Diggin' In

Nashville’s Largest Housing Project Turns Urban Jungle to Urban Garden

In Tennessee’s sweltering summer heat, the refugee women who tend the Sylvan Street Garden plots are covered from head to toe in bright, vibrant fabrics. Some have infants cradled to their hips with lengths of the same colorful material.

But these gardens aren’t in the state’s rural regions, or even in the suburbs. Instead, they’re in Nashville, smack in the middle of the James A. Casey homes – the city’s largest public housing project. Nashville’s newest community garden is a project conceived of and brought to fruition by Holly Jennings and Katie Studley.

“It’s pretty dire over here,” says Jennings. “There’s high crime, and there’s really not a lot of change of scenery.”

Jennings’ and Studley’s idea was to re-green a heavily-asphalted area of the city and create an aesthetically pleasing gathering place while giving families renewed control over the food they eat. The land was donated by the city’s Metro Parks department.

All twelve of the families currently involved are from Somalia, and all of them had been involved in farming or growing their own food in their home country.

Here, the fare is a mix of Somalian favorites—like okra, peas and beans—and others that were less familiar to their growers, like different greens, radishes and lettuce.

“It’s really getting back in touch with the earth, which they’re not able to do in their apartments,” says Jennings.

In the coming months, Jennings hopes to grow the number of plots so that more families can participate, a move that would increase the amount going to the Martha O’Bryan Center Food Bank, which feeds 15,000 families.

“A lot of the American families that have lived here for many years have never had the chance to do any gardening because of the urban setting that they’re in,” says Jennings. “We want this to be a good opportunity for them to learn something new.”

Related Links:

1) http://sylvanstreetgarden.org/

Photo Caption: Residents of Nashville's James A. Casey housing project tend their vegetable garden plots, part of the Sylvan Street Garden Project begun in 2008. (Photo Courtesy of Scott Sinontachhi)