Fruits of Our Neighbors Transforms Empty Lot Into Flourishing Garden

What would you do if an empty lot across the street from you was filling up with trash? Would you clean it up and cross your fingers that the accumulation wouldn't just start all over again? Would you call the city and report the owner? Nat West took an unusual step to combat just such a problem in the large, empty lot across the street from his home. He offered the owner of the plot some vegetables.

West, who works from home, had a front row seat to watch from as the garbage amassed across the street. He was not only disheartened by the aesthetic disaster, but by the incredible waste of useable space it was. An avid vegetable gardener, he wished his own yard could house a garden big enough to grow all of his family's produce. He began to research the ownership of the lot, and others like it in and around the Woodlawn neighborhood in which he resides. A simple search on Portland Maps revealed the owner of the property, a woman who had once lived in the adjacent house and had gardened on the plot herself. The search also yielded another great piece of information: the land had never had a structure on it, telling him that beneath the rubbish was probably some pretty fine soil.

"I thought a lot about what my plan for the lot would be before I contacted her," he explains. He wanted to make sure that she knew he was serious, and that he would use the land responsibly. He wrote her about the details of his plan to create a combination "mini CSA" and market garden. He told her he would pay her property taxes on the lot, and would give her a share of the produce in exchange for the use of the land. He sent the letter and waited, thinking the worst she could do would be to say no.

As luck would have it, she had recently received a nuisance complaint about the trash in the lot. A busy woman now living in another town, she was overjoyed to hear that someone was interested in cleaning up the mess and putting in a garden.

Great news for West, who then set out to create an orderly farm out of the chaos. Under the tutelage of friend Dan Bravin whose POP farming organization consults people interested in installing urban farms around the city, West has transformed the space into 1440 square feet of an intensely planted organic vegetable garden.

He says that he grows what he and his family like to eat. "We eat cauliflower and broccoli maybe three times a year, but we eat greens and lettuces all the time. With a CSA, there is pressure to deliver something new every week. People might get bored if you only have mustard greens for three weeks in a row." So, he says, he sees the future leading him more toward a market garden, selling to restaurants, than expanding into a full-blown CSA. He is testing the waters this year, deciding what this excellent resource will evolve into. He is keeping track of his progress and pitfalls so that he might take this project to new heights next year. And he's got his eye on other lots in the area.

West says he really loves the effect this has had on the neighborhood. Turning a veritable garbage dump into a flourishing garden has lifted the spirits of all the people in the area. A home owner whose property flanks the garden is allowing West to use his water. Others have offered to help with the farm work. Many people, he says, walk by and ask, "What's getting built here?" Which makes him smile and answer, "Nothing!" He recently put up a sign to tell people about this project, which he calls Fruits of Our Neighbors, and offering his contact information for the large amount of curiosity he and the farm are generating.

I asked West what success would look like for him.

"[The owner] told me that at the height of the real estate boom she had been offered a good deal of money for the lot, and that if she was ever offered that amount of money again, she might sell it." West says that success for him would be if that offer came in and she turned it down, recognizing the importance of sustainable farming in urban spaces, and taking pride in her hand in keeping it going.

Primary image: courtesy of Fruits of our Neighbors