Power in Dirt was able to catch up with Jason Reed, the steward of Filbert Street Garden to talk to him about his decision to become a full-time gardener in Baltimore.
Jason decided to start a garden in Baltimore for personal reasons but mostly due to it feeling like the right thing to do. He wanted to have more space, access to open air as well as access to fresh food. Jason lived in Westport which is a community that mirrors Curtis Bay--the neighborhood that houses Filbert Street Garden. In Westport and Curtis Bay there is no access to food at all so healthy food is extremely hard to find. Being able to make healthy food available in urban areas was his greatest motivation for starting a community garden.
Jason began his first garden in Westport while he was a music teacher. Curtis Bay was interested in Jason taking over an existing garden as well as adding on an education component. Jason learned that community involvement is what makes a difference when establishing a garden. Those who are interested in gardening typically have gardening space available in their backyard but the educational component made Filbert Street a different gardening experience. Once the community learned about the educational component the community support for the garden blossomed.
Jason would like to leave new gardeners with a few words of advice: Do what you know is right for the community/garden, follow your spirit and start early because the process can take a long time.
Good luck and happy gardening!
To find out more about Filbert Street Garden please check out their blog.
Empowering Baltimore City Communities to Adopt City-owned Vacant Lots and Turn Them Into Community Managed Green and Open Spaces!
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Monday, March 12, 2012
The 6th Branch, 1500 Bethel St Garden
The 6th Branch is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization based in Baltimore City that utilizes the leadership and organizational skills of military veterans to create and lead aggressive community service initiatives. Founded by a small group of OEF/OIF veterans, The 6th Branch executes community service projects with the same intensity, urgency, and efficiency of a combat operation.
The 6th Branch has paid for the design and completion of two murals in the Oliver neighborhood, and have had a series of large scale neighborhood clean-up events (upwards of 100 volunteers each time) that has resulted in more than 50 tons of garbage and debris removed. Several trees have also been planted as part of the neighborhood greening portion of Operation: Oliver.
The garden on the 1500 block of N. Bethel Street will incorporate primarily native and native-hybrid trees, shrubs, and perennials. This garden will help reduce stormwater run-off by taking a formerly vacant and trash strewn dumping site into a garden that will soak up excess rainwater and provide a habitat for wildlife. Birdhouses, painted by children and volunteers will be lead by volunteers from the Veteran Artist Program. The garden will help reduce crime and help to increase property values of the adjacent homes which will then overlook this park, but giving the neighborhood a sense of pride and ownership. Seeing the neighborhood greening efforts in this way will also attract potential homebuyers to the area, thus staying in line with Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's initiative of 10,000 Families.
Thursday, March 1, 2012
The 2012 Urbanite Project!
Challenge: Provide access to healthy food for everyone in Baltimore.
Roughly two-thirds of the city’s adults and nearly 40 percent of high school students are overweight or obese. What’s worse, major disparities exist between the obesity rates of whites and blacks, people with and without college degrees, and households making more and less than $25,000 a year. A recent Baltimore City report found that 43 percent of residents in the city’s predominantly black neighborhoods have very limited access to healthy food, compared with just 4 percent of predominantly white neighborhoods.
Introducing Urbanite Project 2012: Healthy Food Challenge. We’re inviting teams or individuals to compete for $12,000 in prize money (provided by our partners, the Baltimore City Health Department, the Maryland Department of Agriculture, United Way of Central Maryland, and Stratford University) to answer the question: How can we make Baltimore healthier?
This year, Urbanite, in association with the Baltimore City Health Department, the Maryland Department of Agriculture, United Way of Central Maryland, and Stratford University, aims to improve residents’ access to healthy food, citywide. Urbanite Project 2012: Healthy Food Challenge calls for creative, innovative, non-traditional ideas that address one or more of the barriers to affordable, healthy food for Baltimore City residents living in neighborhood food deserts. Food deserts, as defined by the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future, are residential block groups more than a quarter-mile from a major supermarket and where 40 percent of the population’s household income is below $25,000. The barriers are varied and numerous—transportation, a lack of healthy food at nearby stores, education, food preparation, and time, among other factors, all contribute to the problem.
This year’s Urbanite Project aims to improve residents’ access to healthy food, citywide. Whether it’s a vegetable garden in a vacant lot, an after-school cooking class for high school students, or a supermarket delivery service, the solutions are out there. We think that if we can level the playing field, foodwise, we have the potential to unite an otherwise divided city, on other levels.
