Charlestown Sprouts Community Garden held its Annual Celebration on Saturday, September 27, welcoming both members and the public to enjoy live music, food from the cultures of the gardeners, a Tai Chi practice with the Wah Lum Kung Fu & Tai Chi Academy, puppets from the Puppet Free Library, bubbles and art activities for kids, yoga, and an evening movie and to admire the bountiful garden plots alongside the Little Mystic Channel.
A mission to welcome
Since the 1990s, Charlestown Sprouts has been a gathering place for all members of the community and a federally recognized charitable organization. With a mission to be a welcoming natural space in the city that brings together diverse people of all ages to grow, harvest, share and eat healthy food, Sprouts offers gardening families a place to share cultures and learn to grow fresh food and other plants. The gardeners represent a global group of families with origins in Asia, the Caribbean, South and North America.
At the Annual Celebration, Sprouts members shared the many ways the garden enhances their lives. Board member Jessica Yu grows vegetables for her kitchen nearly year-round, starting with snow peas in February, bitter melon, sweet potato vines and more through the summer, and snow lettuce planted in November to harvest in April. “I also enjoy the exercise and sharing seeds and plants with other gardeners.”
Ann Reiss, recently moved to Charlestown and in her first season at Sprouts, says that gardening helps her pay attention to the natural world. “The weather doesn’t really affect us in cities. But with my garden here, I notice when it’s about to rain and when to plant seeds or water the garden.” That awareness, she says, “is a Godsend.”
Creating community
“Building community is hard work,” says Gerald Robbins, president of the board for Charlestown Sprouts and gardener since 2010. An experienced community organizer, Robbins has led volunteers to transform a parcel of neglected land with a historically high rate of vandalism and theft. “It was guerilla gardening back then,” he recalls, “every gardener for themselves.”
In 2019, the Charlestown Sprouts received a grant from the City of Boston’s Grassroots Open Space Program to spur initial physical improvements to the garden and, with important support from Oren Campbell McCleary Charitable Trust, Bank of America, N.A., Co-Trustee, Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources’ Urban Agriculture program, and other grantors and donors, Robbins and other volunteers have turned the parcel into a thriving community space.
Now hosting 68 well-defined and attractive garden plots, a shed, composting system, and a pergola for educational events and other gatherings, Sprouts is currently partnering with the Mystic River Watershed Association to create a pollinator garden of native plants in the meadow beside the garden.
Get involved
To learn more about Sprouts or to join the waitlist for a garden plot, email [email protected], check out its Facebook page @charlestownsprouts or take a walk to the Little Mystic Channel to see the garden and meet its community.