It just, everything has to be perfect.

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah.

>> Rebecca Byrd: That's definitely like trickiest thing to grow, but everything else that we've done has done well.

[00:39:54]

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah, did you guys use fertilizer?

>> Rebecca Byrd: I believe we have, I'm not sure like what, but we don't like spray down anything. Just, you know, to keep it, not organic but just to keep it, you know-

>> Savannah Brown: But there was no, like, chemicals?

>> Rebecca Byrd: No.

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah, okay.

[00:40:12]

>> Rebecca Byrd: No chemicals used, it was all natural.

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah, was it hard to, and maybe this is where the greenhouse people came in, did they kind of know the soil level? You just said the pH levels, were there any other plants that needed like specific pH levels?

>> Rebecca Byrd: Well, outside of the garden, I know citrus fruits need a certain pH level, and so it's kind of a hit or a miss.

[00:40:42]

It's either perfect and it'll do well, or the plant hates it, and I'm gonna die right now. [LAUGH] I'm gonna die now. I hate this soil, it's not perfect, what are you doing? So I know those two tend to be really finicky when it comes to that. But I know there's an instrument you can use to test the pH and I’m like, this is so cool.

[00:41:11]

And you just like plop it in there and it’s like ding, good for whatever level it is. And if it’s not, there’s usually different acidic soil mixtures you can add to it. So that's definitely the biggest planting challenge, I guess.

>> Savannah Brown: Right, I know that some plants, some like full sun, some like shade and sun.

[00:41:37]

Were parts of the garden shaded, or is it mostly full sun?

>> Rebecca Byrd: It's mostly full sun, but I know in one area that's closer to, well, actually there's two areas. One area that's closer to the gondola, it gets shady a little bit. And then the side that's closer to, you're exiting Robinson, and you're going across the street to get to those apartments, I think it's called like Haven49 or something.

[00:42:11]

That's a really shaded area, but it'll still get full sun.

>> Savannah Brown: Got you.

>> Rebecca Byrd: So it'll just get shade for like the end part of the day, but it'll still be like full sun.

>> Savannah Brown: I'm trying to think if I have any other planting, I'm curious about anything else planting.

[00:42:29]

Did you do any flowers?

>> Rebecca Byrd: Yes, we do lantanas. We do, I believe, dahlias. We do brown-eyed Susans, and I think we did something else, but I can't remember off the top of my head. But yes, flowers, I love flowers because it's the beauty. But sometimes, part of me's like, I wanna get something I can eat.

[00:42:58]

>> Savannah Brown: [LAUGH]

>> Rebecca Byrd: [LAUGH] Like something I can really get into, and use it, and feel like I gained something from this. Cuz sometimes with flowers, even if they bloom the next year, I'm just kinda like, this is just some flowers. But with growing vegetables and fruits, it's kind of like, I get to enjoy this next year too.

[00:43:24]

It's that type of thing.

>> Savannah Brown: Did you find that people were nervous to garden? Was anyone ever scared to start gardening?

>> Rebecca Byrd: It's not necessarily, like, scared to garden, it's more scared of what might come out the ground. [LAUGH] Or like what might come towards you. It's more of like the spiders and the bugs and the bugs that bite, and it's not good, it's scary.

[00:43:51]

[LAUGH] It's a little bit scary sometimes, I'm not gonna lie.

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah, just like the outside critters.

>> Rebecca Byrd: Yeah, like, even I'm not a big bug person, the only bugs I'll tolerate, bees, butterflies, although a lot of people are like bees? Yeah, I like bees, cuz they're not gonna, at least to me, they haven't done anything to me.

[00:44:11]

They'll just land on my hand and then fly away. I won't even get stung, and I'm like my God, look at that!

>> Savannah Brown: [LAUGH]

>> Rebecca Byrd: But the worms, I'm fine. But the big spiders, not the little, the big spiders that, nope, that's it. And then every now and again, ticks, those really big beetles.

[00:44:32]

Or the, I don't know what they're called, there's a scientific word for them, but I call them the roly-polys.

>> Savannah Brown: Yes. [LAUGH]

>> Rebecca Byrd: I don't like those either.

>> Savannah Brown: [LAUGH]

>> Rebecca Byrd: They just, sickening. Centipedes, millipedes, uh-uh. Salamanders, they're cute, so I tolerate them. But other than that, I think it's more the outside life that really, it's kinda like, I don't do bugs.

[00:44:56]

But you'll get over it soon, but it's not all the time thing when you're gardening, so.

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah.

>> Rebecca Byrd: [LAUGH]

>> Savannah Brown: I understand. The one bug I really don't like are cicadas.

>> Rebecca Byrd: Ugh.

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah, and they come out of the ground. So those are weird.

>> Rebecca Byrd: Yes.

[00:45:10]

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah.

>> Rebecca Byrd: Those and stink bugs, they're the worst.

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah, I feel like North Carolina, I feel like we have an abundance of stink bugs for some reason. [LAUGHS]

>> Rebecca Byrd: Yes! And I just don't understand how, where did they come from? Why are they here? Why are they attracted to being near my space?

[00:45:28]

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah.

>> Rebecca Byrd: Well, not necessarily near my space, but just here in general. Like I just really would like to know. [LAUGH] I really wanna know, because they've just, when I was gardening in my, I have a little patio garden on my porch. This is like a side note, I hope I haven't bothered my neighbor downstairs, because I attached three, I got them from Home Depot.

[00:45:54]

It's like three railing planters.

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah.

>> Rebecca Byrd: And I love them, like you just attach them to the railing with some steel zip ties. They're all-season, all-weather strong. But like, the water drains straight out, and goes, like, straight downstairs. So I'm like, I hope my neighbor isn't bothered by seeing all this water drip down in the morning, for his morning cigarette.

[00:46:16]

[LAUGH]

>> Savannah Brown: It's funny you say that, because I also live in a apartment complex, and I had a neighbor above who did the planters, and the water would drip down. But I would just put my plants out there, so that they would get some of the water.

>> Rebecca Byrd: [LAUGH]

[00:46:32]

>> Savannah Brown: So hopefully, it never bothered me too much. But I did feel bad sometimes when I watered mine, I knew it'd drip down again, so that's definitely a challenge of urban gardening.

>> Rebecca Byrd: Yes.

>> Savannah Brown: And again kind of feeling like you might be bothering someone, like with smells or bugs or whatever.

[00:46:50]

Which I think, maybe not here, but do you think that would turn anybody off from community gardening, being a nuisance almost?

>> Rebecca Byrd: I think it could, cuz sometimes the people are like, you have to fertilize your plant again?

>> Savannah Brown: [LAUGH]

>> Rebecca Byrd: I mean, well, yeah, that's kind of how it works.

[00:47:07]

[LAUGH]

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah.

>> Rebecca Byrd: Why are you going to Home Depot to buy another type of fertilizer? I was like, well,I also feel like the nurseries and the garden centers, they do a good job of getting you to buy things. It's kind of like how Babies R Us and those type of stores, they prey on new moms, because they know you're going to buy all this stuff, even though chances are you don't really need it.

[00:47:30]

So I have three different types of fertilizer that they all do the same thing, although one is specifically for citrus fruit. But, I'm kinda like, what, do I have a problem? I just keep buying things.

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah.

>> Rebecca Byrd: I think that, I mean if you have a spending problem, that might turn you off from gardening, just having to buy things, I mean, but it's fun.

[00:47:49]

I mean, who doesn't like shopping? But I definitely feel that small inconveniences of gardening, like, well, like this plant, it's not like sprouting in two days, and it's been in full sun, you know. Well you know, sometimes it's the germination time, sometimes it's ten days, sometimes it's 20 days.

[00:48:10]

How's the soil? Have you been keeping it moist? What have you been doing? Sometimes those tips and tricks, have you tried rotating your planters to getting more sun? Those type of things sometimes help. Have you been adding some coffee grounds to the dirt?

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah.

>> Rebecca Byrd: Little things here and there, I think can help.

[00:48:34]

And Google is always the best helper.

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah. Well, and I think too it is kind of just experimenting a little bit.

>> Rebecca Byrd: Yeah.

>> Savannah Brown: Because when I first planted my peppers, they were not doing good. They just kept looking so sad, and I was like I thought they wanted full sun, or maybe it's too much sun, so I kept moving them around the patio but I think with gardening, especially people new to gardening, it might be a little bit of a turn off.

[00:48:56]

And you're like nothing's happening but it really is just being like, well, maybe I need to do a little research on maybe they like to be out in the sun for some of the day, or maybe they need more water than I was giving them or something like that.

[00:49:08]

So I think one of my suggestions kind of like what you were saying is for new gardeners like don't give up.

>> Rebecca Byrd: Yeah, don't give up, just keep going.

>> Savannah Brown: Just keep going.

>> Rebecca Byrd: Just keep trying. Go on Google, look at a whole bunch of articles. YouTube too.

