Tabitha Farm Urban Homestead and Community Garden grows community ties

by Zinta Aistars
Published in Southwest Michigan's Second Wave Media
June 27, 2013

TABITHA FARM URBAN HOMESTEAD AND COMMUNITY GARDEN - ERIK HOLLADAY www.erikholladay.com

Urban agriculture is part of a larger, growing movement with the potential to influence the food-related choices of rich and poor across North America. And gardens are being planted in cities across the region. Zinta Aistars has the story on Katie Pearson's work in Kalamazoo.

Turning into Dixie Avenue, a small and sharply sloping street on the south side of Kalamazoo, a farm is the last thing one might expect to find. But there it is, a small yellow sign next to a blue house with a purple door:Tabitha Farm Urban Homestead & Community Garden. 

 

It's a mouthful in more ways than one. Tucked behind that house are nearly two acres of land, curling behind and around two more sloping properties, and up and down those slopes grow vegetables and berries and fruit trees in and around a variety of raised beds and other structures. Katie Pearson, the owner of this property, invites her neighbors--and pretty much anyone who cares to stop by--to go walk the garden, pick the fruits of her labors, pop them in his or her mouth, and taste the sweetness of a community taking root. 

 

"There," Katie Pearson nods to another house down the street, "lives a woman dealing drugs. She's struggling with cancer, so I brought ..."

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