Local Resident is Deeply Rooted in Her Community
JoAnn Washington Spencer has deep roots in the Washington Park neighborhood of Bradenton and for the past five years she has helped others put down roots as well – vegetable roots, that is, in the Manatee Square Community Garden.
JoAnn is one of several loyal volunteers and over a dozen gardeners who farm the raised beds at the Manatee Square Community Garden next to the Florida Department of Health on Manatee Avenue East. JoAnn’s grandfather, Walter Washington, was a businessman in Bradenton, coming here from North Carolina and eventually owning the Washington Quarters apartments and the Washington Grocery Store a few blocks away. The Washington family raised much of their own food at home, as folks did back then. Both JoAnn’s grandfather and the grocery store are long gone – leaving this neighborhood a food desert – one of 30 neighborhoods in Sarasota and Bradenton with no easy access to fresh affordable food identified in a 2015 study by the Centers for Disease Control.
Along with JoAnn, residents interviewed in the study (Bradenton Herald 2016 by Janelle O’Dea) said that having a place to grow their own vegetables close to home was a priority and with land available next to the Health Department, the community garden was born. Closely associated with UF/IFAS Manatee County Extension, the garden serves as a model for gardens everywhere. A chain link fence protects the garden from critters with combination locks to allow gardeners convenient access. Landscape cloth controls weeds down the long, neat rows of raised beds and compost bins are stationed around the edges with climbing vines and fruit trees. Fruit trees and butterfly plants draw pollinators around the garden. What can’t be seen are the classes, now offered online by Mack Lessig, native gardener and Community Garden Program Assistant, where gardeners learn new vegetables like okra and callaloo, a leafy green from West Africa. Gardeners are learning to use the summer heat to deal with nematodes by covering the beds and letting the heat kill the pests. Other gardeners will use cover crops to replenish the soil and repel the nematodes.
Truly a collaborative effort, the Manatee River Garden Club has awarded funds from the Elizabeth M. Eaton Foundation to help build raised beds and purchase quality soil and fruit trees. Rebecca Moreland, semi-retired specialist in public health and master gardener and health department volunteer, helps write grants to keep the infrastructure sound. A Manatee County Property Management contractor took down damaged oak trees shading the site after Hurricane Irma and the Florida Department of Health in Manatee County has supplied basic equipment and soil supplements. The Healthy Start Coalition of Manatee supports the project with fiscal management and administrative services.
Should you find yourself a block east of WaWa, you’d see the garden – the one with brightly-colored murals painted on the shed, the tidy rows of raised beds and butterflies flitting about. The garden has become an oasis amidst the constant traffic on Manatee Ave and US 301, where residents and gardeners from across the county meet to admire the summer’s okra, sweet potatoes, and herbs – bounty from even the hottest and driest of summers. JoAnn can be found watering, admiring her black-eyed peas or sitting in the shade with her gardening friends. It’s a new kind of community grocery store. While you’re sitting there enjoying the summer breeze, you may also discover a new kind of community in the midst of a very old neighborhood in the heart of Bradenton.
With the addition of new beds from the Eaton Foundation grant funds, garden plots will be available in September. Contact Mack Lessig at (941)722-4524 or mlessig@ufl.edu to apply. You might find yourself learning about the history of Bradenton while you put down roots.