[00:49:22]

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah.

>> Rebecca Byrd: A lot of urban gardeners, urban farmers, they have like YouTube Channels that are really, really like they're really fun. They're also like kind of corny, but they're cute and they're helpful. And they give you all the tips and tricks that you need. I think, when was it?

[00:49:38]

Over the weekend, I had just bought a little mini meyer lemon citrus bush. So, I'm kind of like, okay,like how tall is this going to get? Like is it going to be like, like this forever. I am going to get any fruit this summer? Am I not?

>> Savannah Brown: [LAUGH]

[00:49:52]

>> Rebecca Byrd: Because like, to me like, that's like the main thing, what am I going to get from this. [LAUGH].

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah.

>> Rebecca Byrd: That's sounds horrible, right? I'm focusing more on that. And so I went on YouTube. I'm like, okay, so what do I do with it? There's blooms, there's flowers on it.

[00:50:05]

Do I need to self-pollinate this with a little paint brush? Do I just leave it? Do I try and find some bees and just sit it there? What do I need to do? So YouTube definitely, YouTube and Google have been the biggest help for gardening and then if you go to the garden centers just asking the people that work there, because they usually.

[00:50:28]

Now if you're going to like pike nursery, not Home Depot or Lowes because sometimes you know that's like a hit or miss.

>> Savannah Brown: Yes, they do. But you know sometimes you do have to go to a nursery or garden center because it's people that are raising those plants.

[00:50:40]

>> Rebecca Byrd: Yeah.

>> Savannah Brown: That really know how to help you. Did you ever have to self-pollinate in the community garden or the bees-

>> Rebecca Byrd: Yes.

>> Savannah Brown: You did have to.

>> Rebecca Byrd: Some things, we did self-pollinate like the strawberries, we help the bees a little bit which I always think is good just it's like two seconds just to go around a little paintbrush and tap tap here, and a tap tap there, it's easy but it's fun, it's all about getting that perfect moment, I guess.

[00:51:10]

It sounds awkward.

>> Savannah Brown: How do you self-pollinate? I have never done that.

>> Rebecca Byrd: So it sounds like, well, it sounds very sexual when you talk about it but you're just waiting for the perfect moment when the pollen is I don't know how to describe it but I think it's called the pistol.

[00:51:28]

Inside it's super duper, I don't know any other word to describe it, super duper lubricated, and then you tap the pollen and you brush it on there. And then you go to each different bloom and you repeat it.

>> Savannah Brown: Okay I've never done that but I definitely know exactly what you're talking about.

[00:51:46]

Like when a flower, when you get one that honestly they look like kind of wet on the inside-

>> Rebecca Byrd: Yes.

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah, okay, so was it for strawberries?

>> Rebecca Byrd: Mm-hm.

>> Savannah Brown: Or was there anything else you had to do it for?

>> Rebecca Byrd: Not that I can recall, I've done it for my meyer lemons even though they didn't require it, because it's a self-pollinating tree, so it doesn't need it, but you know, everyone's is like it doesn't like [CROSSTALK] it doesn't hurt it if you do it.

[00:52:14]

So I'm like, well, why not? But I definitely think that helps, especially with all the technology we've got in this area, throws the bees off from traveling and getting to where they need to go. I definitely think that helps and especially if you live in an apartment complex.

[00:52:34]

I haven't seen any bees, but also then again, our landscapers, not to say they suck, but they don't put out lots of flowers and stuff. [LAUGH]

>> Savannah Brown: Right.

>> Rebecca Byrd: So we're not gonna see lots of bees or bee action over there. So I definitely think pollinating by hand is a necessity, but if we could get these that would be great.

[00:52:59]

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. I never really thought about that, I mean if we don't have bees and you're not somewhere with self-pollinating plant, you kinda have to do it. But, yeah.

>> Rebecca Byrd: [LAUGH]

>> Savannah Brown: So I guess it's just kinda my final question is what was your favorite part about being in the community garden club and being president.

[00:53:19]

>> Rebecca Byrd: My favorite part of course is like telling people about the garden but also just like being there gardening. Like that, it’s just so relaxing, it’s just like just putting your hands in some dirt is just you know. Now some things about gardening is just like weeding.

>> Savannah Brown: [LAUGH]

[00:53:36]

>> Rebecca Byrd: Like weeding those beds a headache, horrible but pruning the plants like that type of thing just taking the dead leaves off. It's like that pattern of going to each, I guess, each plant and doing that over and over, it's just there's something like, even though it's like methodical it's just relaxing.

[00:53:59]

It's like, this go here, do this, it's perfect. All right, do the next one. It's just, it's relaxing. Very, very relaxing. I mean it was a great experience. I love being a part of the gardening club, even though it was hard. [LAUGH]

>> Savannah Brown: Yes.

>> Rebecca Byrd: It was hard doing a lot of the hard work, getting other people involved I really enjoyed it, it made it made my time at UNC Charlotte like, I made it nice.

[00:54:28]

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah, and I think, I mean, just from listening to our interview, it just sparks so much joy to be a gardener even if you're just like you've got three plants at home or something. So I hope from this interview, we can help others just feel like it's not scary.

[00:54:43]

You can do it and it can be a really fun, relaxing activity. And benefit your community. Overall whole.

>> Rebecca Byrd: Exactly, it really can, even if it's you're starting off small. Start maybe with a bamboo plant. You know those those do well you know if you put in your bathroom.

[00:55:05]

It does perfect there you don't really have to do much just water it once a week. Just keep the shower mist juices. It'll be fine. And then if you find that that's doing well start off with like some peas, yes please I always feel like every first grader always does like peas.

[00:55:26]

At least I did peas. [LAUGH] I remember doing peas in my classroom and watching that grow was easy. And then, of course, they have lots of like grow kits at Home Depot, if you wanna start there and they some like herb. You could grow it right in your kitchen, they give you the containers, it has directions on it.

[00:55:48]

So it comes with directions so it can't be all that bad, although I will say sometimes you will get a dud seed. So sometimes the dud seeds, don't feel bad, sometimes we all get dud seeds. It happens, so a dud seed shouldn't deter you from being a gardener.

[00:56:06]

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah, I had two great peppers. So I had three pepper seeds, two of them, beautiful, did the best. One of them just couldn't It just didn't take, and that just happens. [LAUGH]

>> Rebecca Byrd: That's usually how it happens. You'll get a good majority that, they'll sprout and they'll be fine.

[00:56:22]

And then you'll always get those one or two that you're like, well, I did everything perfect, all you had to do was just grow. That's all you had to do. The sun is shining, just say, okay, I'm gonna sprout now. That's all. But it's a great process, it's fun.

[00:56:39]

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah, it is fun.

>> Rebecca Byrd: There's something back to nature about it. It's, you know, when you're gardening, it's like you can't really, not saying you can't really be on your phone while you're doing that, I mean, you can. But if you wanna get dirt all on the touchpad.

[00:56:52]

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah, really be involved in the process.

>> Rebecca Byrd: It takes you outside of technology and Facebook and all of that stuff, and just outside, just doing something. It's relaxing, it's-

>> Savannah Brown: No, I totally agree. They'd be like, why are you rotating your plants again? And I was like, leave me alone.

[00:57:12]

It's nice to just be out here. And I would just trim two leaves and prune them, but it still is nice to just put your phone away. Especially when we're surrounded by technology all the time, gardens really can be this place of just peace, and refuge, and relaxation.

[00:57:31]

And I think, community gardens, if you're experiencing that, while also you're producing food, it's just such a win-win.

>> Rebecca Byrd: Yes, exactly.

>> Savannah Brown: Are there any other questions I should have asked you about the community garden?

>> Rebecca Byrd: No questions. But I guess this will be my one little moment in the interview to say this.

[00:57:51]

I'm definitely thankful for my childhood, I guess my childhood experiences in gardening. I remember as a kid, my mom, in the summertime, we go to this mega store out in, I think it's in, trying to figure out the directions on the map. It's like southwestern Massachusetts, called Mahoney's, and it's the best.

[00:58:17]

To me, it's the best place ever, [LAUGH] it's the best place ever. And I have so many fond memories going to the store with my mom. She would say, all right, so what do you wanna plant? And so she would let me pick out some things. And she'd say, well, we can't grow that because we don't get full sun over there, so you have to pick something else.

[00:58:33]

So that experience, and also, my grandmother, she judges daffodil contests. It sounds so weird, so-

>> Savannah Brown: No, I love that.

>> Rebecca Byrd: So she lives in Rockford, Illinois, and so they have a daffodil growing competition. And so she grows daffodils, and this is what she does. So every time we would go to her house, she would have, I wish I brought a picture of it.

[00:58:59]

She has the most beautiful front and back yards, flowers everywhere, different types of daffodils all in a little field. It's kind of like, how does one have all this time and dedication to grow this? And she's very organised, she has the little tags and when she grew it, and what type of variety, and the scientific name, handwritten.

