Growing Community and Culture
Protecting and Enhancing the Berkeley Street Community Garden
Jeremy Liu
“[I
grow] watercress, green bean, Chinese spinach…pumpkins, really
good tomatoes… more than ten kinds of vegetables.”
“I
really like it [my garden]…for the exercise. I’m old…I’m retired
so I can exercise and move around…this is the best exercise.”
“I
have lived here for sixty years…this IS my home land.”
-- anonymous Asian gardeners at the Berkeley
Street Community Garden
 The
Berkeley Street Community Garden is the most visible and vibrant
ongoing expression of authentic Asian culture anywhere in the City
of Boston. Much more than any “gateway” or restaurant
could be, this garden and the Asian gardeners are a living expression
of an agricultural heritage that originated over 50 centuries ago
in China and continues today here in our city. The Berkeley Street
Community Garden (BSCG) is located in the South End immediately
adjacent to the Castle Square Apartments and located on East Berkeley
Street between Shawmut Avenue and Tremont Street.
ACDC is particularly interested in protecting the Garden
for the elderly Asians who intensively farm many of the garden plots.
For these gardeners, spending time in these garden plots
is a vital element of their emotional and physical well being and
the food they grow contributes to their and their families’ nutritional
security.
The
Asian gardeners create lush and abundant hanging garden with vegetables
growing under, along and over beautiful trellises. The Asian gardeners
are predominantly elder Chinese whose daily lives are sheltered
in a sphere of Cantonese or Toisanese. In the isolating environment of an English-speaking
society and an American culture, the Gardens are profoundly important for the mental and physical health of
these elderly gardeners from the Chinatown community. Their garden plots are a beautiful voice to
communicate with neighbors different from them in so many ways but
in the Gardens so much alike. Just
five years ago, Asian gardeners occupied 80% of the Berkeley Street
Community Garden plots. Today,
only 50% of the plots are used by Asian gardeners.
 Over
the past year, the South End/Lower Roxbury Open Space Land Trust
and the Asian Community Development Corporation (ACDC) have built
a strong collaborative relationship around the need to make landscape
improvements and diversify the leadership at the Garden.
Our collaboration is working actively with the gardeners
directly, the garden leadership team, and the new Friends of the
Berkeley Street Community Garden group. ACDC and the Land Trust are working to improve
this valuable open space and enhance the quality of life for community
residents as they more fully utilize and enjoy the Garden. The Asian community was instrumental in protecting this land originally
and the Asian community must be instrumental in ensuring that it
remains a resource for our community in the future.
The
Berkeley Street Community Garden is a critical element of the overall
health of the neighborhood. Therefore, we urge you to please join
the Friends of the Berkeley Street Community Garden, visit the Garden,
and bring friends and spread the word about the availability of
plots for gardening.
Testimonial from a Berkeley Street Gardener:
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Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming
It's
my honor to have this opportunity to attend tonight's Browne
Fund hearing. As the holiday season approaches, we hear Christmas
bells ringing, bright colorful lights shine with warm wishes.
While we are awaiting for this joyful holiday season to arrive,
let's spread the aesthetic colors of love, beauty, laughter,
and energy onto this gathering.
The
Berkeley Street Community Garden is located in the South End
residential area, situated side by side with the expressway
leading into Boston. This important site is a gateway to Boston.
We all pray for the hope that these little plots of gardens
will flourish, continue to grow healthily and beautifully.
Cherry blossoms will display their beauty in the hazy white
snow; cultivated bamboo will grow splendid in this gardened
piece of land. Birds will sing, and flowers will radiate their
fragrance, the rhythm of nature flows gently in this joyous
Garden.
The
vitality of relaxing and working in the garden brings health
to our mind and body, especially to us, the retired silver-hair-clan.
In this Garden, We socialize, we associate with others in
the morning and before the sun goes down. We make friends,
enjoy each others company and aspire towards a vivacious artistic
life.
On
behalf of the Berkeley Street Community Garden' Gardeners,
I thank you, the community, for you originated the fund raising
event to renovate our garden. We are grateful to an anonymous
person for her kindheartedness, donated $25,000 to the Garden
help to realize the Berkeley Garden renovation project. We
representing the Garden's community are fully cooperative
and supportive to this renovation project. We will be working
hand in hand, irrigating the Garden with wisdom and perspiration,
cultivating a well-planned and new look for the Garden in
the near future. Together, we enrich the Garden with lively
Asian horticulture and cherish the art of living.
Thank
you.
Sincerely
yours,
Tze Ling C. Wang
Gardener
Berkeley Street Community Garden
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