Generations garden in the
City vegetable plots brings family, community closer together
When Rosie Woodland plants a seed, she is planting her history. Collard greens and tomatoes, bell peppers and Swiss chard, they all tell her story. Growing up in Tennessee, Woodland’s world centered on the garden. As soon as school was done, she’d be out planting and picking. When her family moved to Milwaukee, they lived in an apartment. Still, her mother grew things, filling any outdoor spaces around the apartment with collards, tomatoes and any other vegetable she could. They’ve put down roots here now. Three generations of the family gather weekly at the Cherry Street Garden Club, a once-vacant lot just off N. 24th and Cherry streets.
Rosie, 69, joined the garden first, looking for space to grow tomatoes and peppers for her beloved “tomato cha-cha.”
From her family’s apartment next door to the garden, granddaughter Santana, 9, would watch Rosie plant and pick vegetables. Santana kept asking for her own garden, and so three years ago her mother, Sandra Webb, 50, joined the club. They’re often joined by Sandra’s mother-in-law, Linda Ginn, 70.
When it came time to select the vegetables Santana would grow with the help of her mother and her 14-year-old brother, Lamar, there was no hesitation. She had to have Swiss chard. It’s her favorite.
Rick Roszkowski and his fiancée, Lisa Eichler, might have something to do with that.
Cherry Street Garden is a community project through UNISON, a merger of SET Ministry and Interfaith. The couple have been part of the garden program since its inception, and they proposed this garden in 2011, starting with 19 raised garden beds. Today there are 33 beds, and Roszkowski and Eichler are garden club members, attending meetings, tending their bed weekly, mowing the lawn and sharing recipes with club members.
Every participant is required to pay a yearly $5 membership fee and attend weekly meetings at Cherry Court Apartments, 1525 N. 24th St. In return, they are provided a garden bed, two tomato plants, two pepper plants and any seeds they want, plus water.
“We were inspired by the scientific approach to the long-term solution to chronic poverty in our city,” said Roszkowski, an engineer who talks in terms of quantifiable results. “Community gardens are well-documented to have a positive impact on communities. That was the incentive, to provide an augmented food program for people on food stamps and generally low-income.”
As he’s come to spend more time in the garden, Roszkowski has gotten to know the members of the community. While working in the garden on a recent weekday, he greeted every visitor by name and got hugs from both adults and children as they headed to water their plots.
“Most of our gardeners come from a Southern heritage where the growing season is much longer,” he said. “They remember pumpkins and melons, and we can grow those, but they take much longer. We looked up ways to maximize productivity and generate the most amount of food.”
That meant considering Swiss chard in place of collard
greens, and enticing the community to make the switch.
“We quickly found that Swiss chard just self-generates over the summer,” he said. “Instead of collard greens, where you can wait half the year and half your collards get stolen, Swiss chard might be a better option,” said Roszkowski.
Initially, no one was choosing to plant chard. “We had to find a way to entice them to consider it as an alternative. I said, ‘If anyone plants Swiss chard, I’ll give you a pound of bacon. Virtually everyone signed up,” Roszkowski recalled. “I had to go to Pick ’n Save and buy 30 pounds of bacon, but the next year when there was no challenge, 20 people still signed up to grow Swiss chard.”
Sandra Webb is one of them. “Santana loves greens, and we mix it with the (other) greens,” she said.
“I’d definitely say this is a food desert,” Sandra said. “The closest grocery store is at 35th and North Ave. But I often drive to 68th and State.
“The garden changes things. We can do fresh. We can do organic, no pesticides, no chemicals. I have ulcerative colitis, and I feel better when I eat fresh. The chives, they are the bomb on a baked potato!”
Her mother, Rosie Woodland, agrees. “I don’t do a lot of canned goods. There is too much sodium. I prefer fresh vegetables, making my own stewed tomatoes.”
Woodland said she wants the next generations to know the benefits of growing your own food.
“With a little work and communication and instead of going to the store and spending all that money, you can come together and grow a lot of vegetables yourselves,” she said. “Growing up, we grew all our own food. We have lettuce in the store, but you can plant five or six heads of lettuce for less than a dollar.
“You can save so much money on greens, and it’s just more fun. That’s what it is for me. I take a lot of my stuff and share at my apartment complex. We don’t dare use all we grow.”
Every year, Roszkowski notices more people bringing their children and grandchildren to help with the gardens. That inspires him.
“We realized more and more of the constituents
have physical disabilities and learning disabilities,” added Roszkowski. “They’re unable to care for the gardens entirely themselves. Since we love the gardens and live in a condo, we adopted the gardens.”
“There is a big sense of community,” he continued, noting that the garden space includes plots for kids and the neighborhood. The community plot features tomato plants, cucumbers, squash, zucchini, onions, collard greens, mustard greens, turnip greens, okra, pepper and chives.
“They know this is not a wealthy neighborhood, but so many people drive by and notice the garden. It creates a sense of a neighborhood I want to be in, and they know their neighbors. This family has a garden here, and I know their name. It fosters support.”
For Sandra Webb, it is a family learning experience gathering three generations. “We all look forward to the garden, and eating from it.”
Building upon the success at Cherry Street Garden, UNISON is building a community garden in a second location, Riverview, at 1300 E. Kane Place. Roszkowski helped build and fill beds there on land that, like the Cherry Street Garden, is owned by the City of Milwaukee Housing Authority. Three Holy Women Parish donated $3,000 toward the 16-bed garden.
“We can help once we know what the right issues are,” said Roszkowski. “They’re (UNISON) doing this through a multi-generational program, and a garden is a way for generations to come together and cook. Food is a dialogue.”