Northside's Urban Gardens

I had the pleasure of spending a few hours in the Green Millennium Children's Garden and the Olde Allegheny Garden in Pittsburgh's Northside this morning. My friend Laura Winter has been tending the children's garden for the last fourteen years. Local kids from the neighborhood as young as 18 months get to come and work in the garden, digging up potatoes and worms, learning about the different varieties of plants and herbs, and even how to compost. There is a great mural for the community to admire, and everyone is welcome to stroll through and take a sniff as it reads on the sign at the Olde Allegheny Garden which is in a lot directly across the street from the children's garden. Plant varieties of all kinds populate the two plots, from edible flowers like nasturtiums and lavender to delicious herbs such as lemon balm and thyme and mint and oregano. The garden also hosts tomatoes and tomatillos, beans, squash, eggplant, sunflowers and a few less common species such as the elephant amaranth so called because it grows to resemble an elephant head and trunk and the Egyptian walking onion, so-called because it grows upward and then bends over to replant itself and then grows upward again and continues to bend and replant itself so it kind of ''walks'' around it's garden patch. There are also benches and rock paths strategically placed for the community to enjoy the garden and all it's wonders without trampling through and wreaking havoc. A giant rain barrel was also delivered today which will help to irrigate the garden for years to come. These two gardens are a perfect example of what can be done on empty lots in urban neighborhoods to not only beautify city blocks, but also get the community involved with positive and healthy opportunities.