Chimborazo Playground Community Garden came to fruition thanks to the efforts of Lisa Taranto, the founder of Tricycle Gardens, and several other neighbors, who developed a once underutilized half-acre on the fringes of Chimborazo Playground at 29th Street and Grace Street in Church Hill – adjacent to sprawling Chimborazo Park – into a popular community garden, with now over 20 plots sustained by local gardeners.
Financed by a generous grant, Friends of Chimborazo Playground Park, at that time headed by neighbors Bridgette Huff and Shawn Norian, began work on a new playground in 2009, hauling away the decrepit equipment and applying a thick layer of mulch before installing new slides and jungle gyms for neighborhood children. The successful redevelopment of the playground provided an ancillary benefit to the community garden, and in August, as volunteers continued construction of the playground, excess material was transported to the community garden, with volunteers creating the initial 18 raised beds with fresh soil and old railroad ties. The iconic green shed situated in the back corner of the park was constructed, a gift from local resident Dave Cooley, who donated the materials and labor to build it.
Since 2009, there has been a succession of stewards and countless additional work days, with support coming from corporations like UPS, Home Depot, and Altria, as well as myriad volunteers. Thanks to their efforts, as it currently exists, Chimborazo Playground Community Garden has 33 raised beds available for nearby families to raise food and flowers for their households; surplus produce is donated to local organizations to help feed other families throughout the city. Additionally, the nonprofit Blue Sky recently began a program that brings children and young adults who don’t otherwise have access to arable green space to the garden to tend a collective plot.
Visitors to the garden, with its abundance of vegetables and flowers, enjoy wandering through the maze of plots, and the park is often the temporary home to all manner of insects, reptiles, and small mammals. A pollinator garden and native bee box at the front of the park help sustain local populations of beneficial insects, and several fruit trees, gifts from Courtney Mailley, the founder of Blue Bee Cider, round out the plantings. The garden is also now a drop-off site for the City of Richmond’s new community composting program, where residents can compost perishable household refuse.
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