Gardens in the City

I've now been living in an apartment without any outside space for 5 years. At first, I dealt with it, but my 5 inch wide windowsills have gradually been overgrown with plants. As the years have gone on, finding a place to garden has become more of a priority to me as I learn more about my food and take more interest in producing food on a more local level and see the benefit in putting time instead of just money into good food that can also benefit those around me. I currently grow chives, sage and have a few sprouted avocado pits on my windowsill.

I've looked into the Community Gardens in Los Angeles, but none are close enough to my apartment to be practical. I want to garden someplace I'll be every day, not someplace that is miles away (this matters, especially without a car). The other problem is that many community gardens in Los Angeles have extremely long wait lists. I've been eying a somewhat abandoned looking piece of land near my apartment building for years, wondering if it could be turned into a community garden. It's currently used by people walking their dogs, people walking to the nearby Metro station or for homeless people to sleep. The low covering bushes frequently collect trash and there are no trash cans nearby. Recently I ran into someone that could actually help turn this land into something more and have found additional people interested in the idea of fixing it up. The problem is that even if we could make it into somewhat of a community garden, I think it would be prone to theft and therefore better for less desirable things, like herbs. So I was super excited to find GrowFriend.org.

The GrowFriend site can be thought of as personal ads for the garden-minded. You can sign up as a land owner who needs help or is willing to let someone else grow things on your land or as a gardener, looking for some land to sow. When you sign up, you fill out a profile, detailing what you want to do or what you need. Once your profile is filled out, you can begin looking for others in your area and exchange information. The GrowFriend site offers a variety of guidelines helping you decide how to split costs and responsibilities with your fellow land owner and gardeners and to help maintain some of your privacy before jumping into things with someone else. The site is free to sign up and seems to be available to people anyplace. Right now there appears to be about 50 people signed up in the Los Angeles area.

It seems like this site still has a lot of room to grow, but I was excited to see gardening opportunities within a short bike ride of my home. I will still continue working on the community garden area near my apartment, but this is a really exciting solution to a common problem for potential gardeners like myself and many others living in apartment buildings and condos!