Alexandria Community Gardens Cultivate Food, Friendship and Wellness

Alexandria, VA – Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like a community garden!

Whether it is uptown, downtown, or west of Old Town, community gardens offer more than greens of all variety. A community garden is a place where first-time novices, including grade-school students, apprentices, and master gardeners alike meet, learn, de-stress, and marvel at the first leaves as they appear.

Even a half-plot of soil in one of seven community gardens, organized by Alexandria Department of Recreation, Parks and Cultural Activities Community Garden Plots Program, allows residents to sow, plant, and reap—spring, summer, and fall, running March 1 through Nov. 30 each year.

From dill to pole beans to sunflowers, gardeners cultivate to their hearts’ content, choosing seeds or plants and as well as their buckets and tools, fencing, and hoses. The city provides water sources and, where there’s room, containers of composted leaf mulch and wood chips. However, weeds are not negotiable if they grow taller than 12 inches or risk a plot being in violation. Some plots are as groomed as a golf green.

“This is my built-in therapy,” crooned Dee Emory of Del Ray, standing in one of the most productive plots in Chinquapin Organic Community Garden, hers already filled with a lush variety of vegetables and flowers. “My husband holds up a tomato and says ‘You know how much this tomato costs?’” she laughs before pulling out a fresh bunch of radishes from her plot. “But it is my personal therapy and I love it!”

Emory has been gardening in the same plot since the spring of 2022, the year she garnered the “New Gardener of the Year” Award for her garden’s outstanding appearance and productivity. “That year I was obsessed with spending more time here than sitting in front of the computer. I call them my dirt babies,” she added, referring to her many varieties of plants. One of her newer interests is companion gardening that brings combinations together—marigolds and basil, nasturtiums with tomatoes and peppers—to fend off insects and to help each other grow and, possibly, to improve flavors, if research stands.

Every community garden has plots ranging from the highly cultivated and manicured to the full-on naturalist approach. At the Cora Kelly Elementary School locations, students engage in the horticultural experience in the spring and fall when school is in session and the garden is active. During the summer, it survives by Mother Nature herself.

Megan Judt, who was raised in a rural Maryland community, said she is able to carry on a family heritage of organic gardening, growing one’s own food within walking distance of home. For the last four years, Judt has cultivated a plot in the Jones Point Community Garden, just yards from the Potomac River and a handful of blocks to City Hall.

“I call this my Secret Garden,” Judt said with a laugh. “We probably have 80 gardens—it’s bigger than people think because people see about 30 (from the street) but most of the gardens are in the back.” There, under her hand, Judt’s 270-sq.ft. lot yields strawberries, herbs, green and jalapeño peppers, spinach, tomatoes, and sugar pie pumpkins. Judt—who’s the director for advancement for Dunbarton House, a volunteer at the Lee-Fendall House, and chapter regent of the DAR’s John Alexander Chapter—still manages the hours to escape some evenings and weekends to keep her vibrant garden blooming while warding off groundhogs and mosquitos that also flourish there.

“There are some plots that people have had here for decades,” Judt said, noting the elaborate infrastructure of wooden garden boxes nearby. “We’re 50 yards from 495 and the Wilson Bridge, and we’re in the middle of an oasis!”

Alexandria’s Community Gardens Coordinator Katrina Napora helps to support the board of directors at each garden in organizing plot arrangements and sizes at seven locations: Chinquapin Organic Gardens, Holmes Run Community Garden, Dale Street Community Garden, Jones Point Community Garden (on the grounds of the National Park Service and operated separately), GW Community Garden, Cora Kelly Community Garden, and the Alexandria Redevelopment Housing Authority (ARHA) Community Gardens. The ARHA garden is a partnership between ACHIEVE Planning Team and ARHA to build community gardens for residents and develop a gardening and nutrition program for ARHA children and families.

At the city’s largest garden, Chinquapin Organic Community Garden, there are 176 plots including full 15 x 20 ft. plots and half plots (15 x 10 ft.). All garden plots have been rented and there is an active waiting list.

Interested city residents can go to the website to read the Community Garden Plot Regulations regarding garden plot rental before submitting an application. Visit https://www.alexandriava.gov/CommunityGardens to access the information and application. Once all garden plots have been rented, a waiting list forms. It may take more than a year to get a plot, and residents can move gardening locations once a closer plot opens.

Along with high, sturdy fences to keep out wildlife, many gardeners add another secret weapon to their arsenal: coyote pee, the recommended deer repellant. It truly is a community effort in these gardens!