[00:59:24]

[LAUGH] I'm one of those, you know, you just could have put regular shmegular daffodils. I planted this on February 1st, right here. But she really gets into it, and that's her thing, so I'm just happy that I had those types of experiences that really made me want to garden now.

[00:59:44]

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah, for sure. Do you think people need that to want to garden, or do you think it just kind of helps?

>> Rebecca Byrd: I definitely think it helps, but you know, I definitely think, how could you not? I mean, just walking around the street, how could you not say, one day, I wanna have an apple tree.

[01:00:05]

Just nature, the world around you, it's just so beautiful. How could you not wanna say, I just wanna grow a little plant or something. It's just, not to say, I don't understand how people don't like it, but I don't understand how people don't like it or see that it adds value.

[01:00:25]

Not even just for the Earth, just for self. I guess it could be a part of, well, it is a part of self-care. Yeah, just having something to relax and take time away from life. But it's a full circle type of thing that you get to take part in.

[01:00:44]

It's cool.

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah, I mean, I think the same thing. I grew up with just a garden. And one of my favorite days of the year was when we'd go to the nursery and we could each pick out something that we were gonna grow and like take care of.

[01:00:56]

The same thing, my mom was like, we have a full sun garden, so you can’t have these certain things. But even though I didn't, maybe, as a kid, realize all the intricacies of gardening, it still was just a love for working outside and being able to pick something and watch it grow.

[01:01:12]

Kind of like your little pet, like you're just taking care of it. So yeah, I totally see where you're coming from, and I definitely think that for me, now, is why I like to at least have a couple plants on my patio. Cuz I'm like, even if I can't have a full garden, I still like to have a little something.

[01:01:29]

>> Rebecca Byrd: Exactly, I don't know, I always feel like, because of my gardening experience, I'm like, ugh, you know, some days, in graduate school, these professors, I'm not trying to give it to them. [LAUGH]

>> Savannah Brown: [LAUGH]

>> Rebecca Byrd: Sometimes I'm just like, I could just leave this all behind and quit school and just move out to Harrisburg and have a farm.

[01:01:50]

But then I'm like, having a farm is expensive in itself. So I'm like, I can't really do that either. [LAUGH] But it's always, I would leave it all behind just to have a farm in the countryside with only a landline phone.

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah, I think my overall dream, one day, is to have a farm to table area with my farm.

[01:02:14]

And people can come for dinner and I can just be like, here's all my produce, here's for dinner. I know, i think about that too. You know, my grand dream, if I had all the money to do whatever I wanted, that would be it.

>> Rebecca Byrd: Exactly, it's perfect, what more do you need?

[01:02:29]

>> Savannah Brown: I know. All right, well, thank you so much, I'm gonna go ahead and turn this off.

[tabby title='Captioned Audio'] [tabbyending]

Cindy McKenzie is a member of the Avondale Presbyterian Church and one of the founders of the Avondale Community Giving Garden. She began working on a community garden at Avondale through a connection from Myers Park Baptist Church, who introduced her to Common Grounds Farmstand. She estimates that this took place about ten years ago, roughly 2009. In this interview, Cindy talks about foundation of the Avondale Community Giving Garden through a partnership with Common Grounds, the types of produce grown in the garden, and the different challenges and success that the garden has experienced over the years. Cindy provides an thoughtful perspective on childhood memories, community gardening, and distributing food to the greater Charlotte community. 

Robert Suydam is a member of the Avondale Presbyterian Church and became involved in the garden roughly five years ago (around 2014). He introduced new ideas to the reinvent the Avondale Community Giving Garden by partnering with Friendship Trays. The Avondale Community Garden / Giving Garden produces over 500 pounds of fresh produce which is donated to Friendship Trays, a nonprofit organization located in South Charlotte. Friendship Trays creates and delivers healthy meals to elderly and infirm community member in their homes. In this interview, Robert talks about the redirection of the community garden through the partnership with Friendship Trays, outreaching the garden to community members who want to rent beds, and the self-sustainment of the Avondale Garden through the funds raised by plot rentals. He provides an interesting perspective on the challenges of volunteer sustainment, experimental produce, and community gardening in the Charlotte community.

[tabby title='Tape Log']

Time	Subject
0:00:07	Interview Begins
0:39:07	History of the Avondale Community Giving Garden
1:00:07	Collaboration between Common Grounds and Avondale Presbyterian
2:04:07	Cindy talks about the community garden growing tomatoes for the Common Ground farmstand ten years ago
4:19:07	Robert pitches the idea of Avondale partnering with Friendship Gardens to keep up with the changing times
5:30:07	Church garden shifts to community garden. Begin renting garden beds to community members three years ago.
7:00:07	Garden bed renters and the dynamic they add to the community garden
7:34:07	Describes size and layout of the garden
8:08:07	Types of seasonal produce grown in the garden
10:25:07	Involving children/young adults in the community garden
11:50:07	Volunteer base and types of volunteers that work in the garden
13:10:07	Challenges of volutneer labor force
15:23:07	Dealing with rabbits, deer, and birds in the garden
15:54:07	Water in the garden and the water system used (rainbarrels and totes)
18:25:07	Composting in the garden
20:16:07	Pollination beds and pollination approach in the garden
21:23:07	Communities favorite types of produce from the garden including tomatores, turnips, and kale
22:50:07	Compost in the garden
23:21:07	Produce that did not take well in the garden particularly beets
24:40:07	Mixing seedlings and seeds in the garden
25:50:07	Food distribution and harvesting season
27:40:07	Challenges of Charlotte's community gardens
31:12:07	Favorite parts of working in a community garden
33:12:07	Community gardening within Charlotte Mecklenburg schools
34:30:07	Knowledgable gardeners and new garderners
36:33:07	Youtube as a teaching tool for new garderners
37:40:07	Disease and insect infestation in the garden
38:29:07	Future of community gardens in Charlotte
40:19:07	Partnerships with other gardens
42:20:07	Changing food environment in Charlotte and evolvement of gardens
44:03:07	Final thoughts on the community garden
50:15:07	Reflecting on past memories of grandparents and gardening
52:51:07	Interview Ends

[tabby title='Transcript']

[00:00:07]

>> Savannah Brown: Hello, my name is Savannah Brown, and today I'm interviewing Cindy McKenzie and Robert Sudam. The date is Monday, March 25, 2019, at 6:30 PM. We're interviewing in Charlotte, North Carolina. Today, we'll be discussing the Avondale Community Garden, and Cindy and Robert's involvement at the garden. The garden is located on the Avondale Presbyterian campus, correct?

[00:00:30]

>> Cindy McKenzie: Yes.

>> Savannah Brown: And they donate fresh produce to Friendship Trays, a non-profit organization that delivers meals to the elderly and infirm communities located throughout Mecklenberg County. Okay, so can you just tell me a little bit about the history of the garden, and how it got started?

>> Cindy McKenzie: Sure.

[00:00:46]

Do you want me to start?

>> Robert Sudam: Yes, please.

>> Cindy McKenzie: Okay. We basically were approached by a person, and I've forgotten her name, from Myers Park Presbyterian Church, who was getting involved with something called the Common Grounds Farm Stand. It was a sort of a cooperative, put together by a group of women at Myers Park, and they call themselves the Mustard Seeds.

[00:01:19]

And they were going to sell fresh produce and baked goods, prepared foods, and some additional items. And the profits were going to be used to support a person to work with homeless neighbors at Urban Ministry Center. So that's a mouthful. [LAUGH] The person they hoped to fund would be a part-time person that had some legal background, so that they could counsel homeless neighbors as to how to get their benefits, how to navigate the systems in Charlotte.

[00:02:01]

And so they sort of cooked this idea up. I wish I could remember the year, it's probably been ten years ago.

>> Robert Sudam: It was before my time, yeah.

>> Cindy McKenzie: Yeah, about ten years ago, let's say. So anyway, they approached Avondale and asked if we would start from scratch a garden to grow tomatoes, for their farm stand.

[00:02:26]

And so that's kind of how we got started, with maybe eight beds? I really can't remember. I'm gonna say about eight beds. And we really had no experience, and we just sort of had a work day, built a bunch of garden beds, planted tomatoes, and season after season, some seasons are great, some not so great, and we donated the produce to that farm stand.

[00:02:56]

They were probably in operation about five years. I don’t know if you ever visited.

>> Robert Sudam: No.

>> Cindy McKenzie: Okay. Probably about five years, they were very successful in raising money to fund this position at Urban Ministry Center. As the years sort of went on, the clientele that shopped at the farm stand, they were looking more for prepared goods.

[00:03:23]

At least still carried some produce, but I think their profit margins were just a lot higher on the prepared goods. And so our focus sort of began to change a little bit as their focus changed. And eventually, because they were an entirely volunteer-based organization, it was quite labor-intensive.

