MALE ANNOUNCER: Growing a Greener World is made possible in part by-- FEMALE ANNOUNCER: The Subaru Crosstrek, designed with adventure in mind, built in a zero landfill plant, so you can roam the earth with a lighter footprint.

Subaru-- proud sponsor of Growing a Greener World.

MALE ANNOUNCER: And the following-- the US Composting Council, Milorganite, and Rain Bird.

[gentle instrumental music] ♪ JOE LAMP'L [voice-over]: I'm Joe Lamp'l.

For 10 years, Growing a Greener World has told the stories of the people and the places who are making a difference in the health of our environment and the sustainability of our global community.

But as we embarked on our 11th season, life changed overnight.

So many things we took for granted would never be the same again.

Now it's up to each of us to take a more active role in not just saving our planet, but making it better, feeding our families with organically grown food, conserving vital resources, protecting natural habitats, starting in our own backyards.

Growing a Greener World-- it's still our mission, and it's more important than ever.

♪ We talk a lot on this show about how people in urban communities are finding new ways to grow their own food.

Well, today, we look at an organization that not only builds out lots of community garden plots on big city lots, but they also teach the gardener how to grow that food.

And the cool thing is, all of these gardens are temporary.

So today, we'll look at how these pop-up gardens utilize vacant city lots, the surprising impact they have on the neighborhoods, and what happens after the garden goes away.

[music playing] All across this country, there are plenty of urban areas that have very little green space, not to mention room to grow food.

Well, the Peterson Garden Project in Chicago, Illinois, is a nonprofit organization hoping to change all that.

They have a mission adopting many of the principles of the victory garden movement of World War II in the early 1940s, where communities came together to build temporary gardens to teach their citizens how to grow some of the nation's food.

And the Peterson Garden Project has a goal of developing lifelong gardeners while growing organic produce.

[music playing] LaManda Joy is the woman who started the Peterson Garden Project just three short years ago.

As a garden writer, LaManda was always looking for new ways to get people involved in growing their own food.

After learning that her neighborhood was once a hub for the 1940s victory garden movement, LaManda was determined to recreate that era momentum today.

With the help of many hardworking volunteers, that idea has transformed many empty lots into nine organic community gardens, with over 3,000 people involved in growing food for themselves and others.

LAMANDA JOY: So I moved to this neighborhood on the north side of Chicago in 2006.

And I drove down Peterson Avenue a lot because it was sort of a main thoroughfare, and there was this empty lot.

And I have this condition called lot lust, where I see an empty lot and I want to turn it into a garden, of course.

So I'd been eyeing this lot for quite a while.

And then one day, I was at our local butcher shop getting some chicken, and I was talking to Rubin and Irv.

And I looked over, and I saw this photo of a victory garden during World War II.

So I was inspecting it and talking with them about it, and they said, yeah, this whole strip of Peterson Avenue had been victory gardens.

And I was like, oh, that's really cool.

So it dawned on me that the empty lot that I'd been lusting after was one of the lots in the picture at the butcher shop.

So I thought, wouldn't it be cool if we sort of recreated that victory garden thing on that piece of property?

And I think we were on to something because it ended up being the largest organic food garden in the city.

[music playing] So the idea of growing food in this victory garden style snowballed.

And three years later, we have nine community gardens.

We have an education program.

We have about 3,000 people gardening with us.

We have 500 volunteers.

It's really been an amazing process and project.

JOE LAMP'L: A victory garden, like the Peterson Project, is all about community.

But victory gardens didn't always start out that way.

To give us a little more insight into the history of the subject, we turn to Rose Hayden-Smith, a practicing US historian and nationally recognized expert on victory gardens.

ROSE HAYDEN-SMITH: Victory gardens actually began in World War I.

And initially, they were called "liberty gardens."

It was a movement that combined power of citizens with the federal government to promote the idea of gardening nationally in schools, home, communities, and workplaces.

There were multiple purposes to the program.

One purpose was to secure the national food supply.

There were great concerns about overproduction and underproduction in agriculture.

And the federal government actually wanted to encourage the local production and consumption of food products, particularly fruits and vegetables, to reduce the food mile so that trains could be used to ship troops and material instead of food.

The purpose was different in World War II.

The American food system was secure.

It was really more about gardening for unity and a service to the nation, and also about improving an American health and lifestyle and reconnecting Americans to the land.

