Standing over raised beds, LaTasha Timberlake lifts leaves to try to find a ripe cantaloupe at the Lottie Lot community garden in northeast Oklahoma City.
She was hoping to pick one up today.
"What else do we have? Cantaloupe. Basil. Collard greens. Peppers. Peppermint. We grow what people want," Timberlake said. "So like, even today, I was like, 'Oh, I'm going to get some cantaloupe.' But it looks like somebody beat me to them today."
That's what is supposed to happen. The garden grows what people want.
"But then also, teaching them and showing them how they too can grow that at home with where they are," Timberlake said while pointing to plants. "So you don't have to have a lot of fancy equipment."
Timberlake is the founder and executive director of Lillian Timber Farms, a six-year-old nonprofit that started food insecurity response work in Northeast Oklahoma City. It has grown roughly 1,000 pounds of food and serves about 300 families.
While the Lottie Lot serves as the anchor garden, the nonprofit works with other organizations, like schools, to revitalize dormant gardens and help homeowners make their own spaces.
As Timberlake weaves through flower beds, pointing to native plants and vegetables almost ready for harvest, she said gardening has always been part of her life. Her grandmother, the nonprofit's namesake, was the first person to introduce her to weeding and watering plants, and to the importance of fresh food.
"I grew up here in northeast Oklahoma City, just literally down the street from the garden. And I wanted to give back and be a part of the movement, Timberlake said. "And so I said, 'Well, what can I give and what does that look like?'"
Timberlake worked on a sustainable farm in Hawaii and then moved back home to start the garden. Rather than "food insecurity," Timberlake likes to say "food insufficiency" because although people might have access to food, it's not always the best quality.
The nonprofit focuses on gardening and urban farming, but Timberlake said it's a catalyst for bringing people together.
This is done through community programs such as Literacy in the Garden, where local children's book authors visit. At the same time, kids participate in activities and take a book home or when volunteers water the garden in the Water Angles program.
Main Street Community Garden
In Harrah, volunteer coordinator Cathey Byerley is scraping a scuffle hoe across gravel to yank up stray grass as volunteer Tammy Herzog tends to flower beds at the Main Street Community Garden.
From the street, passersby can see its lush plants and trees that occupy the space. Byerley loves seeing things change from season to season, but for her, it is not about what things look like. It's about finding joy in the work.
"I will tell you, and I think most gardeners would tell you this, I don't spend a lot of time enjoying it. It's work. It's a beloved work," Byerly said. "But I don't do a lot of sitting and looking or enjoying, and I leave that to the rest of the world to do. And hopefully, they do that for me too."
While Byerley is a long-time gardener, Herzog started pruning, weeding and watering after she retired from the air force and volunteering with the garden. It was something she always wanted to do once she retired.
"Whatever we would do here, I would try to do it in my yard two or three weeks later," Herzog said. "So that's how I started volunteering a little bit, and now, I'm out here almost every day."
She enjoys seeing the results of the work put into the space and how the area has evolved.
"I mean, seeing the seeds that you start seeing them bloom, it's fun. It's interesting," Herzog said. "Pulling weeds. Not so much but, you know, gets frustrations out."
The garden started in 2017 and sits on a lot where a house once stood. Byerley said it was chosen from a list of city-owned properties and received funding from the Harrah Friends of the Park Foundation.
Byerley said the space has always been a community effort, even when it was first budding.
"Volunteers, park board people, friends of the park people, city people. I mean, just whoever really wanted to help out, they did their sweat equity and built this thing, which none of us had done before," Byerley said.
Along with the garden, it has a farmers' market.
At first, the space was about growing food. It has evolved and now holds demonstration gardens to help residents grow things in their own yards. Over the years, the garden has grown so much that it's run out of real estate.
"I think what we would really like to see is that it became its own entity, where we knew that it would always be okay going forward," Byerley said.
Before Byerley starts meandering through the flower beds to inspect plants rich with blooms and vegetables, she sits at the garden's shaded tables and chairs and looks around.
"I think there's a pride in it," Byerley said. "To know that you've built something or participated in building something that will outlast you and that you know, that you gave to people that you don't even know."
And that, she said, is the real reason she and others helped start the garden and continue their work.
Oklahoma's extension specialists say they've seen more interest in gardening
In the classes Micah Anderson, a horticulture educator for Langston University extension, hosts across the state, he said people are also more interested in knowing where their food comes from.
"And now I'm in Summit (a historically all-Black town near Muskogee) and we don't have a big group," Anderson said. "But we really do have a really, really high interest in the people that's wanting to be able to grow food."
That comes from a wide array of people.
"But yeah, it's more and more young people that are interested in growing their own food and being able to be a little bit more sustainable rather than just being dependent on their job or just living in town or whatever," Anderson said.
There are a lot of reasons, including more things swirling around the internet. But a big one, is a desire for fresher produce.
He said at the grocery store, fruits and vegetables can travel a long way to our shopping carts. Over time as transportation improved, produce was shipped from states like California and people became comfortable with buying food at stores.
"But then when you look at it, our food is being shipped in Oklahoma oh, approximately 1,500 miles or more sometimes and so the fresher something is, the more health benefits it's gonna have," Anderson said.
David Hillock is a consumer horticulture specialist for the Oklahoma State University extension and state coordinator for the extension's Master Gardener Volunteer Program.
"I don't personally keep track of them but we have seen an increase in an interest in gardening over the past five or six years," Hillock said. "And I'm sure that there's been some, some rise in community gardens as well."
Community gardens, he said, are a tool that can address problems such as food deserts and food scarcity.
For decades, Hillock said, people have been planting community gardens to address food problems. During World War II, it was Victory Gardens. Since then, Hillock said the number of farmers has gone down in the U.S. causing more fruits and vegetables to be imported from certain places.
Along with freshness and availability, Hillock said he thinks there have been more people interested in understanding the importance of feeding people.
"So not just in community gardens and expansion on community gardens, but I think there's more people getting involved in community gardens, even the ones that already exist," Hillock said. "So and that's really important because community gardens need people that are dedicated and involved to make them happen."
For those who want to start digging in the dirt, here are a handful of things to keep in mind from Anderson and Hillock:
- Start with a small garden and then grow it as you gain more experience.
- Work with and learn from someone who already gardens.
- Understanding the impact climate and weather have on plants.
- Stay on top of pest and disease pressures.
- The type of seed makes a difference. For instance, certain varieties were developed to better stand weather conditions.
- When taking a community approach, there needs to be passionate people who can work and find partnerships who can provide resources.
- For a community garden, identify your goals and the community's needs.
- Know the ground you are working with before starting planting.
- Think about infrastructure needs like irrigation.
- If homesteading is the goal, working a job before or during would help with costs.
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