[Information retrieved from The 2012 Urbanite Project]
Working with Power in Dirt is one of the many ways that you can help provide access to healthy food in Baltimore. Since Power in Dirt focuses on the revitalization of city owned vacant lots you are able to adopt a lot and start a vegetable garden in your neighborhood which will allow your community to have access to fresh produce!
Roughly two-thirds of the city’s adults and nearly 40 percent of high school students are overweight or obese. What’s worse, major disparities exist between the obesity rates of whites and blacks, people with and without college degrees, and households making more and less than $25,000 a year. A recent Baltimore City report found that 43 percent of residents in the city’s predominantly black neighborhoods have very limited access to healthy food, compared with just 4 percent of predominantly white neighborhoods.
Introducing Urbanite Project 2012: Healthy Food Challenge. We’re inviting teams or individuals to compete for $12,000 in prize money (provided by our partners, the Baltimore City Health Department, the Maryland Department of Agriculture, United Way of Central Maryland, and Stratford University) to answer the question: How can we make Baltimore healthier?
This year, Urbanite, in association with the Baltimore City Health Department, the Maryland Department of Agriculture, United Way of Central Maryland, and Stratford University, aims to improve residents’ access to healthy food, citywide. Urbanite Project 2012: Healthy Food Challenge calls for creative, innovative, non-traditional ideas that address one or more of the barriers to affordable, healthy food for Baltimore City residents living in neighborhood food deserts. Food deserts, as defined by the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future, are residential block groups more than a quarter-mile from a major supermarket and where 40 percent of the population’s household income is below $25,000. The barriers are varied and numerous—transportation, a lack of healthy food at nearby stores, education, food preparation, and time, among other factors, all contribute to the problem.
This year’s Urbanite Project aims to improve residents’ access to healthy food, citywide. Whether it’s a vegetable garden in a vacant lot, an after-school cooking class for high school students, or a supermarket delivery service, the solutions are out there. We think that if we can level the playing field, foodwise, we have the potential to unite an otherwise divided city, on other levels.
[Information retrieved from The 2012 Urbanite Project]
Working with Power in Dirt is one of the many ways that you can help provide access to healthy food in Baltimore. Since Power in Dirt focuses on the revitalization of city owned vacant lots you are able to adopt a lot and start a vegetable garden in your neighborhood which will allow your community to have access to fresh produce!
Monday, February 27, 2012
Making Miles!
Remaking Miles Avenue for good friends, a lot of fun, and a better Baltimore
Making Miles! is made up of a group of friends whose journeys have taken them away from Baltimore and back again. A number of them attended Baltimore School for the Arts for high school, meeting the others through various events during the same informative years. In creating art together they found special bonds and learned that they were a good team. College came and many of them left Baltimore, going as far away as Austin, Texas, Portland, Oregon, Washington State, and traveling outside the States to places like Madagascar, Thailand and Germany, or traveling across the United States by both car and train.
In the end, each of the Making Miles! team decided to come back to their hometown of Baltimore. They are all following different paths – one is training to be a horticulturalist, one is a theater technician, one is in law school, one an upholsterer, one active in community development, and one in health care policy – but they are all together again and back in “the greatest city in America,” their hometown, Baltimore.
They decided they wanted to work together again. Despite their divergent interests, they have a common desire to make their hometown better – and have fun while doing it! They decided to adopt a small lot at the end of Miles Avenue in the neighborhood of Remington. The lot is adjacent to the railroad tracks and next to an abandoned and deteriorating building, and there is a lot of dumping, squatting, and rodent problems as a result. Through the Adopt-a-Lot process they are acquiring the rights to “adopt” the city vacant lot, and they have already obtained the permission of a private owner of a second vacant lot on the site.
They plan to build at least five raised beds on one side of the lot and place a bench with a shade garden where there is already a tree present on the other side. Through the Mayor’s Power in Dirt initiative they plan to have mulch delivered once the beds are built so that no weeds will grow in between and so there will be a defined path through the garden. They will utilize the City’s new water service to water the garden. Each bed will have a different theme – one may be a salad bed, there may be a flower bed, and a roots vegetable bed. Two of the raised beds will serve as garden plots for individual members of the team because these members do not have back yards at their places of residence. The Making Miles! garden will be an extension of their homes.
