Photo by Abigail Reimold

Leaving behind a gravelly patch of land on the corner of 11th and Berks Streets right off of Temple University’s Campus, the main location of the  Temple Community Garden will be transposed to a bigger, better spot on the corner of Broad and Norris Streets.

Temple Community Gardens was a project created by Dan Feeser, a Temple University student, in August of 2009. According to the project’s current president, Yuan Huang, a 20-year old Temple University student and winner of the 2011 Newman Civic Fellow Award, Feeser created the organization out of the realization that there wasn’t an efficient place to acquire fresh food on campus. From this realization, TCG was formed with the original intent to be a food production site that also begat a usable green space on campus. Since then, the mission of the garden expanded to a more humanitarian goal: to connect Temple students with the community surrounding the area and thus empowering students and the community through the ability to grow and use their own food.

Yuan Huang shows of the Main Campus Garden on 11th and Berks to a visitor. Photo by Abigail Reimold

After consulting the Temple Facilities Department, Feeser and his new organization acquire a lot behind Temple University’s Anderson and Gladfelter Halls on 11th and Berks Streets. The lot, though a generous donation in an area very accessible to Temple students, was not the ideal site for the garden. Aside from being an older, smaller space, the closest water source to the garden was more than 200 feet away. Huang remembers the grueling water-retrieving process in detail and how the gardeners had to carry a hose across the street and up the steps of Anderson Hall. “It was the most tiring experience of my life,” sighs Huang. “People would run over our hose with their cars.”

No such hose woes will have to take place, however, at the new TCG lot. The lot at 11th and Berks has been chosen to be built into a parking garage and Temple Facilities have given Temple Community Gardens a lot at Broad and Norris, a space that excites the gardeners with its many new possibilities. The site is much roomier than the old one, making it possible for TCG to play around with ideas such as making the side of the townhouse on the south side of the garden a theater or an area in which to project movies, according to Huang. The gardeners also have ideas of planting pole beans or cucumbers and other plants that trellis over the red fence on the side of the lot to beautify the area. A roomier garden could also open the garden to the possibility of it being a community-gathering spot where members of the community as well as students can rent spaces to garden. Beautification and education through food and gardening is an important concept to TCG, and their new garden space will help them meet this goal.

Photo by Abigail Reimold

Groundbreaking of the new TCG took place on Sunday, May 1, at the new lot. Temple students, children from Penrose Recreation Center and tenants of North Broad Street’s Kairos House will be working together to create the new garden by moving equipment, putting together beds, building a compost bin, and, ultimately, planting vegetables.

Photo by Abigail Reimold

Photo by Abigail Reimold