Taking a Look at the Lederer Youth Garden

The Lederer Youth Garden, adjacent to Marvin Gaye Park in northeast Washington, D.C., is operated by the DC Department of Parks and Recreation. The department's web page describes the garden as "an environmental resource for area youth groups, day care centers, home school students, and classroom groups...equipped with a computer lab, weather station, classroom, garden, and animals". The plot of land is large, and features an impressive greenhouse.

Last spring, the Mayor came here for a promotional event in which he was joined by the makers of Miracle-Gro to dedicate the garden. Everyone posed for a photo.

Unfortunately, since then the garden has been largely neglected. The classroom building sits unused and most of the garden is overgrown with weeds. Hundreds of bags of donated Miracle Gro now sit stacked on the side of the garden, still unopened. On the sunny October day I visited Lederer Youth Garden, the one full-time parks employee on duty sat inside playing video games.

Lederer is proof that growing a community garden takes, well, community involvement. In too many cases, that involvement seems to be missing. In the northwest quadrant of the city, the waiting list for a community garden plot is often 3 years. But in the eastern wards, there are no waiting lists. Lederer Youth Garden and others like it sit idle.

Why is that? Carl Rollins has some ideas. I talked to Carl at the garden, where, as a volunteer, he has started to clean out the weeds and plant fall crops.



Carl is a master gardener and co-president of the DC Environmental Education Consortium. He's also Farm Coordinator at Common Good City Farm.

(Posted on DCFOODFORALL )