[00:03:48]

Setup and take-down twice a week, usually May to September. They sort of saw it through, raised a ton of money, had a lot of fun, and then just said, we're going to move on. So we needed to move on. [LAUGH] And that's kind of when I met you.

[00:04:08]

>> Robert Sudam: Yeah, that's when I came into the church.

>> Cindy McKenzie: And I was probably struggling a little bit at that time, you know, what are we gonna do with our garden? We still wanted to grow produce, and Robert had an idea.

>> Robert Sudam: Yeah, so I'd worked with Friendship Gardens previously, with another church.

[00:04:28]

And so I pitched that we should get involved with that group, that it's a wonderful organization. And so we directed, redirected our resources in that direction. And they're just great partners to have. They provide vegetables, plants, to us to grow, and then they use everything you can produce and bring to them.

[00:04:50]

You can trust that it's going to used to benefit folks in need. So that was our redirection.

>> Cindy McKenzie: Yeah.

>> Robert Sudam: And then during that, so when Cindy was talking about the group, is the garden was completely run by church members. And then when we started redirecting five years ago, I guess, to Friendship Garden's trays, then it still was just all church volunteers.

[00:05:19]

And it just, there's a turning point where volunteers start to burn out. And we thought, maybe we could do something bigger with this plot of land down here. And Cindy came up with the idea that we should outreach to the community, and make it a true community garden, instead of just church members, hook it up to the entire community.

[00:05:40]

So, three years ago-

>> Cindy McKenzie: Yeah, this is our third spring.

>> Robert Sudam: Yeah, third spring, we solicited, or we just put out feelers, that we have beds available. Obviously, very low cost. So it's also a self-funding garden, and at the same time still benefits Friendship Trays. So what we did at that point in time is, we had individuals own their bed and their produce.

[00:06:06]

But we have six beds that are completely dedicated to Friendship Trays.

>> Savannah Brown: Okay.

>> Robert Sudam: Yeah, so it's a way to bring fresh blood in, and still maintain that element to giving food to folks in need.

>> Savannah Brown: And so, for the people that rent the beds, they bring in their own produce?

[00:06:27]

Their own produce plants?

>> Cindy McKenzie: Yes.

>> Robert Sudam: Yeah, they do.

>> Cindy McKenzie: Yeah, yeah.

>> Robert Sudam: And seeds. And to the extent that they'll help with Friendship Trays and Friendship Gardens, they can utilize those plants. But again, that's to help Friendship Trays.

>> Savannah Brown: And do they. I was like, I had something going.

[00:06:47]

[LAUGH] But I was going to say, the produce that they produce, so they don't have to donate it to Friendship Trays, their own bed? They can take it home, or they can donate it.

>> Robert Sudam: Yeah. I'd say the majority of the vegetables produced by folks, outside members if you will, well, they're not outside.

[00:07:05]

But those folks, probably majority they grow for themselves, and it's been great, because we've had a diverse group. We've had folks that have come in and never gardened before, but always thought it'd be fun, and wanted to be a part of the community. And then we've had other folks come in that knew exactly what they were doing, and have taught us things along the way.

[00:07:24]

So that's been a whole new dynamic that has really added to the community garden.

>> Savannah Brown: That's really fun.

>> Cindy McKenzie: It has been.

>> Savannah Brown: Can you tell me a little bit about what the garden looks like? Just, how big are the plot, or the bed sizes, or?

>> Cindy McKenzie: Sure.

[00:07:39]

Currently, we have 17 beds, and most are about 4' wide with about would you say 3' of growing.

>> Robert Sudam: Well, is it-

>> Cindy McKenzie: Or is it 3' by 12'? It's either 4' by 12' or 3' by 12'.

>> Robert Sudam: Like 4' by 12'.

>> Cindy McKenzie: I think it's 4' by 12'.

[00:07:58]

>> Robert Sudam: Yeah.

>> Cindy McKenzie: Yeah.

>> Savannah Brown: That's a lot of beds. That's a lot more than I thought.

>> Cindy McKenzie: Yeah, it's 17, each being about 4' by 12', yeah.

>> Savannah Brown: Some are a little smaller, but the majority are about that size. Yeah, and what types of produce do you grow?

[00:08:12]

>> Cindy McKenzie: Wow, we've grown some creative stuff.

>> Savannah Brown: [LAUGH]

>> Robert Sudam: Everything, it's, we try to keep it seasonal, so we try to make sure that we help folks. That can plant early radishes and turnips, and then go to beans, and tomatoes and squash, and just kinda follow the seasons.

[00:08:31]

With the beds that are for Friendship Trays, our goal is maximum production. So we plant these specifically to try to produce the most, and with asking that group what they would like. Most of the time, they're just glad to have anything, so they say plant whatever you want.

[00:08:50]

But we've also switched some to herbs, because this past year part of their fundraising was salad dressings.

>> Savannah Brown: Lucy was telling me about that interview.

>> Robert Sudam: Yeah, so we grew herbs for them that went into salad dressing, and so it really varies

>> Cindy McKenzie: Because we've done potatoes, I'd never grown potatoes.

[00:09:10]

So he started the potato bed, okra, and all kinds of squash, onions, peas, yeah.

>> Robert Sudam: You name it.

>> Cindy McKenzie: Kohlrabi.

>> Robert Sudam: Yeah, kohlrabi is a good one.

>> Cindy McKenzie: It tastes weird I think, but it's interesting.

>> Savannah Brown: [LAUGH]

>> Robert Sudam: It has similar ties to water chestnut.

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah?

>> Robert Sudam: It's a really odd looking-

[00:09:37]

>> Cindy McKenzie: Like a bulbous kinda thing [LAUGH]

>> Robert Sudam: Yeah, but it's a lot of fun, so I mean we can get kids, and again I said to you earlier. One of my passions is getting kids in the garden and trying to spark that interest. Which is not the easiest thing in the world to do.

[00:09:54]

So if you can bring in unique produce that they've never seen before or bring in a new flavor, tha's what I enjoy doing. So the kohlrabi is something that looks like it's come off of Mars, it's really a bizarre looking vegetable, so it sparks an interest. And grow things like even stevia, we grew stevia, which is an artificial sweetener.

[00:10:19]

And so when kids came in, we call it the candy plant, give them a leaf. And it's so sweet, they're grabbed, immediately you have their attention.

>> Savannah Brown: Do you have a lot of kids in the garden?

>> Cindy McKenzie: That has evolved as well, when we were primarily a church-based, growing for Friendship Trays.

[00:10:38]

We were always looking for people to partner with, and we partnered with Sedgefield Middle School. With their Montessori partner for a while, and the kids would come over and help us harvest or plant.

>> Robert Sudam: Yeah.

>> Cindy McKenzie: And that's tough, cuz it's during the work day, so has to be people that can do that.

[00:11:00]

That have that availability, but that was really, really fun days, planting or harvesting or sometimes tasting, trying out things. The other things that they did they were service-oriented, the Montessori program. And so they would also come on campus and help us clean out beds, or clean out the tool box, or things like that.

[00:11:22]

>> Savannah Brown: [LAUGH]

>> Cindy McKenzie: So that probably lasted three years, I'd say, the Montessori program actually moved to a different location. Yeah, but that was a lot of fun.

>> Robert Sudam: And even our youth center-

>> Cindy McKenzie: Yeah, our youth group has done some things in the past.

>> Robert Sudam: Yeah, it's fun to get them in.

[00:11:39]

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah, that's really neat, I was gonna ask you about volunteers. Because I didn't know what it was, I was gonna say, do you feel that you already have a built-in network of volunteers with the church? Or do you feel like it kinda is more outside?

>> Robert Sudam: [CROSSTALK]

[00:11:56]

>> Cindy McKenzie: It does, it's a good way to put it.

>> Robert Sudam: It can be challenging, you have to find those people who have the same passion, that grow a garden. Those are the kind that stick, but still you can find like we have two people soon they [INAUDIBLE] their beds this year.

[00:12:16]

That are newer gardeners, that are just as passionate as somebody who's been doing it since they were young.

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah.

>> Cindy McKenzie: Yeah, well, and Mark, one gentleman has children-

>> Robert Sudam: Good point.

>> Cindy McKenzie: And there's a children's center, a daycare center, a childcare center on campus. And one parent loves to garden, and he gardens with his sons, because they can just walk right over.

[00:12:46]

Either when he's dropping off, in the morning, or picking up in the afternoon and tend their plot. And his plot is usually the best-looking one, or sometimes.

>> Robert Sudam: It is, and it's always harvested, they're definitely using everything they can grow.

>> Cindy McKenzie: They are, yeah, you can tell.

>> Robert Sudam: Yeah, that's a good one.

[00:13:06]

>> Savannah Brown: Do you have a pretty steady network of volunteers? I've kinda noticed with community gardens I feel that can be where they struggle sometimes. Is there a volunteer base to keep it running?

