Field of Dreams

A project that could transform a busy West Ashley neighborhood intersection has turned a major corner.
Lowe’s, the national hardware retail giant, announced recently that it was donating $20,000 to help fund the Magnolia-Sycamore Community Vegetable Garden.
Lowe’s donation, party of its Keep America Beautiful Improvement Grant program, represents exactly half of the money budgeted to get the garden center going. The other half will have to come from local donations and sponsors.
Brady Quirk-Garvin, a fund-raiser for the project who lives a stone’s throw from the former site of Albemarle Elementary, said that local efforts have already brought in $5,000. He said that he is optimistic that the remainder will be covered by October, the initial projected start date.
Harry Lesesne, the executive director of the Charleston Parks Conservancy, said his organization and the Mt. Pleasant Land Conservancy may technically own the property, but their intention is to give it back to the people.
Using funds from the county’s half-cent sales tax meant to create “greenbelt” spaces throughout the area, the green consortium purchased the 3.7 acres three years ago.
Once the vegetable garden is up and running, Lesesne said it will then be deeded to the City of Charleston, where he worked for years as Mayor Joseph P. Riley Jr.’s assistant.
Lesesne said that the buildings that comprised the former elementary school, which have seen various rebirths over recent years, is owned by a private citizen who has it up for sale.
Jim Martin, who preceded Lesesne in the same position, stayed on to help run the Parks Conservancy’s various projects. Buoyed by successes at similar community garden projects, Martin, who runs a “boutique farm” on Johns Island, foresees a garden whose impact will stretch past its corner.
Martin said the hope is to have a fully functioning horticultural center on the grounds. But the “build out” on the Magnolia-Sycamore project is pretty ambitious. The initial plan is to erect a series of raised garden plots, around four-dozen, that locals can lease and raise their own crops on the site.
Additionally, more than a dozen larger beds will be set aside on the property for community gardening, where conservancy staff will teach locals how to safely, environmentally soundly, responsibly, and effectively raise vegetables in an urban setting using shared tools, knowledge, and passion.
Whatever is produced on the community beds will be donated on a regular basis to the Lowcountry Foodbank, and the area’s homeless shelter, Crisis Ministries.
In past efforts, like the Elliotborough Garden visible from the Crosstown, the Parks Conservancy have been able to send boxes of food to the needy every three weeks or so. Due the increased size of the West Ashley project, the shipments could be every two weeks, said Martin.
In August, Martin and Lesesne, Conservancy staff, and students at the downtown Clemson Architecture Center will come together to plan a shed for this project. Expected to be led by architect and master woodworker David Pastre, the team will design and build a structure good for storage and potentially for a farmer’s market in the not too distant future.
Quirk-Garvan, who had to give up a large backyard garden when he moved across the street from the Sycamore side of the property, likes most the idea of the garden and the structure being a place where he and his neighbors can come together.
“This may be the ‘nerd’ in me coming out, but I think we as a society spend too much time indoors,” he said, wishing people had more opportunities to get together and get their hands dirty.
Martin said to look for the beds to start to be planted in October, or for those counting down the weeks on their green thumbs, in as short as 60 days.