The Making Miles! team is a group of smart, capable, active, and concerned young people who have returned to Baltimore City where they grew up to make their lives. As they make themselves into the people they want to be, as they make their futures in the place in which they grew up, that want to make progress, make Baltimore a better place…they want to Make Miles! Created by Anna Evans-Goldstein
Friday, February 17, 2012
Potential in Park Heights
Studies show that negative environments, like those currently present in
Monday, February 13, 2012
GBCAN - Greater Baltimore Children and Nature
GBCAN, or the Greater Baltimore Children and Nature Collaborative, is having a conference on February 23, 2012 from 8:30 am - 4 pm. The conference will have a lot to offer - a long list of workshops, keynote speaker Rue Mapp founder of OutdoorAfro.com, an action strategy session, open time for discussion, and breakfast and lunch served. The GBCAN Conference, as noted on the Parks & People Foundation website, "hopes to convene adult and youth leaders across the sectors of education, health, business, faith and the arts for a discussion and workshops about connecting youth to nature in local parks, schoolyards, community greenspaces and beyond."
Do you feel that the youth around you do not experience nature enough? That our young people, especially those in urban environments, do not get the outdoor adventures they should? If so, you may be interested in any one of the following workshops, some of a long list of workshops that will be offered:
-->Nature Play Spaces
-->Exploring Your Environment with Digital Video Making
-->Docs in the Park: a New Health and Outdoor Initiative
-->Port of Baltimore and Environmental Education
-->After the Asphalt: Learning and Earning in the School Yard Habitat
-->Storywalk: Families Learning and Playing Outside
and more!
The GBCAN started in 2008. Prompted by new research in particular from Richard Louv and his book Last Child in the Woods, Saving Our Children From Nature Deficit Disorder that children have less and less of a relationship with nature, they more sequestered inside or interacting with electronics than with the outside. This lack of nature can have negative effects on children's mental and physical health. How do we bring our children back outside? GBCAN works on ways to do that, and this conference is involving YOU in the discussion!
contact Mike Dorsey at michael.dorsey@parksandpeople.org for more information or visit the GBCAN conference webpage above to sign up!
Also: If you cannot make the conference but you are interested in getting your child or youth in your life outside, check out Family Exploring Nature Clubs, watch for youth events at Cylburn Arboretum, look into Nature Play Spaces at an event for your child, research Outdoor Summer Camps or Youth B'More or Cylburn Nature Science Camp, or get involved in your child's school and find out how to bring nature to the schoolyard. And remember, there's lots of opportunities to take your whole family on an outside adventure in any one of Baltimore City and County's numerous parks!
Do you feel that the youth around you do not experience nature enough? That our young people, especially those in urban environments, do not get the outdoor adventures they should? If so, you may be interested in any one of the following workshops, some of a long list of workshops that will be offered:
-->Nature Play Spaces
-->Exploring Your Environment with Digital Video Making
-->Docs in the Park: a New Health and Outdoor Initiative
-->Port of Baltimore and Environmental Education
-->After the Asphalt: Learning and Earning in the School Yard Habitat
-->Storywalk: Families Learning and Playing Outside
and more!
The GBCAN started in 2008. Prompted by new research in particular from Richard Louv and his book Last Child in the Woods, Saving Our Children From Nature Deficit Disorder that children have less and less of a relationship with nature, they more sequestered inside or interacting with electronics than with the outside. This lack of nature can have negative effects on children's mental and physical health. How do we bring our children back outside? GBCAN works on ways to do that, and this conference is involving YOU in the discussion!
contact Mike Dorsey at michael.dorsey@parksandpeople.org for more information or visit the GBCAN conference webpage above to sign up!
Also: If you cannot make the conference but you are interested in getting your child or youth in your life outside, check out Family Exploring Nature Clubs, watch for youth events at Cylburn Arboretum, look into Nature Play Spaces at an event for your child, research Outdoor Summer Camps or Youth B'More or Cylburn Nature Science Camp, or get involved in your child's school and find out how to bring nature to the schoolyard. And remember, there's lots of opportunities to take your whole family on an outside adventure in any one of Baltimore City and County's numerous parks!
Friday, January 6, 2012
Watersheds and Water
Baltimore City has the very esteemed position of being located in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. The Chesapeake Bay, known to most and loved by all here locally, is a treasure amongst bodies of water. It is what is called an estuary, and it is the largest one in the United States.The Chesapeake Bay is home to delicious and beautiful flora and fauna alike, including our special Blue Crab - helper to all chefs creating crab cakes!
But the Chesapeake Bay has been singing a sad song in our recent history. Due to pollution from stormwater runoff from the Chesapeake Bay Watershed and a warming climate, the Bay is suffering dead spots and species that call it home are struggling. Pollution contributes to what are called Marine Dead Zones. These are areas where there is so little oxygen that plants and animals have a difficult time surviving. Pollution runoff feeds the plant Algae that lives in the water causing it to have a surge in growth. Algal Blooms then occur, which use up all of the oxygen and prevent sunlight from reaching the bottom of the Bay to feed other plants and animals. An ecosystem is a delicate and balanced structure - a food chain that depends on the right amount of particular species in order to continue. If one plant or animal has a surge in growth, such as the algae, it throws off the balance of the rest of the ecosystem.