Today's victory garden campaign represents a convergence of a number of concerns and threads in American cultural and civic life, concern about the environment, concern about childhood obesity and a healthy lifestyle, and local foods and civic engagement.

And the modern victory garden movement is represented not only in initiatives like the United States Department of Agriculture's People's Garden Initiative, but in the fact that there is a garden at the White House on the South Lawn where millions of people walk by every year and can see a home garden in action, and this is significant.

That home gardeners joined the ranks of active gardeners in America at the rate of 4 million in 2009, I think, speaks to the interest and the sort of gardening ethos that's infusing American culture today.

JOE LAMP'L: After the Peterson Garden Project's first season, there was such a high demand for people wanting to garden.

LaManda started thinking about how they could expand the project so people could garden and grow their own food.

But with land being so expensive and not many vacant lots available, she came up with a plan that proved to be victorious with the city and gardeners alike.

LAMANDA JOY: And so we started looking at other empty pieces of land and strategizing like, maybe we could just do temporary gardens.

We could get on this property for two years, three years, make it beautiful, build a community, teach people.

And then when it needed to be developed or something else needed to happen, then we would move to another piece of property.

And so that's what we started doing in 2012.

And we call them pop-up victory gardens because during World War II, people gardened wherever they could.

And then when the war was over and they didn't need to do it, they moved the gardens, or they learned to garden in their backyard, or whatever it was.

So we thought that would be a really good idea, and it's worked out really well so far.

[music playing] Our mission isn't to build long-term gardens, it's to build long-term gardeners.

So we do, of course, build community gardens.

But at the heart, Peterson Garden Project is about education, and we work with community gardens.

And the really amazing thing is you can talk about the number of beds that we have, the number of volunteers, the number of gardeners, all these statistics, but the thing that you don't see is that 10% of a community garden is the garden and 90% is the community.

And so the really amazing thing that's happened is we've taken these empty lots, and people from the neighborhood have come together to create this sense of community.

And they're learning together, and their kids are playing together, and they're creating memories together.

And we have all sorts of events and music so people can be together.

And when you look at just an empty space with trash and weeds and all that, and then you see what this can become because people want to do it, people want to be together, and the gardeners build these gardens, that's the really amazing thing about Peterson Garden Project.

[music playing] JOE LAMP'L: So how does a temporary pop-up garden come to be to begin with?

Well, you have to find the land.

Now on that list of must-haves, you want it in a densely populated area.

We certainly have that.

An existing community group already formed, that's a big plus.

And because it's a garden, you want full sun, and you want access to water.

Now in the perfect world, you want the property to be fenced in.

And look, this whole giant place, more than an acre in size, is completely fenced in.

And we're growing food here, so it's really important that we do have that fence.

Now, once you find that location, you have to get the landowner to agree to a two-year period for growing.

You don't want the garden to come in and all that trouble and then it has to go away, but two seasons at a minimum.

The city on this property, it was vacant for so long, and they're really happy to have a garden here.

Now once you shake hands and all that stuff is done, then the work begins.

Here, all this land needs to be cleared, and that's going to happen in a couple of weeks.

They'll come in, they'll scrape it clean, they'll get all the weeds out of here.

And once that's done, the city donates a lot of mulch.

And covering this whole area, that's a big job.

But fortunately, they agreed to do that.

Then, next spring early in the season, they'll bring in the beds.

Now because this is over an acre, that's about 250 beds at least.

Some will come from existing pop-up gardens that are being disassembled, but they're going to need more beds.

So they have to buy the wood, and they have to buy the soil and fill all of that.

Now while all that's going on, they start taking sign-ups for people to come be the new gardeners.

And the theory is-- and it's proven to be successful in the past-- build it and they will come, and we'll create a lot more new gardeners in the process.

[music playing] Now if everything goes according to plan, you end up with a garden like this.

This is the Veg Water Garden in the Edgewater neighborhood, not far off the lake in downtown Chicago.

Now there's not a lot of green space here, except for what's coming out of these raised beds.

And there are 180 of those, over 12,000 square feet.

Now what's neat about this is, there's so much concrete here, even the beds are on top of it.

And yet, the plants are thriving.

About 6 to 8 inches of soil, lots of sunlight, and a little water, and these plants are doing great.

And even better than that, all the new gardeners.

This garden didn't even exist not that long ago, but so many people are learning so many new things and building community all at the same time.

