Cheap Food in the City? Grow Your Own

June 4, 2008 — -- When Janell Fairman and her husband moved to Boston's Jamaica Plain neighborhood, they didn't have a backyard. So, Fairman secured a small plot of land in their local community garden and began growing cherry tomatoes, eggplants and more.

Gardening, Fairman said, has been a beloved hobby for years. And the 68-year-old retired archivist recognizes that growing her own produce could have economic benefits, too.

"I think we eat better for the amount of money that we spend," she said.

As food prices continue to rise, many urbanites are beginning to share Fairman's reasoning. From Boston to Seattle, municipal officials and community organizers are finding an increased demand for plots in community gardens as more residents look to grow their own food.

For city dwellers who don't own outdoor space, community garden plots -- which are typically owned by cities or nonprofit organizations -- are their answer to suburban backyard gardens.

"You get these things, such as increasing food prices and the high cost of gas, and it really bites into a family's budget," said Rachel Surls, the county director for University of California Cooperative Extension, in Los Angeles County. Community gardens, she said, "are an easy way to respond to that."

Under a common type of community garden model, users pay an annual fee for the privilege of growing plants on a plot of land within a larger garden. In Portland, Ore., the fee for a 400-square-foot plot of land is $50. But the value of food grown on that land, according to Leslie Pohl-Kosbau, the director of the Portland Parks and Recreation community gardens program, can be many times greater.

"A person, if they're a really good gardener, can raise $500 to $1,000 worth of food on a 20-by-20-foot plot, depending on their skills and by the way they garden," she said.

Pohl-Kosbau said that, generally, it's the desire for fresh, higher quality produce that largely drives Portland's community gardeners. But the recent increase in demand for plots in the city, she said, is at least partly due to rising food prices.