Spontaneous plans yield community garden

Not knowing the impact his Pisgah View Community Peace Garden would have on the Asheville youth community, Bob White planted a few seeds two years ago, purchased with the $2 he had in his pocket. 

"I was in my house listening to music, and a little voice came into my head that said, 'Start a community garden,'" White said with a serious look in his eyes. "I had no earthly idea about gardening, but I knew something needed to happen to make this a better place." 

Two weeks later he said he debated with the voice in his head until he asked the manager of Pisgah View apartment complex, one of Asheville's public housing projects, if he could use a 10-by-30 foot piece of land near the outskirts of the property. 

"It was like a movie. The manager looked at the supervisor and then looked at me and said, 'OK,'" he said, laughing. "They said I could take the ball field." 

White, a carpenter by trade, had no source of income at the time and started his garden by planting a package of seeds he purchased with the only money he had. 

"I felt lost when I first got out there," he said. "I had no tools, no money and nobody to help me. I just went home. But that voice kept coming back in my head and, about two weeks later, this woman came by and said she could help and connected me with some people." 

A student from Warren Wilson College encouraged White to ask for donations and took him out to the college, where he borrowed a tiller and other equipment. 

"That's when it got magic, when that lady came to help me," he said. 

A nursery in Swannanoa donated a thousand different types of tomato plants, more than 400 pepper plants, herbs like basil and parsley and a variety of flowers to the up-and-coming organic garden. 

A church donated a chicken coop, situated in the greenhouse made of plastic, where White plans on selling eggs and, eventually, the chickens. Community members donated their time and spare tools to White's project. 

"When I started to get to work tilling the field, a bunch of kids were standing by the fence and were asking to help," he said. "I said 'Yeah, it's your garden.'" They started breaking up the soil and the rows were all zigzagged, but everything grew. Broccoli, cabbages, everybody was trippin'. No pattern, everything was just random." 

The children of the Pisgah View complex ran out onto the field and started digging away, White recalls. The complex, one of Asheville's most dangerous public housing projects, threatened the younger community members' safety, White said. 

"A lot of the media came over here to film the dead body laying in the street or somebody with their hands behind their back in handcuffs. But here is this garden in the middle of this horrible place where gunfights are breaking out all of the time and people are selling dope everywhere, but here is this garden that is flourishing." 

Now, the garden has all the ingredients for a salad: arugula, romaine lettuce, cucumbers, beets, tomatoes, Chinese cabbage and, in the summertime, watermelon. 

"Last summer, my watermelons were bangin'," White said. "One dude came down and wanted to trade crack for those watermelons." 

AmeriCorps' Project March dedicates their mission to aiding children of the community housing projects of Asheville. A homework club meets every afternoon from 3 until 5 p.m. with a snack, homework help and an activity. Anna-Marie Smith, activity specialist for Project March says the Pisgah View Community Peace Garden encourages children to eat healthier. 

"They are very curious about what is new to them," Smith said. "It is so important for them to know how to eat healthy. It is another resource we can give to them which will spring into eating right at home." 

White recently received a $3,500 grant for a youth summer gardening camp. He also provides healthy eating demonstrations for after school programs like Project March. 

"When the tomato plants were just starting to flower, there were a bunch of kids standing around the raised bed. A little boy asked me, 'What's that?' I said, 'That's a tomato plant.' His response was 'I thought tomatoes grew in cans,'" he said. "Everybody I tell that story to laughed about it, and so did I, but then it hit me how pitiful it was that a child didn't know that things don't grow in cans." 

Terri Zimmerman March, Health Promotion Program and Healthy Buncombe program coordinator at the Buncombe County Health Center acknowledges that many Americans are overweight and practice unhealthy lifestyles. But, she said, with the growth of local farms and gardens like the Pisgah View Community Peace Garden, more positive outcomes will arise. 

Community members receive boxes of fresh produce along with quick and easy recipes, March said. 

"It's a great way for families to teach each other about different types of fruits and vegetables," she said.

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