>> Cindy McKenzie: That's definitely where we struggle the most, and that's really what prompted the switch to a community garden in a sense.

[00:13:26]

Was, it's hard work sometimes, and it's really tough to get people, I guess. To get people involved on a consistent basis for a long time, let's say, it's tough. There are a lot of choices in charge, all the things to do, and ways to your spend your time with your family.

[00:13:48]

And so yeah, that's probably where we struggle the most. And the community garden has simplified it.

>> Robert Sudam: Significantly, simplified it.

>> Cindy McKenzie: For me.

>> Savannah Brown: What I think of one of my previous interviews,she was talking about holidays and a lot of us over the summer. When people have other commitments, or choose to do other things, and so that can be difficult as well.

[00:14:15]

Just keeping people involved in this kinda like prime growing season, especially if they're students, or kids, or other things are going on. And so people keep their own garden beds, the renters, volunteers don't help with their beds like.

>> Cindy McKenzie: Right, they do, we have a set of garden rules that we modeled after the Dilworth Community Garden just right down the street.

[00:14:50]

They're pretty common sense things, but yes, people maintain their own bed.

>> Savannah Brown: Do you struggle that all with vandalism or any kinda?

>> Cindy McKenzie: [LAUGH] Last year, I mean not a great deal.

>> Robert Sudam: Occasionally might have a tomato or a cabbage go missing, but not vandalism, per se.

>> Savannah Brown: Right, anybody really littering in the garden or do they keep it clean?

[00:15:10]

>> Robert Sudam: No, it's a very clean.

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah, we've been very fortunate with that, because we're right on the road.

>> Cindy McKenzie: Within view of, I don't know, 30,000 folks a day, I don't know, it's--

>> Robert Sudam: I think the deer have been the worst vandals. [LAUGH]

>> Savannah Brown: I would say like pests like any kinda like rabbits or deer, or anything?

[00:15:30]

>> Cindy McKenzie: Rabbits, deer, birds.

>> Robert Sudam: But surprisingly we'll find, I mean you can go down there and see where deer walked around. But surprisingly they have not really disturbed our garden, probably because of the road.

>> Cindy McKenzie: Yeah.

>> Robert Sudam: So it hasn't been bad or all.

>> Cindy McKenzie: Not significantly, really.

[00:15:50]

>> Robert Sudam: No, sweet potatoes, they ate the tops off all the sweet [INAUDIBLE] crop, but outside of that, not much.

>> Cindy McKenzie: We've been fortunate, water is another kinda challenge, we do not have city water at the garden. We have a system of rain barrels and Totes.

>> Savannah Brown: Totes?

>> Robert Sudam: Yeah.

[00:16:10]

>> Cindy McKenzie: I could not think of the word for tote today, those are interesting.

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah, tell me more about that, how does that work?

>> Robert Sudam: So that's a great system, since the garden is down lower than the church, it's all gravity fed.

>> Savannah Brown: Okay.

>> Robert Sudam: So we have decent pressure from these totes which are kind of commercial big cubes they hold 350 gallons.

[00:16:35]

>> Cindy McKenzie: Or something, yeah that's fine.

>> Robert Sudam: Maybe around that they hold a lot of water, so we have three of those set up to capture water off the roof of the church. And then we also have what, four water barrels, baybe more.

>> Cindy McKenzie: Yeah I guess we only, I guess we just have four, it's just four now.

[00:16:54]

>> Robert Sudam: Yeah.

>> Cindy McKenzie: Yeah, probably just four rain barrels now that we have installed those large tots.

>> Robert Sudam: So we have a significant amount of water and we use a significant amount, and most of it is harvested from the roof.

>> Savannah Brown: Wow.

>> Cindy McKenzie: Yeah.

>> Robert Sudam: Yeah.

>> Savannah Brown: That's pretty awesome, some sustainability going on.

[00:17:11]

>> Robert Sudam: Yeah it's great.

>> Cindy McKenzie: It's great when it rains. [LAUGH]

>> Robert Sudam: It's great when it rains we have had some issues. They key is what we're gonna do is not drain resources and this is a way for us not to drain resources. The totes we got from Friendship Gardens because they were getting rid of one of their gardens, so we salvage those, two of them, and then you picked one from.

[00:17:36]

>> Cindy McKenzie: I guess from Sam who, well they raise tilapia and them I think or ship them-

>> Robert Sudam: What's the name of that group again cuz that's-

>> Cindy McKenzie: It's not 100 Gardens or is it?

>> Robert Sudam: It's a 100 Gardens, yeah, or a 1,000 Gardens?

>> Cindy McKenzie: I think a 100.

[00:17:53]

>> Robert Sudam: That's bad.

>> Cindy McKenzie: I know, it's terrible and Sam and I can't recall his name, he's a really interesting person, he used to do hydroponic gardening, some of it in Haiti.

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah.

>> Cindy McKenzie: Yeah.

>> Savannah Brown: So what happens when it's drought, like do you ever experience?

>> Cindy McKenzie: Yeah.

[00:18:10]

>> Savannah Brown: What happens then?

>> Robert Sudam: If it's extreme, we run out of water, we do supplement.

>> Cindy McKenzie: Right.

>> Robert Sudam: We'll go out there with the hose and just fill up a little bit in one of the totes.

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah.

>> Robert Sudam: And wait for the next rain.

>> Cindy McKenzie: Yeah.

>> Savannah Brown: Well that's really cool, I hadn't heard of anything like that so, do you do any sort of composting?

[00:18:32]

>> Cindy McKenzie: Our composting couple moved.

>> Savannah Brown: [LAUGH]

>> Cindy McKenzie: We did for.

>> Cindy McKenzie: Three years, I'm gonna say three years. We had a couple who were just environmentally friendly and they were both retired and they did some composting, with rotating bins and coffee grounds and that other stuff you throw in there, I don't remember.

[00:19:05]

>> Robert Sudam: Egg shells and-

>> Cindy McKenzie: Yeah, egg shells and leaves and it was all cold comfort I guess you call it, I don't know, and they tended it with help and took about six months or so to cook up some contest and we would use it in the garden.

[00:19:21]

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah.

>> Cindy McKenzie: So it's basically leaves from the property or other clean leaves they would collect from from neighbors it's pretty labor-intensive.

>> Savannah Brown: Very labor-intensive.

>> Cindy McKenzie: Yeah, I've even thought about it at home I just don't think I can make that happen, I want to.

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah, no, and composting is and if you live in an urban environment, it can be hard if you don't have somewhere to take it.

[00:19:45]

Like, we're living in an apartment, I can do a bin in my kitchen, but then you have to take it somewhere every week and you've got a brown matter and green matter, so.

>> Cindy McKenzie: Yeah, it's like a recipe and I guess I just didn't feel confident. That we could run the garden, have water, manage the folks that grow produce and compost, so compost kind of went by the wayside, yeah unfortunately,

[00:20:16]

>> Savannah Brown: So, we just mentioned a little bit earlier Robert and I but what about your pollination approach, so.

>> Cindy McKenzie: You're the expert on that.

>> Savannah Brown: [LAUGH]

>> Robert Sudam: We're lucky in that the woods next to the garden there's a lot of pollinators, vines, that grow up, so they're bringing a lot of honey bees and pollinators to the garden.

[00:20:37]

We also have in the center of the garden a pollinator bed?

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah.

>> Robert Sudam: That has flowers that attract pollinators as well, so if you-

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah and that made a honeysuckle [CROSSTALK].

>> Robert Sudam: Honeysuckle.

>> Cindy McKenzie: Yeah.

>> Robert Sudam: And then one thing I like to do is leave some of the cabbage and things of that nature that have the nice flowers, bees love that.

[00:21:01]

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah.

>> Robert Sudam: So let some of those flower because you can also eat the flowers on salads very pretty, but it's really good for attracting pollinators.

>> Savannah Brown: Mm-mh.

>> Robert Sudam: Yeah, we plant flowers specifically to attract pollinators.

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah, what I was just I was going back to your produce but were there any kind of well not best sellers but anything that, people love that you guys grow?

[00:21:27]

>> Robert Sudam: People always love fresh tomatoes.

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah, okay, I've-

>> Robert Sudam: I mean that is the number one vegetable that people love by far.

>> Cindy McKenzie: Yeah, hands down.

>> Robert Sudam: Now we love to, early in the season, to plant and grow turnips, because turnip's one of the first thing you can get in the ground, and they grow so fast.

[00:21:48]

>> Savannah Brown: Okay.

>> Robert Sudam: And so you can grow a lot of turnips and feed a lot of people in a short period of time and have multiple generations of crops off of that. So that's one of the big ones that we plant, and then we do a lot of kale,

[00:22:01]

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah.

>> Robert Sudam: Kale's another early crop that we can get a lot of volume off of, and then after that is when we go into the tomato plants. The tomato plants in Charlotte are a little tricky because the squirrels love them.

