SARASOTA — Founders of the recently launched Limelight Community Garden are sowing the seeds of what they hope will be a large harvest of not only foods and florals, but of education and community resilience as well.
Located in Sarasota’s Limelight district, just north of downtown, the formerly vacant lot is soon to be the home of a one-acre community garden that will provide homegrown vegetables, herbs, and florals. The Limelight Community Garden is the brainchild of Kim Livengood, owner of the Bazaar on Lime and Apricot. Livengood and her mother have owned the Bazaar for three years; she says that vacant lot bothered her since she opened her business.
“I’ve been staring at this lot across the street for years. It became sort of an unofficial dumping spot, and it was such an eyesore,” Livengood said. “My mother and I were tired of looking at it, so we eventually talked to the owner of the property.”
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Livengood ,along with her mother Judy Alexander, convinced the owner to lease the property to them. Livengood’s first thought, she says, was to create a community garden in the space. Since acquiring the property lease in early September, she has enlisted a team to begin working on the project and revitalize a portion of the neighborhood.
For starters, Livengood brought on local compost expert Tracie Troxler. Troxler is the founder of Sunshine Community Compost, a nonprofit that trains schools, farmers, and organizations how to compost and create healthy soil. Troxler is well versed in the science of soil and growing edibles in the region.
The garden is currently in the soil building stage and Troxler is leading the team in one of the most integral parts of the growing process — creating and sustaining healthy soil.
Removal of sand, trash, rock, and other debris was the first step. Now Troxler must decide what materials to use for the ground to create the best foundation for planting.
“There’s a lot of foundation work that needs to be done to make sure that it’s food growing ready, and so that’s where things are at this point,” she said. “All good gardens come from good soil. And a community garden is a great place to educate about the growing system.”
Troxler’s goal of teaching garden patrons how to learn to garden without importing outside resources is just part of vision for the Limelight garden. Livengood hopes to also revitalize and beautify the area and create something good for the community.
Her visit to two other local community gardens, Culver House and Newtown community garden, further inspired her to design a space where Limelight district residents could also build connections and enjoy themselves together. The response to the project, she says, has been overwhelming and inspirational.
“We’ve had students from New College, retirees, neighborhood people, and business owners show up after our first call to action,” Livengood said. “It’s been amazing seeing the passion and commitment to this garden already.”
The garden will enter a design stage in the coming months and Troxler says planting will follow. Until then, the possibilities are endless, she believes.
“My hope is that we can create a place where a bunch of different kinds of education can happen,” Troxler explained. “The opportunity to educate about the entire system, the whole local food, from soil to seed, to plants, to your plates, and back into the soil again. This place will offer full circle education for people that might come into the garden for different reasons.”
So far, plans for raised garden beds with edibles along with space for classes beneath a shady tree at the far end of the lot are slated in the future design.
“I’m excited to make some soil, grow some plants and see what else we can grow in the community,” Troxler said.
Limelight Community Garden is accepting volunteers of all gardening experiences for cleanup, soil maintenance and all other gardening efforts on the third Saturday of each month from 8 a.m. – 11 a.m. The garden is at 821 Apricot Ave. Garden memberships and other offerings are in the works.
For more information on the garden, volunteering or donations visit limelightcommunitygarden.com.
Samantha Gholar Weires covers social justice news for the Herald-Tribune and USA TODAY Network. Connect with her at [email protected] or on Twitter: @samanthagweires