The idea of creating community gardens on AMI is taking root in Holmes Beach and I dig the enthusiasm.
The Holmes Beach Parks and Beautification Committee is revisiting the concept of creating a community garden in Veterans Park at city hall, 5801 Marina Drive.
The Islander reported Nov. 4 that committee members reached consensus to direct city engineer Sage Kamiya to obtain cost estimates to test the concept of a community garden at the park.
If the committee goes forward and sees success in the small space in the shade of city hall and the Island Library, another community garden may be created on city-owned land abutting Grassy Point Preserve, 3021 Avenue C.
Both locations present challenges and opportunities.
It’s fitting to create the test garden at Veterans Park, as today’s community garden campaigns seem in the spirit of the Victory Gardens planted during World War I and World War II.
With those gardens, communities grew their own produce so other resources could go toward the war effort.
Today’s community gardens serve different purposes but still create resilient communities, encourage healthy ecosystems, celebrate a connection to the cycle of life and, yes, yield good, nutritious food.
When working as a reporter in Milwaukee, I covered environmental efforts and organizations, including the budding Victory Garden Initiative launched in 2009.
VGI operates under the slogan, “This is a grass roots movement. Move grass. Grow food.”
Their campaign has led volunteers to grow community gardens, launch an urban farm, create fruit orchids, train growers, establish nutritional education programs and inspire similar work in other Wisconsin cities and beyond that state’s borders.
The Holmes Beach committee is in the conceptual stage of planning and the first community plots may be butterfly gardens that provide direct sustenance for pollinators rather people.
But I do hope the island community can rally around the old concept of Victory Gardens, as growing food reminds us of the earth, reintegrates us with ecology and guides our culture toward a sustainable, abundant future.
I’ve noticed in the supermarkets the higher prices on produce and also observed a scarcity of some fresh food.
I’ve also heard the old stories islanders providing for themselves — fresh fish and shellfish from the Gulf and bays, fruit and nuts from trees and bushes, vegetables growing in plots on the southeast sides of AMI cottages.
Let’s rally around the cause.