>> Savannah Brown: Really?

>> Cindy McKenzie: Yes.

>> Savannah Brown: [LAUGH]

>> Robert Sudam: So, that is a challenge in Charlotte.

[00:22:19]

>> Cindy McKenzie: My nemesis.

>> Savannah Brown: [LAUGH] The squirrels?

>> Cindy McKenzie: Yes.

>> Savannah Brown: Do you, well my garden is just on my patio so it's just pots. So will you use the same beds, so when you harvest turnips then you just harvest them early enough to put the tomatoes in that same bed.

[00:22:40]

>> Robert Sudam: Right, right and we try to do plants that complement each other, we do a little bit of rotation and always bring in fresh soil each year.a

>> Cindy McKenzie: We tried one of those giant compost cubes this year that they deliver it in the big yellow bag and it'll be interesting to see how that works.

[00:23:05]

Yeah, but we usually just supplement a little bit of garden soil with some sort of compost, mushroom blend or something each year.

>> Savannah Brown: Is there anything you planted that just did not work at all?

>> Cindy McKenzie: Yeah, I'll say.

>> Savannah Brown: [LAUGH]

>> Cindy McKenzie: Well, I meant me personally, I'm not great at thinning, so beets and radishes didn't work so well for me at the community garden.

[00:23:29]

I tried cowpeas this past year and they grew like crazy but I didn't get down there often enough to harvest it that's probably, I mean we've got some Well the cowpeas did, the plants themselves did very well. They did great it was just me harvesting. What else has just been a dud?

[00:23:53]

So, I tried leeks.

>> Robert Sudam: To me turnips have always been the one thing that have not grown, not turnips, the, it's one of the other root vegetables has not grown for me the beets, sorry.

>> Cindy McKenzie: Beets, yeah.

>> Robert Sudam: The beets just will not grow for me.

>> Cindy McKenzie: No I.

[00:24:10]

I'm terrible at these.

>> Savannah Brown: What is thinning?

>> Cindy McKenzie: When you plant a bunch of seeds and then a bunch of them germinate and the little seedlings come up. You're really supposed to thin them out so that their roots don't compete for nutrients.

>> Robert Sudam: When you have the really small seeds, then when you put them down, you just have to make sure that they're at the right spacing.

[00:24:32]

Otherwise, they won't grow. Like carrots, there is a gazillion carrots seeds in a packet.

>> Cindy McKenzie: And they're tiny.

>> Robert Sudam: Yeah, they're tiny.

>> Cindy McKenzie: And so, if you place them too closely and don't thin, then the root bulb, or whatever, can't form. It doesn't have enough room.

>> Savannah Brown: So do you guys do a mix of seeds and kind of already grown plants, if that makes sense?

[00:24:56]

>> Robert Sudam: We do, yes, starters.

>> Cindy McKenzie: That's what I loved about Friendship Trades were their seedlings, particularly the turnips. Just couldn't get enough. They'd get small seedlings, plant them.

>> Robert Sudam: And that's where are all the kohlrobi-

>> Cindy McKenzie: 60 days.

>> Robert Sudam: That's where are the kohlrobi came from as well.

[00:25:16]

>> Cindy McKenzie: Kohlrobi, yeah, yeah.

>> Robert Sudam: Yeah, the turnips are 45 to 60 days.

>> Cindy McKenzie: I was gonna say, I couldn't remember about that.

>> Robert Sudam: And that was great for the kids as well cuz it was instant. [CROSSTALK] Because they start them in the greenhouse.

>> Savannah Brown: I was like cuz like I waited for forever and ever and ever for my peppers.

[00:25:36]

I got my first one little flower and I was like, yes. It was months. Everyday I was out there watering.

>> Robert Sudam: Peppers are a late season.

>> Cindy McKenzie: Yeah, peppers are a challenge for me.

>> Robert Sudam: Yeah, they come very late.

>> Cindy McKenzie: Yeah, and I had a couple, I had two that did great and one, he just couldn't make it.

[00:25:55]

>> Savannah Brown: But it was okay, I mean, I guess that's the the life of gardening.

>> Cindy McKenzie: It is trial and error.

>> Savannah Brown: So can we talk a little bit about the food distribution. So are you harvesting all year, or all summer kind of? Or is there one big harvest?

[00:26:10]

>> Cindy McKenzie: It depends on the crop. Potatoes, one big harvest. I loved growing butternut squash from Friendship, the seedlings came from Friendship Trays. And that was sort of one big, huge harvest at one time. I think otherwise-

>> Robert Sudam: Some of the beans are the same way, so depending on what varieties, so if it's a bush bean, typically all comes at one time.

[00:26:35]

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah.

>> Robert Sudam: Or if it's a determinate tomato, they all come at one time, indeterminate, they don't. So you can pick them all year or all summer. Simi also has a bunch of beds at her house. And grows in those beds for Friendship Trades as well.

>> Savannah Brown: So most of your food goes to Friendship Trades.

[00:26:56]

You guys don't do any kind of farmer's market or anything like that.

>> Robert Sudam: No, no.

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah, and what about your congregation, do they come here? I mean, is it mostly just the volunteers for the garden?

>> Cindy McKenzie: It's mostly just the volunteers. Back in the day, we did some harvesting and had some garden days, and also had, when we had just a bounty of tomatoes we would have them available for people to purchase.

[00:27:28]

And the donations would either support that forum stand or Friendship Trades.

>> Robert Sudam: The volunteers really are our church members, but it's not the whole congregation coming down.

>> Savannah Brown: Right, right. What if we fit some of the challenges? I know we talked about the squirrels and some of those things.

[00:27:47]

But what have been some of the other challenges you have experienced with, it doesn't have to be your community garden, but just with community gardens here in Charlotte, what would you say?

>> Robert Sudam: I would say that the number one, you've hit on it, is volunteers, consistent volunteers. You'll get someone who's and there's no, I mean there's just so much to do and people have families, but they'll start gung-ho.

[00:28:09]

And then all of a sudden, when you hit July, and you hit the heat in August, or we'll say July. It's hard to keep people energized at that point in time, to keep coming. Cuz tomatoes, you pick them, a few every day, or around, depends on which kind they are.

[00:28:27]

So you have to keep someone coming down constantly to pick and water, and that's tough. And I've hit that at two community gardens.

>> Cindy McKenzie: I think that's been my biggest challenge as well and just for me, location. I mean, I think a community garden best serves,

>> Cindy McKenzie: A little more narrow, what do you call it, geographical whatever.

[00:28:52]

I live way off Carmel Road, and so it's tough. It's about a 20 minute drive to get to the garden. And the beauty of it though, is Friendship Trays, once you get to our garden, Friendship Trays is just down the road, basically. So that part's wonderful, and I think has allowed the partnership to continue.

[00:29:18]

But the kind of people that seem to really love it are the people that live within walking distance. They can just walk down, pick their produce, tend their plot, and particularly people that don't have access. They may be in a townhome or a condo an apartment and they just don't have space.

[00:29:40]

So some of the younger people or they have limited sunlight, just really, I think enjoy that part of it. Or ride their bike.

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah, I think I've noticed that there's all these big lists of all the community gardens in Mecklenburg County. And then when I'm trying to contact people, they're defunct or.

[00:30:04]

I'm not able to reach any, and so it seems like this idea of community gardens, people are really excited about. But when it comes down to it, the gears aren't firing on every cylinder, if that makes sense.

>> Cindy McKenzie: It does.

>> Savannah Brown: What is the one that-

>> Robert Sudam: There are ways that I think, so in a community organization like this, a community garden organization, meaning the friendship, feeding Friendship Trays and gardens.

[00:30:32]

There ways that that community or that organization can motivate the gardens. And so that's kind of, at this point, an element that could be enhanced because if you give a lot of advice, you build some kind of gardens, churches competing, those are the types of things that really energize folks.

[00:30:56]

And I think that might be one thing that could help, cuz like you said, you reached out and they're defunct or it's just hard to get a hold of somebody. And part of that is because it's tough to keep them going. But if you give something that's a little bit, a hands on touch, I think they could do a lot better.

[00:31:18]

>> Savannah Brown: What have been some of your favorite parts of the community [INAUDIBLE]?

>> Robert Sudam: For me, honest to goodness, it's been delivering food to Friendship Trays, knowing that it is going to help the community. I mean, that's been my favorite part about it. I take pride in the quality and the quantity of vegetables that we can produce and provide to help things.

[00:31:47]

>> Cindy McKenzie: Yeah, I've enjoyed that partnership the most. Just, you've mentioned it earlier, when you deliver produce there, you know that it's gonna be used in the kitchen. Because I will say, occasionally, we were donating to Loaves and Fishes, the food pantry right next door. And, it just depends on if one of their clients or their shoppers, if they like that vegetable or need it, and fresh produce is hard to manage [LAUGH].

