The Parks and People Foundation worked in collaboration with the Washington Village/Pigtown Neighborhood Planning Council to support a Garden Mosaics project. Amy, Darnell, Felicity, Marceau, Robert, and Ryan, all from the Youth Works program, and their supervisor (Josh) from Cornell, conducted Garden Mosaics activities at the Carroll Park Community Garden and the Parks and People/B&O Community Garden.

The Carroll Park Community Garden
The Carroll Park Community Garden is in the Washington Village neighborhood of Baltimore. This area has mixed residential, commercial and industrial uses. The garden, which is over ten years old, is part of the 100-acre Carroll Park, and is managed by Baltimore's Department of Recreation and Parks through its City Farms program. The garden has eighteen members.

The youth learned about the garden primarily from interviews with gardeners Marie, James, Harry, and Mr. Lee. The gardeners grow a mix of herbs, vegetables, and ornamental plants in their fenced plots. Mr. Lee grows sweet potatoes for their greens and not their tubers. James grows mostly vegetables (string beans, beets, carrots, turnips, tomatoes, and Swiss chard) for himself and his friends and family. He plants marigolds in each corner of his plot and except for the tomatoes, starts all of his plants from seeds. In order to save space, he plants the seeds close together by type of plant and weeds by hand. The paths between these densely planted rows are somewhat wide so that there is less competition for available water and nutrients between rows. He waters the plants for about ten minutes in the morning so that the water does not evaporate as quickly as it would later in the day. Like some other gardeners at Carroll Park, James adds fertilizer to help the plants grow and occasionally sprinkles an insecticidal dust on the plants to keep insects away.

While James plants all of his plants close together, other gardeners have some different strategies for saving space. Some use trellises for vines such as squash and others stake their tomatoes so that the plants grow as vertically as possible and can support the weight of their many fruits.

The gardeners spend a lot of time at Carroll Park not only caring for their plants, but also enjoying the benefits of the garden. Harry noted that although the garden is bordered by a main road, it is a peaceful and quite place. The gardeners spend quite a bit of time socializing with each other and sharing their experiences.

The Parks and People/B&O Community Garden
If you were to walk three blocks northeast of the Carroll Park Community Garden you would be at the Parks and People / B&O Community Garden. This is the twentieth year that the Parks and People Foundation has leased the land from the B&O Railroad Museum for a community garden. It may also be the last year as the Railroad Museum has plans to develop the site for their own purposes. Presently, 25 people regularly garden at the site.

The youth learned about gardening not only from talking with gardeners Tom, Dwayne, and Frank, but also through cultivating and maintaining their own 15 x 25 foot plot. By having their own plot, the youth could relate to what they were learning from the gardeners and also enjoy the sense of accomplishment from creating a productive garden. They grew peppers, melons, squash, eggplant, broccoli, and an assortment of perennial flowers all from donated seedlings.

Some of the gardeners were growing many of the same plants as the youth. For example, Dwayne, grew several different kinds of peppers (red, yellow, jalapeno) and squashes (zucchini, spaghetti, and butternut). He also grew tomatoes, cantaloupe, mustard greens, cabbage, potatoes, onions, green beans, corn, eggplant and red raspberries. Because Dwayne has a lot of space and does not have to worry about competition between plants, he does not follow a specific plan with his plantings. He occasionally repeats an arrangement if he likes the way it looks. Other than placing newspaper over the soil between plants to keep weeds from growing, he does not add anything to the soil and noted that the soil seemed fine when he started gardening in his plot. He deals with insects by removing pests by hand from his plants. Baltimore is generally quite hot and humid during the growing season and was particularly hot this past summer. In order to keep his plants watered, he would give them a good soaking by running sprinklers for a half hour twice a week. Dwayne, like other gardeners, enjoys the fruits of his labors and shares his vegetables with family and friends. Some gardeners, like Tom, can some of the vegetables for the winter.

Volunteers led by staff from the Parks and People Foundation regularly visit the garden and provide assistance with the overall grounds. Parks and People have a tree nursery onsite (that is watered through a rainwater collection system on the roof of a nearby warehouse). Although the community gardeners do not have any regularly organized gatherings or work sessions in the gardens, they informally socialize throughout the growing season, which for many starts in February when they begin turning over their beds to prepare the ground for planting. The growing season ends in October/November when the gardeners turn their beds over after the harvest. The gardeners note that the garden provides them with relaxation, satisfaction, friendship, and peace.