About South Bend Community Gardens
South Bend Community Gardens provides gardening and educational opportunities
that help connect people to each other and to the natural world.
The South Bend Community Garden group was formed beginning with a casual conversation at the South Bend Earth Day event in April of 2007. Soon after, a workshop at the Community Forum for Economic Development on the issue of food sparked a lively discussion. It ended up with most in the room excited about the idea of and potential for community gardens in South Bend.
The casual conversation blossomed into a meeting of a core group of interested people from across the city. At that meeting in May of 2007, a mission statement was crafted and goals were set. While some were lofty, although perhaps still possible, such as a garden every couple of blocks that supports a seasonal market stand supplying the neighborhood with fresh food, others were grounded in reality. Find one spot to start a community garden. Get gardeners from the neighborhood. Plant. Grow. Make it look nice and inviting and possible for replication.
At the same time, similar conversations about the power of local food and the desire for more local access to and control over food were being held among participants in Bertrand Farm’s community supported agriculture program. One gardener mentioned they knew of the perfect place – the lawn north of the Potawatomi Greenhouse.
The greenhouse has operated by the city since the 1920’s, and the conservatory was added in the 1960’s. The former city gardener, who used to live in a house on the property, had kept a garden on the site which had lain dormant in the years since the house was removed after his retirement. It was a perfect spot to garden, situated in between neighborhoods and within a large park complex, it is accessible, well lit, has parking right next to it, and there were “moth balled” old grow houses that had potential to be used – although without water or power.
A couple of people from the SBCG group prepared a proposal for the Parks Board, with extensive help and consultation with city staff from community development, parks and the greenhouses and board members and volunteers from the Botanical Society of South Bend. It was accepted after its first reading in October, 2007.
After taking off a few months during a long, cold winter, the SBCG group met again in full force in March, 2008. Plans are again being made and developed in the areas of educational workshops, outreach to promote developing gardens in other areas of town, and growth and maintenance of the group in accordance with the mission statement.