[00:32:26]

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah.

>> Cindy McKenzie: It's kind of dirty, it's kind of buggy maybe and I think that you know not everybody likes to cook.

>> Robert Sudam: For instance one time we took a huge harvest of carrots that had these beautiful green tops and the debate was do we pull the green tops off?

[00:32:49]

Because it'll save them labor on that side, or is that okay. Maybe they'll figure out something to do with the green tops. So we took all these carrots and they made a carrot top pesto.

>> Savannah Brown: Wow.

>> Robert Sudam: So which we never ever would've thought about.

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah.

>> Robert Sudam: So it just shows they're creative in providing fresh produce to their constituents if you will.

[00:33:08]

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah.

>> Cindy McKenzie: I was trying to look up. There's one really great community garden at an elementary school. I'm drawing a blank. Basically it's on the property and Mecklenburg County provides the water and compost. I'll think of it. I'll find it.

>> Savannah Brown: [CROSSTALK] I know that high school-

[00:33:30]

>> Cindy McKenzie: [CROSSTALK] Yeah.

>> Savannah Brown: They had the urban farm.

>> Cindy McKenzie: [CROSSTALK] Yeah.

>> Savannah Brown: That´s through the friendship trays they kinda started that one.

>> Cindy McKenzie: [CROSSTALK] Right.

>> Savannah Brown: So Lucy told us a little bit about that.

>> Robert Sudam: So that was through them and it was through the 100 gardens, and they're the folks that set up the hydrophonics for that.

[00:33:44]

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah.

>> Robert Sudam: And the fish and the fertilizer. That's a neat space.

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah, I had, one of my colleagues interviewed, she's volunteered for a long time with Garringer Farms, so she interviewed, I'm not sure exactly who it was, but she got that interview. So, it was very cool.

[00:34:00]

>> Cindy McKenzie: It was Winterfield Elementary.

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah.

>> Cindy McKenzie: I guess the kids are involved in the neighborhood, too. And they had a really dynamic garden manager. And I cannot remember her name. But I was impressed with that one. It's been a number of years since I've been over there.

[00:34:24]

>> Savannah Brown: And so I know Robert and I had just mentioned this, before, but do you think the people need the prior knowledge to garden or that they can pick it up along the way? Or do you find somebody who volunteers here have knowledge of gardening or grew up gardening?

[00:34:46]

>> Robert Sudam: So I don't think when they're in the garden it matters getting them to the garden. So if they have a background in gardening they're more apt to volunteer. You get someone who has not gardened before, they're so energized energetic that they're fun to have in the garden and they're always incredibly helpful because they just want it.

[00:35:07]

They want so much knowledge.

[00:35:08]

>> [MUSIC]

[00:35:12]

>> Cindy McKenzie: I've really learned the most from like you, my grandmother, hands on, people that have some knowledge, and actually had their hands on the dirt, and did really great things. And even more about insects and pests and.

>> Robert Sudam: The diseases, cuz unfortunately I've had them all in my garden.

[00:35:36]

>> Savannah Brown: [LAUGH]

>> Cindy McKenzie: Well, I've experienced all of that too, but it's been really helpful for me to, I took some classes through the cooperative extension office, over time, and there were, I think it was called the Green Teacher Network. Not sure if it exists or if it's called something different now.

[00:35:56]

And they would offer seminars, like half day, classes, training. And it was really for education, for teachers in the classroom. That other anybody from the community could go, and I learned a ton just by going to some of those, yeah.

>> Savannah Brown: That's what the woman I interviewed previous, she said that a lot of, she was with the UNC Charlotte community garden, and she said a lot of people were going too.

[00:36:29]

And that's kind of a theme that we've been seeing in our sponsors like YouTube gardeners and YouTube farmers. And it's become a teaching tool which is kind of cool. People are saying I have plants doing so well. They can kind of get into that kind of a forum but I think people as long as they have the excitement to try it or just to at least get out there, get their hands dirty one time.

[00:36:51]

And they can definitely learn along the way and like you said in the garden it doesn't matter as much like once you're out there you can figure it out.

>> Cindy McKenzie: It's a lot of fun. I did go to YouTube for several things for potatoes, for different tactics to keep the squirrels off the tomatoes.

[00:37:08]

Yeah, I mean YouTube's great because I know with gardening you've got to be able to see it. You can't just or I can't just read about it. Well figure it all out. I have to come see it as well. So yeah YouTube was pretty good.

>> Robert Sudam: Yeah I found YouTube to be a confidence booster.

[00:37:24]

>> Cindy McKenzie: Yeah.

>> Robert Sudam: If you see someone can do it, you're like well I can do that too, so it's a great resource.

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah we had in class we were talking about how one of the farmers they learned to like fix their tractor through it. And they're like well if they can do it, I can do it.

[00:37:37]

[LAUGH] So have any diseases hit your garden? I know you just mentioned that kinda but.

>> Cindy McKenzie: One year, I don't know, it was some sort of tomato blight when we were just growing mainly tomatoes, and it rained constantly that year. And it was just, it looked like something from Mars.

[00:37:58]

It was bizarre, just defoliated all the tomato plants and they were just vines with kind of squishy tomatoes left. It was terrible.

>> Robert Sudam: Powdery mildew is always.

>> Cindy McKenzie: Yeah. Squash. Squash.

>> Savannah Brown: What is it?

>> Robert Sudam: Powdery mildew.

>> Savannah Brown: Aaww.

>> Robert Sudam: It hits your squash and zucchini early.

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah.

[00:38:20]

>> Robert Sudam: And so it's always one that's-

>> Savannah Brown: Mm-hm.

>> Cindy McKenzie: And squash bugs.

>> Robert Sudam: Yeah, so cut the cut worm.

>> Cindy McKenzie: Yeah, is that what it is?

>> Robert Sudam: Yeah.

>> Cindy McKenzie: Yeah, I have that at home as well.

>> Savannah Brown: What do you see for the future?

>> Cindy McKenzie: For me, I'm not going to say anything all that creative partnerships, children.

[00:38:57]

>> Cindy McKenzie: I think there could really be a revival. If,

>> Cindy McKenzie: I don't know how to say this.

>> Robert Sudam: Maybe you have to find passionate people.

>> Cindy McKenzie: Yeah, you really do, a core at least ten.

>> Robert Sudam: But that's true with anything.

>> Cindy McKenzie: Yeah.

>> Robert Sudam: So,

>> Robert Sudam: Clearly, it was when Obama was president, right?

[00:39:23]

His wife was an advocate.

>> Cindy McKenzie: Yeah, good point.

>> Robert Sudam: And so you saw a lot of people in gardens and wanting to kinda emulate that and understanding because she was a spokesperson for it. There was a lot of interest at that point in time. So if you find someone like that, that can outreach.

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah.

>> Robert Sudam: And get people excited about it, then absolutely.

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah, and the full cycle of planting, harvesting, and cooking.

>> Cindy McKenzie: I always wanted to do some sort of cooking classes for people that otherwise might just not be able to have that experience. Cooking fresh produce particularly with children.

[00:40:10]

We try that a little bit here and there, but it's just sort of one off kind of things, not anything organized, over time.

>> Savannah Brown: Have you helped any community gardens get started or partnered with any kind of organizations?

>> Robert Sudam: We have, we have the church that we helped.

[00:40:36]

>> Cindy McKenzie: Yeah, we went to a meeting at Matthews Church. I think at one time they had a garden on the church grounds that had so many times, it just sort of goes its way. And they were considering restarting it, some members really wanted to sort of give it a boost.

[00:41:01]

And we went and talked to them about.

>> Robert Sudam: Shared some of our trials and tribulations, some of those things that worked and did not work and.

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah, yeah, experience.

>> Cindy McKenzie: Offered some help, I think they wanted to be independent and use the resources that they have.

>> Robert Sudam: And they were truly going toward a community garden as well.

[00:41:26]

Outreach to neighbors and bring in all sorts of socio-economic diverse groups, which I thought was great. I'm not sure how they're doing today, I'd love to know.

>> Cindy McKenzie: I know, I've driven by there a few times, but the garden's in the back, and I just haven't gotten out of the car, gone over there and looked.

[00:41:47]

And the gardening has been popular at some of the retirement communities. I think you just have to have sort of a-

>> Cindy McKenzie: Synergy.

>> Robert Sudam: You need a couple of people to be the garden cabinets.

>> Cindy McKenzie: Yeah.

>> Robert Sudam: That really carry the garden and then can get the other volunteers and garden members took this back.

[00:42:17]

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah, I think one of the things that you all said earlier that I thought was the most important is that I think you're going to have to evolve. And as the world keeps evolving, and if they stay static, I don't know how they'll do. I think Charlotte especially is kind of in this praise of food right now.

[00:42:35]

There's always a restaurant or something popping up and the especially this farm to table, that's another kind of aspect we are looking at. So I think if community gardens can start maybe looking for different avenues either with how the industry food has always intended to be able to to kind of evolve with it.

