A Walk in the Garden

Today I toured the only community garden in El Paso: the Weldon Yerby Senior Garden in northeast El Paso. Not only is it El Paso's only community garden, it may be the best kept secret in the world. Google Weldon Yerby Senior Garden. Go to the El Paso City Government site or the Parks and Recreation site and search for it. You won't find it.

Yet there is space there for 100 garden plots that can be "farmed" by anyone 55 or over in the County of El Paso. It provides recreation for seniors and plenty of groceries for them, their families and their friends. In fact, the Senior Garden is so successful that there is a lot of food wasted - food that could go to soup kitchens or sold at a farmers market. The current Coordinator, Joyce Ealey, tells me that her freezer is full of frozen vegetables and that is just from last season.

The garden (and gardeners) operate year round. The cool season vegetables are now growing: carrots, garlic, beets, celery, cabbage, kale, Swiss chard, lettuces and onions. One avid gardener has already started tomatoes. (He gave me a hand full of Marigold seeds since he told me that marigolds drive aphids away and I told him the little buggers were bothering one of my tall junipers.)

The Weldon Yerby Senior Garden has been in operation since 1979 - the same time that the Wellington Chew Senior Center started operation just a few blocks away. Mayor John Cook has always been a supporter of the garden. According to former Coordinator Jim Moore, Cook tried to convince City reps to begin community gardens in each of their districts.

Recreation Coordinator Keith Hall is very enthusiastic about the program at the garden. He attributes its success and sustainability to two factors: the dedication of those who work the garden and the fact that the program is self-directed. It is under the City's Parks and Recreation Department but it is also self-governing. (Might be something to learn here for all of our other neighborhood parks.)

Keith is also excited about all of the new, progressive programs starting in El Paso: providing more hiking trails and doing more environmental education especially with young people. He speaks excitedly about our mountains, our bosques, our would-be gardens that are now nothing more than vacant lots. Like so many of us, he wants to see more community gardens and more use of the food to feed many more mouths.

It's too bad that the Weldon Yerby Senior Garden is one of the best kept secrets. It connects people with the earth. It provides wholesome food - not the ubiquitous corn products (high fructose corn syrup products) that is behind so much of El Paso's obesity, diabetes, heart disease and cancer. Recreation, exercise, connection with the earth - all are ingredients for health. Now imagine the health of the City that has neighborhoods and communities working together on farms. It brings back connection, fellowship and community - the kind of context where would-be taggers would not even imagine tagging and drug dealers would find no takers.

The Weldon Yerby Senior Garden shouldn't be a secret. What happened to Mayor Cook's proposal to have such gardens in every district of the City? What can be done going forward?