Urban gardens crop up in Youngstown

By Kevin Crater

The NewsOutlet

Some city residents are hungry to learn about gardening — not necessarily for the food but for the cash.

What’s known as “urban gardening” today has roots that trace back to the “victory gardens” during World Wars I and II.

These inner-city garden projects are making a comeback as one way to get fresh food into urban areas.

The Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corp. has 21/2 acres on the South Side that is the site of an incubator urban farm. As part of this project, 22 market gardeners work the site to create businesses.

“Urban farming is much like rural farming. We have this urban farm site that the market gardeners will use to establish their own business,” said Liberty E. Merrill, program coordinator for the YNDC.

She is in charge of the market gardener training program for the YNDC. Recently, she and about 30 other people from Youngstown attended the Northeast Ohio Small Farm Conference and Trade Show, sponsored by The Ohio State University in Massillon.

“We’re looking at different aspects of small farming,” said Merrill. “I’m also learning and hopefully I can get more knowledge to help them in the future.”

Hattie Wilkins, an urban gardener in Youngstown who attended the conference, said she wanted to learn about marketing.

“We’re taking vacant lands in Youngstown and turning them into community gardens so that we could feed our communities. It would make our community a lot healthier because we’re going to have quality foods.”

There are four community gardens in Youngstown, with a fifth about to be established. The new urban farm is different.

“Urban gardening is essentially for-profit,” said Merrill. “The typical model for community gardening is to grow produce for family use.”

The new endeavor does face some competition. There are a few other urban gardens in Youngstown, including Early Road Garden, Jubilee Gardens and Fairgreen Neighborhood Garden.

The 33 people who graduated last spring from the market gardening program will be in charge of the new farm.

They plan to sell some produce to a local community supported agriculture program as well as at the two farmers markets in Youngstown. On-site sales are something else they are considering.