[music playing] While at the gardens, I had a chance to meet and talk with some of the gardeners and answer a few of their questions along the way.

[music playing] Now when you only have a limited space in which to garden, you want to make the most of it.

And in Beth's case, she's using the square foot gardening method.

So you can tell that by these strings that she has running in both directions, and then she's got plants within each square foot section.

So that's a great technique.

Another thing you always want to do when you're trying to maximize your space is to go vertical.

And pole beans, they certainly want to go up.

And there's nothing fancy about this, but it's very effective.

She just has some chicken wire supported by a couple stakes.

The beans are very happy with that.

Even the rogue beans that are making their way off to the side, well, a piece of bamboo or two to support those works just great.

Let's see what else she's doing.

OK, I like this.

This is coloring outside the lines, I call it.

Now just outside the raised bed area, she has her coffee sack.

Now, potatoes are growing out of this.

Why the coffee sack?

Well, first of all, you need more soil than a raised bed is going to provide, at least with this depth of 6 or 8 inches.

All of this room right here, perfect for potatoes.

And I like the sack because no matter how much you water it, the excess water is going to come out.

So you're not going to drown your potatoes.

So far, they look great.

In another few weeks or a month or so, she's going to have some great potatoes coming out of there.

[music playing] Coming to a community garden is a lot of fun for even an experienced gardener because there's always so much to learn.

And this bed struck me as interesting for a couple of reasons.

First of all, it's still the same size as everybody else's bed as far as the dimensions of 4 by 8.

But Greg did something else that I really like.

He built an additional bed right on top to create some more space for the roots to grow down.

But there's another reason why he did it.

The orientation of the sun, the east is in front of me, the west is behind me.

So as the sun comes overhead, you want the sun to hit all of the plants equally.

Now, if the tomatoes, the tallest plants, were in the front, they would shade out everything behind it.

So by raising them up, not only are they tall, but they're taller because of the extra height.

They're back here.

They're not bothering anybody else in front.

So then you have the peppers, the medium-sized plants, and then the lettuce and other shorter plants in front of that.

And then he added some marigolds and some color here, which is always nice in an edible garden.

Pretty nice setup here, and everything appears to be doing just fine.

[music playing] So, LaManda, tell me about this garden.

LAMANDA JOY: This garden is called Global Garden.

It's in Chicago's Albany Park neighborhood.

It's a very congested neighborhood in Chicago.

It's about an acre and a half of land.

It's city property.

And we have 212 raised beds-- JOE LAMP'L: Wow.

LAMANDA JOY: --in the front.

And in the back, we share the space with a program that teaches refugee farmers how to be farmers in the United States.

JOE LAMP'L: Very cool.

Now, talk to me about the funding, because clearly it takes a lot of money to build these beds and to deconstruct them and add the soil.

Where's all that coming from?

LAMANDA JOY: Well, we're a 501(c)(3).

JOE LAMP'L: Yep.

LAMANDA JOY: And we are primarily membership driven with our revenue, although we get grants and we love donors and all that.

But every spring, our gardeners get involved as members, and that means that they get education primarily.

They get some supplies.

They get classes, of course, events, and their 4 by 8 raised bed.

JOE LAMP'L: So speaking of the raised beds and education, talk to me about some of the things that you guys teach.

LAMANDA JOY: Well, Joe, we invite people that have never gardened before, so we're starting with the very basics.

Some of these people may have never even gotten their hands dirty before.

So we teach them how deep to plant a seed.

We teach them how to water.

We teach a basic sort of intensive square foot method so they can get the most out of their 4 by 8 plot.

And then we have other classes about what's happening in the garden that month.

We teach them about trellising.

We teach them about composting, pollinators.

And we really like to hear what the gardeners want to know, and we tailor some of our education around what the questions are.

JOE LAMP'L: Wow, that's gardening 101 on a customized level.

What about a community?

You guys focus a lot on building that community.

How do you do that?

LAMANDA JOY: Well, we don't want these gardens to be a place where people run in and get their lettuce and run out.

We want them to feel like this is their place.

So all sorts of events happen here.

People have parties.

They have potlucks.

We call them "plotlucks."

They might get food from their garden and cook together.

We have concerts.

We have yoga in the garden.

JOE LAMP'L: Wow.

LAMANDA JOY: So we try and keep them engaged.

And the gardeners come up with a lot of the ideas too, and so we just facilitate that.

