Leland Street Cooperative Garden
15 Leland Street, Jamaica Plain MA 02130
Two neighbors take a rainy walk through the garden.
What’s new at Leland?
In spring/summer 2022, the Leland Cooperative Garden community completed a years-long project to construct a timber frame shed on-site! You can read the full story, as told by Leland stewards, by clicking here.
About
The Leland Street Cooperative Garden is a community garden in the truest sense of the term. Dedicated to creating a neighborhood gathering place, the garden is free from individually owned plots and fences, locks and keys. Everything in the garden is open for all to use.
The garden offers shade trees and a place to sit, walk, and enjoy. There are monthly steering committee meetings and workdays for those who wish to participate. We have a cutting flower garden, vegetable beds, perennial borders, and, as the centerpiece, a lovely herb garden. We also have honeybees. Composting is done using a three-bin system.
History
By the early 1980’s, an area of 11,445 square feet, comprising three vacant lots, had become a dumping ground, littered with broken glass, garbage, and abandoned cars. Most neighbors avoided walking into or even near The Lots. At that time, some nearby neighbors of The Lots decided to address the problem. They began to organize cleanup days and picnics, and discussed possible uses for the space.
In 1983, Boston Natural Areas Fund purchased the lots, ensuring that they would remain “green and open to the public forever.” In 1989, the garden received a grant of $25,000 from the Grassroots Program of the City of Boston. A local landscape architect was hired to design the garden, with input from neighbors. It was decided to build an open community space rather than individual plots.
Many neighborhood volunteers worked for two years to re-grade, haul in quality soil, and plant herbs, shrubs, and trees. In 1991, The Leland Street Community received the prestigious Community Garden of the Year award from the Massachusetts Horticultural Society.
From 1991 until the present, the garden has been sustained by work days and monthly meetings, bringing joy to neighbors and contributing to our sense of community. Recently, ownership of the land comprising the Leland Street Cooperative Garden has passed from Boston Natural Areas Network (now defunct) to the Trustees of Reservations. Members of the community are exploring exciting ways of responding to this change. A recent name change, from the Leland Street Community Garden to the Leland Street Cooperative Garden, was made for the sake of clarity and to avoid confusion, since, unlike the vast majority of “community gardens,” the Leland Street Community garden does not have any individual plots.
As always, everyone who wants to get involved in the garden and its ongoing process of change, adaptation, and evolution as a resource for the community and a means of creating community is welcome!
For information on events and gatherings or to subscribe to our newsletter, email lelandgardeninfo@gmail.com
As Told By Stewards…
“The Leland Garden is a great place, but gardening just isn’t my thing.”
Reply:
What makes Leland Garden so special is not just the people who sow seeds and pull weeds. Our wonderful garden community also includes:
All those who harvest with gratitude and use herbs, vegetables, and wild plants which grow there.
All those who help nature produce Her miraculous topsoil by contributing to and turning the compost.
All those who watch over and skillfully prune the trees and shrubs.
All those who helped to build a shed in the Garden and those who tend beehives there.
All those who dream dreams in the Garden and those who sit in the Garden to observe and appreciate the plants, insects, birds and mammals that make up the Garden’s living community.
All the folks who bring loving energy to the Garden by gathering there to share friendly fellowship and/or food and/or music and poetry with neighbors.
Yes, the Leland Cooperative Garden is much more than just a few “gardeners.”
*Words by Kathleen Robinson, veteran steward of the Leland Cooperative Garden.
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