What's Better? An Empty Lot or an Urban Garden? You Know the Answer!

Urban farms and community gardens are growing all over our country, offering residents an opportunity to grow nutritious food during the summer months.  

The movement has become so strong that there is now a Web site dedicated entirely to urban farms.  The site offers blogs, videos and all sorts of tips to enhance the urban farming experience.

What about Albuquerque? In our fair city, we have some great community gardens, including Rio Grande Community Farm, Los Poblanos Organics and Dragon Farm at South Valley Academy.  These are all located along the most fertile section of our city, the North and South Valleys. But now there is a new site about to be developed in downtown Albuquerque.  This one, a true urban enterprise, will be called the Alvarado Urban Farm.

The Daily Lobo, the student newspaper at the University of New Mexico, published a great article about this new venture.

Here's an excerpt:

When Rick Rennie and Chris Goblet saw the dirt lot that sits west of the downtown Albuquerque Rail Runner Station, they said they cringed to think it would stay barren and undeveloped. 

So they decided to do something about it: That lot will become the Alvarado Urban Farm, which will feature 40 raised plant beds, a market and foreign sports courts.

Rennie, the Historic Downtown Improvement Committee (HDIC) asset manager, and Goblet, the deputy director for the Downtown Action Team (DAT), teamed up to improve downtown Albuquerque and promote culture and commerce.

“We didn’t want that space to remain a dirt lot until the economy got better, so we pulled together a bunch of people we know and made a proposal to the city,” he said.

Read full article, entitled If you build it they will eat it