JOE LAMP'L: OK, so the gardeners are just getting it figured out.

They've built this great community with their fellow gardeners, and now the garden is going away.

That cannot feel good.

LAMANDA JOY: You'd be surprised.

People know at the very beginning that it's a short-term project.

We don't surprise anybody.

And I think they're really thankful and happy to have the experience.

And we've had people that were in our original garden that have been at two or three other gardens now.

And what happens, it's really cool, they know the drill.

They know how the gardens work.

They've learned how to garden.

And so they become leaders in these gardens, and that allows us to have more gardens and teach more people.

JOE LAMP'L: That's very cool.

Now, that's the step for them to go to the next level.

What about you?

What's next for the Peterson Garden Project?

LAMANDA JOY: Well, we're really excited about the next year because we really want to close the loop between growing your own food and cooking your own food.

We find that a lot of people are really interested in growing, and then they don't know what to do with it.

So we're going to start a culinary program, actually a home cooking program, to teach people what to do with all their great produce.

JOE LAMP'L: What a natural fit.

LAMANDA JOY: It's perfect.

[music playing] JOE LAMP'L: Volunteers are the glue that hold projects like a community garden together.

And here at the Peterson Garden Project, there are a lot of people working really hard behind the scenes.

But there's one volunteer who always seems to go the extra mile.

[music playing] BARBARA KIRCHNER: I got involved with the Peterson Garden Project when I received the flyer in my mailbox.

And I called the alderman's office, and I joined.

I was hoping for a long time that that piece of land would turn into a garden or a little park area or something like that.

But I didn't in a million years think it would be a vegetable garden, a community vegetable garden, a resurrected victory garden from World War II.

How perfect is that?

It just fills my heart.

It really does.

Well, the first thing we did was had a groundbreaking ceremony.

And then we cleared the ground out and bulldozed it and leveled it out and put wood chips down.

And then the whole community came together, and it was just wonderful.

60-some people came out and started building this garden and became not just a community, but a family.

And everybody helped everybody.

I think I kind of became a little possessive in a way.

LaManda started calling me the "garden mom," and I've been the garden mom ever since.

We've all grown together, I think.

And it's just become a part of my life.

[music playing] JOE LAMP'L: When you have a lot of plots this close together and many people from all over the area coming in to garden, how do you not build community?

But it's not the only way.

For example, here, they have an information station.

Now this is a centralized area in the garden where people can come and exchange ideas and get information.

Maybe it's a plant problem.

They can write it on the board, and hopefully another gardener has the answer to their problem.

And let's say that you're going out of town for a week, and you need some help with the watering.

Well, you grab one of these watering sticks, and you place it in your bed.

That's an indication that you need some help for a little while.

And like any good community, neighbors are looking out for each other.

Your garden should be just fine.

And in this garden, they have an area designated for the kids.

So when the families come and they bring the kids, the kids get to play together, the parents get to do some serious gardening.

And hopefully, the parents and the kids all get to garden together.

A great way to build that next generation of gardeners and community at the same time.

[music playing] Whether it's a victory garden for the modern era, a neighborhood community garden with rented plots, or just your own backyard beds, it's easy to end up with more produce than you can use.

What a great problem to have, and it's exactly the issue that was facing Gary Oppenheimer in his West Milford, New Jersey, garden once upon a time.

GARY OPPENHEIMER: I walked in the house with a lot more of what I was growing, and my wife said, enough, no more, get it out.

And I was giving food away to friends, and I discovered there's only so many cucumbers you can give to friends and still have them call you a friend.

And I knew there was a battered women's shelter here in the town, and I contacted the woman who ran it.

I knew her, Sandra Ramos.

And I called up Sandra.

I got food.

Does your shelter need it?

She said, sure, bring it over.

So I showed up with two bags.

And this lovely lady answers the door, and I said, I have fresh produce for you.

And she said thank you.

And as she was closing the door, she said, thank you, now we have some fresh food.

And I was walking away, and I remembered that's a really weird thing, thinking that you just have canned produce.

It just stuck with me.

I wasn't thinking in terms of food pantries or food banks or hunger in America.

It was just one of those tipping points that trigger something with you.

And then I got asked by a local group here in West Milford, Sustainable West Milford, which runs a whole lot of sustainability of programs in this town, if I would take over the directorship of the community garden.

In meetings with the people in late 2008, we were discussing how the garden operates, what my vision was for how a garden should operate.

