Off The Orchard & On The Table.
Our Bibb City community has been working hard for several years to turn a forlorn little plot of land in our neighborhood into a community feature – a pocket park filled with fruit trees freely available to anyone who wanders through.
We’ve had great success. Already we’ve gotten rid of the burn barrels and parked cars that were living on the clay lot, had the hard soil excavated, and, with the help of Trees Columbus, planted two pear trees, a persimmon and a pomegranate (apparently it was a requirement that any fruiting tree begin with a “P”), nine blueberry bushes and four blackberry bushes. We’ve laid down two informal rock paths leading through the space, and we’ve built two big planters at the dead-end road that not only offer herbs to passersby but also keep anyone else from pulling a car into the green space.
While this 60-by-60-foot space looked nice, especially considering the clay-covered used-car lot it was before, our little community orchard was lacking curb appeal.
And that’s where the On the Table action grant that the Community Foundation of the Chattahoochee Valley awarded us in April has helped us out.
We asked for the maximum amount of $2,000, because we knew that even that wouldn’t be enough to do everything we wanted to do there.
Namely:
Install a 6-foot privacy fence along two of the orchard’s boundaries.
Paint an inviting, whimsical, and pretty mural on that fence, visible to all the passing commuters on Second Avenue.
Plant a simple sign outlining a few common-sense park rules.
Paint the cinder-block retaining wall on the east edge, telling everyone that this was a public community orchard.
Improve the visibility of the grass-overgrown gravel paths and formulate a way to reduce maintenance on them.
So why did we choose a community orchard to begin with?
Geography, first of all. The poverty level in Bibb City is higher than in the rest of Columbus as a whole. And it’s bordered by North Highlands to the east and City Village to the south, both of which have even more depressing statistics in terms of poverty and overcrowding. The whole area suffers from a lack of available fresh food, from either the ground or a grocery store. Many of these residents often don’t have access to cars that would get them to a grocery, so food choices often come down to what they can get from a gas station.
My wife, Jenn, and I are active members of Georgia Organics’ Food Oasis initiative in Columbus, which aims at combating this problem. It was a grant from them, several years ago, that helped us get the orchard built in the first place.
The fruit from this little park won’t fix the food insecurity problem, of course. But it’s something that might possibly inspire others or spark a similar idea at a larger scale. And the orchard is certainly a much better use of the space than the empty clay lot was.
It was not an easy decision to tackle some of these latest improvement projects. A privacy fence, in particular, seemed counter to the philosophy of a public park. But we were putting up fence only where chain link was already in place. Invasive privet grew rampant on the far side of the fence, where we couldn’t cut it down. And the vacant house on the north side was ugly, dilapidated, and vacant, with absentee owners who seem disinclined to renovate the property. At this point, we were OK with hiding that old house.
And we hoped to make our fence more than just a barrier. We wanted to make it an enticement – both to visit the space and to encourage others to do something cool with other delinquent properties in their own neighborhoods.
We had already lined up great, enthusiastic volunteers from Columbus State University’s art program to paint for us, and art professor Hannah Israel graciously agreed to design something for us, so all we’d be out on the mural was the cost of paint. We knew our biggest expense would be getting the fence installed professionally.
And boy was it. I got four quotes, and the lowest one still chewed up more than half the money we were awarded.
Then there was all the waiting. Area fence companies all seem to have about a six-week queue. We chose our low bidder and got in line. Six weeks passed.
Seven weeks passed.
Eight weeks passed.
I was on the phone with the company several times a week at this point getting updates and urging them to get on our job.
“It’s a community project,” I pleaded.
“It’s grant-funded, and I have a deadline,” I pleaded.
“My volunteer painters need to do their work over the summer break,” I pleaded.
My pleading did no good. It took them more than three months for them to get to my job. But when the fence went up, it looked great. I negotiated an extension with the Community Foundation and Hannah at CSU was able to book enough volunteers to paint in October, so it looks like we’re on track to be done before November.
In terms of budget, I think we’ll only manage to complete the first three bulleted projects with the grant money. But an Atlanta-based volunteer group has pledged to help us pave honest-to-God sidewalks in place of those gravel paths in November, solving our maintenance and visibility issues there.
It’s an exciting time. We’re just a few weeks away from almost completely realizing our vision for a little neighborhood park that not only beautifies a blighted spot in our neighborhood but also puts some fresh fruit in hungry mouths.
And we wouldn’t be where we are without the support of the Community Foundation.
Anyone who’s interested can track the progress of this project and other fresh-food endeavors from me and Jenn on our website, The Dew Abides, at www.thedewabides.com.