Mapping the community garden movement - 1978

 BACG History Post #25

From the Gardens for All headquarters at Shelburne Farms, Tommy Thompson and staff tracked the expanding community garden movement. In an April 9, 1978 news article. Burlington Free Press staff writer Doug Adrianson compared the castle-like setting at the Farm Barn to a James Bond movie.

"In a dusky room on the second floor, a team of people monitor information from around the world, keeping voluminous cross-indexed files and pushing color-coded pins into a wall map to show how operations are going in different sectors," wrote Adrianson.

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Community gardens in the greater Burlington area consolidated in 1978, decreasing to approximately 20 sites, half of which were in Burlington. The 1977 Gallup survey projected that 43% of American households gardened. Lyman Wood of Garden Way Associates estimated that the percentage of gardening households in Chittenden County was closer to 60%.

1978 community gardens in Burlington: 

UVM Admissions site off South Prospect Street
Orchard site off East Avenue
Medical Center site off East Avenue and Colchester Avenue
Catholic Charities site off North Avenue
Winooski Valley Park District site at Ethan Allen Homestead
Baird School land off Pine Street and Home Avenue
Cliffside site at Oakledge Park
Frank Mazur private land at 228 Shelburne Road
Rock Point site
Champlain School site 

Author's note: Doug Adrianson moved on from the Burlington Free Press to write for the Miami Herald and the Los Angeles Times. He played an instrumental role in starting the Edible Communities locavore movement and has served as copy editor for 30 of the Edible Community magazines.