[00:42:53]

And I think we can do well, I mean, and there's very few people want to be involved in them with gardens. I'm sure my brother moved into a new neighborhood up in Cornelius, and the developer had, I don't know, let's just say half an acre, and asked the neighborhood would you like a sport court kinda thing?

[00:43:21]

>> Cindy McKenzie: Or a community garden? And they overwhelmingly chose the garden. And so the developer put in all the beds, leveled the land, and put in all the beds for them and the water source, and the gravel pathways, and everything, and fencing.

>> Savannah Brown: Wow.

>> Cindy McKenzie: So the developer paid for all that.

[00:43:39]

[LAUGH] And it was sort of a garden on a platter. Here you go, it was great.

>> Cindy McKenzie: I mean, I could see the Cross Charlotte Trail community gardens, along that. It comes to funding, too, I guess.

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah, is there anything else maybe I didn't ask you, or that you wanna tell me, or just a fun story about the garden that you'd like to share?

[00:44:16]

>> Cindy McKenzie: I don't know about fun stories.

>> Robert Sudam: [LAUGH]

>> Cindy McKenzie: We've had rabbits nesting in some of the beds. Last weekend when we had our spring cleanup day, we had a hawk come down and eat a snake right there, and yeah, so we've had our moments with wildlife.

>> Robert Sudam: Think I mentioned it to you earlier before we started taping, but we have kids come into the garden where the middle schoolers come in.

[00:44:49]

It's always fun to say okay, pick a radish, and they have no idea what plant to go to. Can you please pick a bean for me? No idea where to find it. And to kind of take them through the garden and let them discover where the vegetables are, and to see them light up.

[00:45:07]

And to pull a radish out of the ground, and dare the group, who's gonna take a bite out of the radish? And watch one child take a bite, and then they all want a bite of the radish. Or pick some sort of herb where you pick the leaf off, there's so much or the licorice plant, something tastes like licorice.

[00:45:28]

And then they have an aha moment. That candy actually comes from this as well. And it's those are the moments where it's really neat. You can see you're starting to plant a little seed in achild, hopefully it will grow into a future garden.

>> Cindy McKenzie: I just feel like today, a lot of children and families don't have the opportunity to get their hands in the dirt.

[00:45:54]

My grandmother grew up on a farm and she picked cotton, and she learned how to can so she wouldn't have to pick cotton.

>> Robert Sudam: [LAUGH]

>> Cindy McKenzie: And she did water bath canning until she was probably about 83, she stopped. But she would can tomatoes and green beans, and we'd eat those throughout the next year, and-

[00:46:21]

>> Cindy McKenzie: Made jams and just always had a small vegetable garden in our backyard, very small. And great flowers, it's just a neat way to connect with her.

>> Robert Sudam: The same experience, my dad and mom were gardeners. They always had big gardens, and they always looked for things of interest.

[00:46:46]

So one year we were living in.

>> Cindy McKenzie: Really, yeah.

>> Robert Sudam: And my dad and I went down to the lake, which is in our backyard, and we're catching brim with cane poles. And my dad said, I'm gonna teach you how the used to grow their tomatoes. And so he brought this bucket full of brim up to the garden, dug a hole.

[00:47:07]

Hopefully PETA's not gonna listen to this.

>> Savannah Brown: [LAUGH]

>> Robert Sudam: Dug a hole, threw a fish in the hole, and put a seed, a tomato seed, and buried it. And the decay of the fish fertilized the most beautiful tomato plants you've ever seen.

>> Savannah Brown: That's cool.

>> Robert Sudam: And so he'd always do things like that to keep it interesting and fun.

[00:47:28]

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah, that's true fish.

>> Robert Sudam: Yeah.

>> Savannah Brown: [LAUGH]

>> Cindy McKenzie: I've tried buying some. I mean, some kinda funny things do happen, some of the fish imports. I used to get home and my dog just went crazy, and dug up around the roots, all the tomatoes. I can't do that.

[00:47:49]

I can't keep him away from it, but a real fish, that's really cool.

>> Savannah Brown: And then we'd plant a small crop for the course for it has to sell promenade. So we'd go out there and we're in the garden, shaking it. We'd come out with beautiful ears because of doing that donation, we're saying That's really cool.

[00:48:12]

I know, my mom, she was a big gardener, big composter, and then we had, which sounds so funky, but she let us make a worm farm. Where [CROSSTALK] you and so-

>> Robert Sudam: Those are perfect.

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah, it was so much fun. And I think just that, she instilled that love just for watching something grow and taking care of something in me and so, and just having fun.

[00:48:36]

Every year, we could take out something new to try, so it didn't always work, but she let's us go, we could try something. So just experimenting and seeing what can happen when you do different things and-

>> Cindy McKenzie: Never gets old to me.

>> Robert Sudam: No.

>> Cindy McKenzie: I mean, to plant a seed that size of the head of a pen and have a beautiful carrot, it's just amazing to me.

[00:49:04]

>> Robert Sudam: And I like to experiment, I'm always planting something new and different.

>> Cindy McKenzie: Yeah, remember that midnight black tomatoes?

>> Robert Sudam: Yeah, they're black tomatoes, which squirrels don't like black, they love red.

>> Savannah Brown: [LAUGH] Good to know.

>> Robert Sudam: So I'm always doing a, more of a purple variety of tomato, which helps.

[00:49:19]

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah, yeah.

>> Robert Sudam: And then from looking at heirloom vegetables that are coming back, and bringing something like the ground tomatoes, which are, taste like a fruit?

>> Savannah Brown: Really?

>> Robert Sudam: Yeah, there's a lot of pectin in ' so they're used in pies used to be using pies. There's so many different things to learn, yeah.

[00:49:39]

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah, I think gardening, you're like a little bit of a scientist, a little bit of an experimenter, I don't know, it's easy to do all kinds of different things with that. And we don't have to just put yourself into like, I just plant things, because there's always something new.

[00:49:53]

I mean, even just rotating your plants or seeing where they should go in the sun, especially, if you have a patio kind of garden. It definitely is a little bit of an advantage to move them around and see what they like, so. Well, I don't have any more questions, but if there's anything else you would like to share about the garden or?

[00:50:10]

>> Cindy McKenzie: I don't know, can you think of any, let me see, write down a couple of things, but I think you've asked all the questions and we've covered it all. Another thing that sort of stood out to me, I should mention, were the times that we went to the farmers market as a young girl growing up.

[00:50:30]

You kind of never forget that, or I didn't, the Kings Drive Farmers Market and the Yorkmont Farmers Market. I've really enjoyed that as a child. And I think that was it.

>> Robert Sudam: My grandparents always gardened in community gardens.

>> Cindy McKenzie: Really?

>> Robert Sudam: They never really had one in their-

[00:50:50]

>> Cindy McKenzie: Really?

>> Robert Sudam: Yes, always and so-

>> Cindy McKenzie: We just didn't have them in Charlotte.

>> Robert Sudam: When we would visit them, I'd go with my grandfather, drive out to his community garden. And it was always a bunch of like-minded, passionate people taking pride in their plot, pride in their vegetables, showing off.

[00:51:11]

>> Cindy McKenzie: [LAUGH]

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah.

>> Robert Sudam: And that was always a great event.

>> Cindy McKenzie: Where was that?

>> Robert Sudam: Winston, Virginia.

>> Cindy McKenzie: Okay.

>> Robert Sudam: In a bunch of, couple different places.

>> Savannah Brown: Yeah. I think community gardens are just wonderful, especially now living in an urban environment. And I just I don't have the space to garden except for the pots I can grow, so I do peppers where my best.

[00:51:34]

And then I had basil, which did really well, but my tomatoes just didn't do as well. Because my pot wasn't deep enough.

>> Robert Sudam: Yeah.

>> Savannah Brown: So I think they got a little root rot, they weren't doing great. They were blooming, but they just weren't producing. So I think community gardens for people who maybe don't have the space or even just want to be in an area where they can be with like-minded people.

[00:51:56]

>> Robert Sudam: Right.

>> Savannah Brown: It's the perfect blend.

>> Robert Sudam: Yeah, I agree.

>> Cindy McKenzie: I think a challenge for me too with the garden was if you're working which, of course, you are. You have these aspirations where we're gonna have a potluck or we're gonna have an event down at the garden or in it.

[00:52:18]

It's hard to make all that happen, particularly when the produces are rolling in like you said July and August, but everybody's at the beach, I mean, palm garden season. That's always been always, I guess, have this romanticized notion of what it would be like to have a community garden.

[00:52:39]

And it's tough to keep up with the day to day, week to week, month to month task. It's hard to get to, sometimes, the fun stuff, anyway. I can't think of anything else.

>> Robert Sudam: No.

>> Savannah Brown: Well, thank you both so much, this was wonderful.

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