Zion steps to plate for garden

To the editor:

Green leaves are popping up in the new community garden at the old Legion Field in southwest Oberlin. Folks are stopping to look at the gardens in boxes that have jump-started the long delayed greening of what has been unused City property for many years.

Some of my neighbors in Southwest Oberlin can recall when this area was still an agricultural area which provided local produce for the town's residents. We have to thank Mount Zion Community Development for literally stepping up to the plate and throwing the first pitch in recycling this abandoned ball park for growing food and sharing our natural resources within our own community. Reclaiming this abandoned ballfield for a productive gardening site will take time and lots of dedicated gardeners to improve growing conditions on the site. How will these boxes make a garden grow?

The gardening project manager built these boxes to bring us to the field so we could breathe in the smell of rich compost donated by local farmers and cultivate donated plants in this field of possibilities. All we lack is a steady supply of water to nurture our plants and feed our community. We wait for the city to provide a water tap into the street supply while we ration the rain water from our 100 gallon storage tank. Meanwhile, more people see us laboring in the field and stop to ask how they can join the gardening program. This garden will grow if promises are kept and all parties work together to build a garden of possibilities. Oberlin will be a better place for it.

Peter Crowley

Oberlin