Aug 27, 2008
A Community Garden for Fairmount
By: Kevin Buchanan
At last night’s Fairmount neighborhood association meeting, District 9 councilman Joel Burns announced that plans were underway to introduce a bit of urban agriculture to the Fairmount neighborhood in the Near Southside. The vacant lots shown above on Google Maps at 5th Avenue and Maddox, across from Fairmount Park, are currently owned by the city and used as a staging area for the Department of Transportation and Public Works. They no longer need them, however, and now Joel and Fort Worth South, Inc. are working together to turn the lots into a community garden for the neighborhood.
It was only about a month ago that I wrote about efforts of agricultural urbanism, and community gardens are a great example of the sort of things we can do to boost local food growing. I’m really looking forward to progress on the community garden plan, especially as a soon-to-be resident of Fairmount.
Thanks to (birthday girl) Susan Harper and the Fort Worth Master Gardeners organization and to Paul Paine of Fort Worth South, as well as City staff, for helping me make this possible.
I would love to get involved with this project. I hope to goodness we have a nearby water source — critical to sustainability. I’ve worked with the Delaware Center for Horticulture which had a really outstanding community gardens program.
Does the effort need a planning team? I would love to be on it.
Margaret Ritsch
817-877-9933 w
817-913-6135 c
have you talked to Elizabeth at Elizabeth Anna’s Gardens? She has an organic gardening group in place in Fairmount/Ryan Place neighborhood and her shop is there. The gardening group is reforming for the fall right now.