Since its launch in 2007, the local nonprofit Seedleaf has been working to combat food insecurity in neighborhoods across Lexington with seasonal bounty from its free community gardens. Recently, the group has also been offering up some added incentive for a small group of local growers working to expand their urban gardening aptitude.
Through Seedleaf’s market gardener program, a cohort of eight community members are preparing to manage their own 20-foot-by 30-foot garden parcels during the upcoming growing season, on property leased by Seedleaf along North Limestone Avenue. With Seedleaf’s support and guidance, the program’s participants will plan, sow and maintain their allotted garden spaces, with the potential to sell the fruits of their growing enterprises on the local market.
Andrew Russell English and his wife, Reva, teamed up to pilot-test the idea as Seedleaf’s first market gardeners starting in 2017, growing vegetables and fruits on the 1.83-acre North Limestone property to sell to local restaurants and through their North Farm farmshare program.
“We were looking for a way to grow food, but initially, because the price of land in Fayette County is so high relative to incomes and compared to other counties, we thought we’d never be able to do it,” Andrew Russell English said.
The Russell English family has operated their farmshare business for three years, starting with eight members in its first year. Last year, they signed on 35 members, supplying them with fresh fruits and vegetables grown and foraged in Fayette County.
With three years of experience under his belt, Russell English has stepped up to serve as an informal farm manager and advisor to Seedleaf’s seven new market gardeners this year. The new participants in the group come from a variety of cultural backgrounds, and they bring varying levels of gardening experience to the table, Russell English said, but they all share a strong desire to learn.
“They are also bringing different experiences of food and where they come from in relation to food,” Russell English said. “It’s a really good way for us all to connect across differences.”
The group has attended meetings and workshops to learn more not only about different plant varieties and effective growing techniques but also the basics of starting a small agriculture business. Participants have toured larger agricultural operations in the area, such as Reed Valley Orchard and the University of Kentucky’s Horticulture Research Farm, and they have met with local restaurant owners to learn more about the expectations for food suppliers.
So far, the early spring rotations planned by the program’s market gardeners are set to include staples such as kale, collards, spinach, snow peas, sugar snap peas, green onions and a mix of lettuces, Russell English said. The market gardeners have also expressed interest in exploring some plant varieties that are less commonly grown in the Bluegrass over the course of the growing season.
For Seedleaf’s executive director, Christine Smith, the program is not a new direction for the group, but a slightly recalibrated approach to its mission, aimed at incentivizing more would-be growers to take an active role in bringing a variety of healthy, local food options to Lexington’s tables.
Seedleaf, which began with the creation of the London Ferrell Garden on East Third Street, now operates 11 community gardens across Lexington, many in neighborhoods identified as “food deserts” because of the limited availability of fresh produce in nearby stores. The garden spaces are managed and maintained by the organization’s three-person staff and a small army of community volunteers who share in the work and the harvest.
“In many of those locations, we’ve had great successes,” Smith said. “In some locations, we still struggle to get neighbors involved.”
After some healthy introspection, Smith said, the group realized that its model of community engagement, which relied on considerable investments of time from community members and willingness to readily embrace new food choices and eating habits, didn’t work for everyone. Providing access to fresh produce was only one piece of the food insecurity puzzle for people who might not know how to cook previously unavailable vegetables, for example, or have the extra time or the kitchen needed to prepare them.
Local participants in SEEDS, Seedleaf’s summer youth development program, learn about the basics of beekeeping at the nonprofit’s community farm and dig into the plots at the London Ferrell Community Garden on East Third Street.
Since then, the group has ramped up efforts to incentivize its community engagement where it can, Smith said, and to use its programs to support and inform positive food choices for its neighbors on their own terms, through initiatives like the market gardener program.
“The hope is, if we get people into the garden, whether it be through incentives or some other way, they are going to be more likely to eat the food they grow and to share that food,” Smith said. “Even if these folks don’t go on to be farmers, they will have gained the skill of learning how to garden. They will have learned something about new and interesting crops that they may never have seen before.”
In addition to its market gardener program, Seedleaf has also expanded its community gardener training series, aimed at introducing a full repertoire of new skills and techniques for both beginning and experienced Bluegrass growers.
Seedleaf has also placed a concerted effort on youth outreach as a way to bring more neighborhood families on board. Its SEEDS initiative, an eight-week summer youth development program, gives young people ages 11 to 14 the opportunity to work, learn and help their community in Seedleaf’s gardens and nearby neighborhoods each year, with a small stipend awarded for their work and participation. The group has also recently hired an education outreach coordinator to connect with K-12 teachers and schools in Fayette County.
For Russell English, who didn’t start gardening until he was an adult, giving people the experience of growing their own food, and showing them another way to value the land around them, can reap a lifetime of positive dividends.
“I think the land in our city is often overlooked as a really great source of food. Often the focus is on how much money we can make if we sell it, as opposed to how much food we could grow on it,” Russell English said. “Learning how to grow food is the first step. … If they can just participate in it one time, it is something they will come back to year after year.”