But back up - what is the "Chesapeake Bay Watershed" anyway? What is a watershed?
A watershed is a Drainage Basin - an area of land where all of the rainfall and snow melt collect to a point where it joins a larger body of water such as a river, bay, or ocean. There are smaller watersheds, or drainage basins, inside larger ones, inside larger ones! In fact, one single storm drain in your neighborhood serves as a drainage basin for surrounding area - it is where the rain that falls on your front porch or street drains into. We call the water that runs off your roof and down the sidewalk and streets and into a storm drain storm water runoff.
The Chesapeake Bay Watershed is important as we try to improve the health of the Chesapeake Bay. All of the stormwater runoff from Washington D.C. and parts of Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Delaware, Pennsylvania and New York drains into the Chesapeake Bay, eventually.
So what's the Chesapeake Bay Watershed got to do with us? As I said before - larger watersheds contain smaller watersheds, too. Baltimore City has four separate watersheds.
The Gwynns Falls, Jones Falls, Herring Run Back River, and Harbor Watersheds all make up the water system of Baltimore. And, all four watersheds feed directly into the Baltimore Harbor. Because Baltimore is contained by the larger Chesapeake Bay Watershed, everything that happens to our water here contributes to what happens in the Chesapeake Bay.
So what happens in a watershed? As water from rain or snowfall runs over impervious surfaces such as pavement, asphalt, heavily compacted soil, etc., it collects all the pollutants existing on those surfaces. This includes trash, chemicals, and other matter. So, for example, if there is a vacant lot in your neighborhood that always has trash on it, every time it rains the water runs over the trash collecting pollutants, then flows easily over the compacted soil of the vacant lot, then flows over the paved sidewalk, and into the storm drain, depositing all the trash, chemicals and pollutants it picked up with it.
It can be easy to forget the path that water takes when you look at the rain or drink water from the tap in your kitchen or take a shower. Most of journey water takes in cities happens underground in a complex system of pipes that humans built to separate our drinking and cleaning water from our waste water. Baltimore City has a 3-pipe system - one pipe for storm water, one pipe for sewage, and one pipe for clean drinking and bathing water.
Unfortunately, our pipes are decades old and starting to wear down. Our storm drain pipes and sewage pipes are leaking and many have tree roots grown into them, blocking the flow of the water. However, large pieces of trash, pollutants, and chemicals still make their way into our storm drains and through our pipes in large quantities. And those storm drains empty out into the Baltimore Harbor.
What do we do?!? If we are more mindful of ourselves and of our environment we can do a whole lot to help preserve and promote the health of our water and the health of the Chesapeake Bay. By not littering, and encouraging others not to litter, we reduce the amount of trash that is carried away and into our bodies of water. By gardening and promoting depaving of our communities and schools we contribute to the amount of rain water that gets absorbed into the soil instead of washed away through streets and down storm drains. By cleaning up our communities and making them beautiful, we are helping to keep our Bay, and all of our water, beautiful and clean.
To take solid steps towards protecting our watershed, you can contact Blue Water Baltimore, the Non-Profit Organization that works in Baltimore City and County to clean water in Baltimore's rivers, streams, and harbor. They always have great tips such as this page to help you learn how to reduce storm water pollution. They also have a Water Audit program - completely free! If you sign up someone from Blue Water Baltimore will come to your home and give you educated suggestions on ways to improve any negative storm drain runoff from your property. Sign up Here to receive more information.
And remember that greening in your neighborhood helps! Find out about depaving, starting a community green space, starting a garden, or volunteering to help others do these things at any of the following organizations and agencies,
The Parks & People Foundation,
The Community Greening Resource Network,
Baltimore Green Space,
Civic Works,
Power in Dirt,
Baltimore Recreation and Parks,
Department of Public Works (Cleanups),
Department of Transportation (Depaving)
All images provided by Blue Water Baltimore (Thanks, friends!). Please visit their website for even more information on watersheds, Baltimore's water system, and what you can do to help!
