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Sep 06

Annual Harvest Tour to Celebrate Tacoma’s Community Gardens

Posted on September 6, 2018 at 9:00 AM by Allan Warren

Cover Option cAttendees of the 2017 Harvest Tour visit TCC Community Garden established in 1965 and is now stewarded predominantly by Russian, Ukrainian and Moldovan gardeners. This year’s tour will give folks the chance to visit six different gardens.

This September 15th the Annual Harvest Tour is back! This tour allows attendees to visit and explore some of Pierce County’s own community gardens, learn more about what’s growing and what’s happening in the urban agriculture community. Tourists get a chance to meet with local gardeners, get their hands dirty, and potentially adopt a plot of their own! Lunch will be also be included with the tour.

Through recreation and exercise, access to fresh vegetables, increased gardening knowledge and civic engagement, community gardening touches people’s lives in a number of ways. Gardens have proven to improve neighborhood safety and well-being, increase social capital through new friendships, and increase life span Harvest_tour_TCC_2017 by improving quality of life. Harvest Pierce County (HPC) looks forward to celebrating these unique spaces that bring neighbors and the greater community together at our Annual Harvest Tour.

Harvest Pierce County’s Russian, Ukrainian,and Moldovan cultural ambassador, Svetlana, translates for attendees of the 2017 Harvest Tour at the TCC Community Garden.

Our primary stop this year will be at the 40th Street Community Garden which first budded in 2012 and was a thriving space for gardeners and neighbors of the South Tacoma community. In recent years, the garden has struggled with declining membership and vandalism. In collaboration with the gardeners, HPC has increased membership and support for the garden and has been working on making improvements to the space itself. Through camaraderie and commitment, the garden is growing and blossoming more every day.

In low-income neighborhoods such as 40th
 Street, it’s not uncommon to see such
 pressures affecting the utilization of these spaces. Of all the community gardens in Pierce
Harvest_tour_viethuong_2017
 County there are a handful of gardens that HPC is working to revitalize and strengthen. Harvest Pierce County works alongside the community and with local partners and would like to invite you to be a part as well.

This year’s tour will include the following gardens: 
  • 40th Street Community Garden 
  • Hosmer Community Garden 
  • Blueberry Park and (brand new) Community Garden 
  • Vietnamese Buddhist Temple Garden 
  • Viet Huong Community Garden 
  • McCarver Community Garden

Attendees of the 2017 Harvest Tour share stories at the Viet Huong
Community Garden, a garden stewarded predominantly by elderly
Vietnamese. In addition to touring the gardens, attendees also get
to learn about culturally significant fruits and veggies and
take home ideas for their own gardens.


Contact
:
The tour costs $10 per person and proceeds will go towards supporting low-income neighborhood gardens. To sign up for the Community Garden Harvest Tour, visit our website! Tickets go fast, so reserve your spot today: https://squareup.com/store/piercecd/item/garden-tour
 

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