And one of the things that was brought to me repeatedly was, as the summer wears on, there was a lot of food left in the garden.

People were getting overwhelmed, going on vacation, they were bored.

And I said, if we're going to have an ample harvest, the least we can do is give it to people who need it.

And this just rolled right off my tongue.

And so we put a committee together to say, let's figure out how we can do this, and they started organizing how they were going to actually gather up this excess food.

And I, as the director of the garden, decided I was going to find the food pantries in the town.

I had this vision that if I couldn't find a pantry and millions of other gardeners couldn't find a pantry either, it was just one of these things that just comes to you.

JOE LAMP'L: And that's how the national nonprofit organization called ampleharvest.org was born.

Think of ampleharvest.org as a search engine for food pantries.

It's basically an online resource that enables 40 million home gardeners who grow food to be able to find a local food pantry in their own community who are willing and able to take the excess produce from them.

So here's how it works.

Food pantries register online at ampleharvest.org.

They put in all the important information-- the name of the pantry, their address, where they're located, and the days and times they accept food deliveries.

From the gardener's side, assume you've had a surplus harvest, and you want to donate some of the excess.

You'll go to ampleharvest.org where it says "find a pantry" and enter your zip code.

You'll then see a listing of all the registered food pantries in your area, sorted based on distance away from your location.

You then simply pick the one that's most convenient.

From there, you deal directly with the food pantry based on the unique information they've provided.

So if the food pantry says, call before you come, you call them directly.

If the food pantry says, come Saturday mornings between a certain time frame, you'll know it.

And as good news often spreads, your community is learning of this valuable resource by word of mouth, and who now have a conduit for donating fresh produce to places where it can be quickly given to those in need.

[music playing] So here we are at the West Milford Community Garden.

It's the best time of the week.

It is Friday evening, and that means harvest time, with the ultimate goal of getting as much as we can out of here to take to the food pantries.

All the volunteers come in here on Friday evening, and they get busy.

And the community does a great job of making this garden work for everybody.

Now, there are 30 plots here, with 30 individual gardeners managing the food for their own table.

But during the week, they're also asked to do something else, and that's to utilize this flag system.

Let me explain how it works.

Now, each plot has a plot marker.

And if I were the volunteer and I came along and I had a blue flag right by the marker, that means that as the volunteer, I can take everything out of this plot.

Now, in this case, that means all the tomatoes and the chard and the peppers and the basil and the herbs.

There is a lot here.

But what if there is a yellow flag?

Well, yellow flag means just take half of everything, and that's still a bounty.

But because there are 30 gardeners here, there are 30 people with different preferences.

Like this plot right here.

You come over here, and you see a yellow flag right by the carrots.

Now, we already know that yellow means take only half.

And because it's right by the carrots, it means take only half the carrots.

And the blue flag next to the broccoli, well, that means take all the broccoli.

Obviously, they've had their fill of broccoli for a season.

But it's a great way for the individual gardener to get everything that they need, and it's an easy system to make sure that nothing goes to waste.

[music playing] As growing food becomes more and more popular, educational programs like the Peterson Garden Project are becoming invaluable as they transform the face of urban neighborhoods and help inspire the next generation of gardeners.

If you'd like to learn more about what you saw today, including how to locate a community garden near you, well, we have all of that information on our website under the show notes for this episode.

And the address, it's the same as our name.

It's growingagreenerworld.com.

I'm Joe Lamp'l.

Thanks for joining us, and we'll see you back here next time for more Growing a Greener World.

MALE ANNOUNCER: Growing a Greener World is made possible in part by-- FEMALE ANNOUNCER: The Subaru Crosstrek, designed with adventure in mind, built in a zero landfill plant, so you can roam the earth with a lighter footprint.

Subaru-- proud sponsor of Growing a Greener World.

MALE ANNOUNCER: And the following-- the US Composting Council, Milorganite, and Rain Bird.

[gentle instrumental music] ♪ MALE ANNOUNCER: Continue the garden learning from the program you just watched, Growing a Greener World.

Program host, Joe Lamp'l's Online Gardening Academy offers classes designed to teach gardeners of all levels, from the fundamentals to master skills.

Classes are on demand any time.

Plus, opportunities to ask Joe questions about your specific garden in real time.

Courses are available online.

For more information or to enroll, go to growingagreenerworld.com/learn.

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