But the Chesapeake Bay has been singing a sad song in our recent history. Due to pollution from stormwater runoff from the Chesapeake Bay Watershed and a warming climate, the Bay is suffering dead spots and species that call it home are struggling. Pollution contributes to what are called Marine Dead Zones. These are areas where there is so little oxygen that plants and animals have a difficult time surviving. Pollution runoff feeds the plant Algae that lives in the water causing it to have a surge in growth. Algal Blooms then occur, which use up all of the oxygen and prevent sunlight from reaching the bottom of the Bay to feed other plants and animals. An ecosystem is a delicate and balanced structure - a food chain that depends on the right amount of particular species in order to continue. If one plant or animal has a surge in growth, such as the algae, it throws off the balance of the rest of the ecosystem.
But back up - what is the "Chesapeake Bay Watershed" anyway? What is a watershed?
A watershed is a Drainage Basin - an area of land where all of the rainfall and snow melt collect to a point where it joins a larger body of water such as a river, bay, or ocean. There are smaller watersheds, or drainage basins, inside larger ones, inside larger ones! In fact, one single storm drain in your neighborhood serves as a drainage basin for surrounding area - it is where the rain that falls on your front porch or street drains into. We call the water that runs off your roof and down the sidewalk and streets and into a storm drain storm water runoff.
The Chesapeake Bay Watershed is important as we try to improve the health of the Chesapeake Bay. All of the stormwater runoff from Washington D.C. and parts of Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Delaware, Pennsylvania and New York drains into the Chesapeake Bay, eventually.
So what's the Chesapeake Bay Watershed got to do with us? As I said before - larger watersheds contain smaller watersheds, too. Baltimore City has four separate watersheds.
The Gwynns Falls, Jones Falls, Herring Run Back River, and Harbor Watersheds all make up the water system of Baltimore. And, all four watersheds feed directly into the Baltimore Harbor. Because Baltimore is contained by the larger Chesapeake Bay Watershed, everything that happens to our water here contributes to what happens in the Chesapeake Bay.
So what happens in a watershed? As water from rain or snowfall runs over impervious surfaces such as pavement, asphalt, heavily compacted soil, etc., it collects all the pollutants existing on those surfaces. This includes trash, chemicals, and other matter. So, for example, if there is a vacant lot in your neighborhood that always has trash on it, every time it rains the water runs over the trash collecting pollutants, then flows easily over the compacted soil of the vacant lot, then flows over the paved sidewalk, and into the storm drain, depositing all the trash, chemicals and pollutants it picked up with it.
It can be easy to forget the path that water takes when you look at the rain or drink water from the tap in your kitchen or take a shower. Most of journey water takes in cities happens underground in a complex system of pipes that humans built to separate our drinking and cleaning water from our waste water. Baltimore City has a 3-pipe system - one pipe for storm water, one pipe for sewage, and one pipe for clean drinking and bathing water.
Unfortunately, our pipes are decades old and starting to wear down. Our storm drain pipes and sewage pipes are leaking and many have tree roots grown into them, blocking the flow of the water. However, large pieces of trash, pollutants, and chemicals still make their way into our storm drains and through our pipes in large quantities. And those storm drains empty out into the Baltimore Harbor.
What do we do?!? If we are more mindful of ourselves and of our environment we can do a whole lot to help preserve and promote the health of our water and the health of the Chesapeake Bay. By not littering, and encouraging others not to litter, we reduce the amount of trash that is carried away and into our bodies of water. By gardening and promoting depaving of our communities and schools we contribute to the amount of rain water that gets absorbed into the soil instead of washed away through streets and down storm drains. By cleaning up our communities and making them beautiful, we are helping to keep our Bay, and all of our water, beautiful and clean.
Most things on Earth need water to survive - us included - and every little drop counts!
To take solid steps towards protecting our watershed, you can contact Blue Water Baltimore, the Non-Profit Organization that works in Baltimore City and County to clean water in Baltimore's rivers, streams, and harbor. They always have great tips such as this page to help you learn how to reduce storm water pollution. They also have a Water Audit program - completely free! If you sign up someone from Blue Water Baltimore will come to your home and give you educated suggestions on ways to improve any negative storm drain runoff from your property. Sign up Here to receive more information.
And remember that greening in your neighborhood helps! Find out about depaving, starting a community green space, starting a garden, or volunteering to help others do these things at any of the following organizations and agencies,
The Parks & People Foundation,
The Community Greening Resource Network,
Baltimore Green Space,
Civic Works,
Power in Dirt,
Baltimore Recreation and Parks,
Department of Public Works (Cleanups),
Department of Transportation (Depaving)
All images provided by Blue Water Baltimore (Thanks, friends!). Please visit their website for even more information on watersheds, Baltimore's water system, and what you can do to help!
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