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Blueberry Park, Bremerton, WA (NPS Photo)
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Conservation + Recreation: October 2010
Harvest Time     Healthy physical activity, healthy food, and healthy land come together in community gardens, making gardening a premier recreational activity. 
ArticleABeyond Veggies: Growing Community at Fort Mason  
photo courtesy of Dale Butler
Bike and Produce, Fort Mason Community Garden

Tucked into a knoll yet in view of the Golden Gate Bridge, on land once occupied by a Spanish fort, a Civil War coastal defense battery, and the San Francisco Port of Embarkation, is a thriving hub of collaborative beauty. 

"People are in awe of this place when they find it because it's so unexpected and so beautiful," 
says Steve de Havilland.  As Vice President of the Fort Mason Community Garden, and gardener himself, de Havilland helps coordinate the diverse San Franciscans who get their hands dirty here.  The Fort Mason Community Garden is located within Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which buffers this "secret garden" from bustling highways nearby.
 
The Garden hosts 128 plots with raised beds growing cabbage, artichokes, chard, fava beans, and countless more kinds of produce and flowers.  All of the plots are fully organic: the soil and additives are purchased from San Francisco's residential compost collection program.  When established in 1977, the Garden built on a tradition dating back to 1826, when the Spanish fort's garden was on the same spot. 
 
As a partner agency to the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, the members of the Fort Mason Community Garden are committed to much more than just tending their own plots.  Gardeners volunteer their labor and talents to maintain gardens at cultural centers and community organizations nearby, including a partnership with Home Away from Homelessness, a group that helps reassimilate recently homeless children to school and teaches life skills.    
 
photo courtesy of Dale Butler
Artichoke, Fort Mason Community Garden (Courtesy Dale Butler)
Interested gardeners must sign up for a lengthy waiting list, but special guests don't have to wait years to start digging in: children from local schools have four dedicated plots.  Special needs students from neighboring Galileo High School get their own lessons in gardening from volunteer teachers.  Local second graders have been learning about the Native American's Three Sisters of agriculture: squash, maize, and beans.  Reflecting on a recent class this summer de Havilland said, "It's such a joy to be a part of it, it's really a privilege.  The children are so enamored to be out in nature and proud to be growing things and learning to cook them." 

You don't live near Fort Mason?  Don't worry, the American Community Gardening Association can help you find the nearest garden -- or help you grow a new one.
FeatureArticleGrowing Greener at Blueberry Park
Bremerton, Washington, a small community on the Kitsap Peninsula, has been home to Blueberry Park since 1979.  The former White's Blueberry Farm was acquired by the City of Bremerton in 1979 with the help of a Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) grant. 
Blueberry Park marked its 30th anniversary with an LWCF grant that established it as an innovative example of low-impact design. (NPS Photo)
Blueberry Park, Bremerton, WA (NPS Photo)
The City planned to construct a traditional neighborhood park on these seven acres: ballfields, playgrounds, and other facilities.  Then the need to protect wetlands on the site made room for another idea to come to fruition.
 
Local residents began planting informal "P-Patches" (a Seattle term for allotment gardens) in the park.  The Washington State University agricultural extension service came to manage the space, which is now organized as a community garden with 75 plots, some of which feature raised beds for those who cannot work in ground-level beds. 
 
Last year Bremerton received a second LWCF grant of over $200,000, which was matched by a Low-Impact Development grant from the State.  The resulting renovations enhanced the existing community garden facilities, restored and further protected the wetlands, and remade the park as an innovative example of low-impact design.
 
Renovations to the park include: enhancements to the existing community garden; drought-resistant eco-turf in place of thirstier grass that needed irrigation; pervious concrete and asphalt so that rain soaks through walking trails and parking areas and replenishes the groundwater; natural wetland restoration; rain gardens to filter runoff (replacing gutters that previously poured good rainwater down the sewer);
and even a green roof on the picnic shelter. 

The grants enabling these renovations turned an existing park into a cutting-edge example of low-impact design for planners around the country to emulate.  The Land and Water Conservation Fund has provided matching grants to projects like Blueberry Park since 1964, both for creating new recreation facilities and for enhancing existing ones.  LWCF matches non-federal investments in outdoor recreation, helping communities create the green spaces and healthy environments all people need.  Click here to learn about LWCF projects in your neighborhood.

ArticleBA Tip of the Hat to... 
Debi Hammonds, Gary, Indiana

As the Program Manager for Groundwork Gary,
Debi
has grown the Green Team program into a year-round endeavor, giving young people from the community a chance to learn and develop skills while doing paid work restoring the local environment.

Debi has developed and managed Green Team Youth Partnerships with the National Park Service this past summer at nearby Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore and also at the more remote Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore in Michigan, giving young people from Gary some great outdoor experiences in our national parks.

"Partners like Debi are growing community everywhere we look", says Doug Evans, program manager for the National Park Service's partnership with GroundworkUSA.  Of course, Debi also has expanded Groundwork Gary's Community Gardening program.  Which is fitting, according to Doug: "I know there are a lot of flowers blooming in Gary because of Debi, and she deserves a bouquet every day!"
LetsWorkLet's Work Together
Could your project benefit from collaboration with a National Park Service specialist?
 
If you're restoring a river, building a community trail, or making an urban park flourish, we'd love to talk with you about ways we could work together.
 
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Conservation + Recreation
is written to support and inform our organizational partners, friends of the program, potential partners, and Department of the Interior staff. It's our chance to share activities and successes and those of our partners. For details on specific projects, please contact the staff person involved with each project.

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