Thanks to the hard work of many of Madison's citizens, there will be a new community garden on Madison's Isthmus in 1999. Particularly active in the effort for this garden space were near east side alder Barb Vedder and the Madison Community Gardeners Coalition (MCGC), a coalition of local gardening advocates committed to preserving existing community gardens and creating new community gardens where none exist, such as in Madison's downtown Isthmus neighborhoods.

The new garden is the Reynolds Homestead Community Garden on the 600 block of East Mifflin Street in the Old Market Neighborhood. The space is approximately 4,000 square feet and is part of a much larger parcel of land formerly belonging to the Reynolds Storage and Transfer Company. Currently, this land would not be mistaken for a garden. It is a small lot that at one time had a home standing on it, but more recently was a storage lot for heavy machinery. The earth is a crushed limestone bed, underlain by bricks and fill material. The flora consists of box elder trees and a panoply of Wisconsin roadside weeds, from leafy spurge to knotweed to creeping charlie. This lot is definitely begging for a garden to be planted. Much work is needed to create this garden, but the Reynolds Homestead Community Garden Working Group is striving to make this garden a reality.

The Working Group consists of residents in The Capitol, Old Market, and Tenney-Lapham Neighborhoods who want to create a garden community. This group has been working with the CAC Garden Program this winter with the goal of gardening this season. The work in January and February consisted of recruiting neighborhood residents, becoming familiar with the site dimensions and limitations, and developing a sense of group cohesiveness and values and an ethic of neighborhood responsibility. Many residents have showed interest in creating and gardening in this new community garden. The work now consists of making decisions about how the garden will be constructed, from how many plots there will be to removing the old soil and replacing it with new. Come spring, it will be time to get outside and make the garden a reality!

If you live near this garden site and would like to be involved in creating a community garden in your neighborhood, please call Andrea at 256-3433 or David at 246-4730 ext. 218.

-David M. Long


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