HOUSTON, TX—Six new raised garden beds were constructed over the February 15 and 16 weekend by All African People’s Development and Empowerment Project (AAPDEP) members and supporters here in Houston, Texas.
This year marks the fifth consecutive year that AAPDEP has successfully planted the community garden which is increasingly becoming an institution in traditionally African working class Fifth Ward. The first planting was in April 2010.
The six new raised beds are all four feet wide and eight feet long. They are 10 inches high. All are bottom lined with professional weed barrier material and two by four stakes in all four corners for support. Four yards of fresh organic planting soil was divided into the six beds.
About half of our building materials and dirt was donated by local hardware stores and dirt yards that do business in our community. AAPDEP members and supporters contributed the rest.
The hard farming work was complimented by a fresh fish fry, using fish AAPDEP members had gone down to the gulf and caught earlier.
Our work here in Houston is guided by and is united with the African People’s Socialist Party and All African People’s Development and Emp o w e rment Project’s trajectory of self-reliance and economic development. Our goal here in Houston is to make the 5th Ward Community Garden a jump-off point for the One Africa, One Nation Marketplace, a vision of the Party.
This would be a marketplace where African vendors from throughout the city and surrounding areas would come to the garden venue to market/sell their goods if they are compatible with a healthy lifestyle and African economic development.
The garden has in the past served as a venue for two such marketplaces—a Halloween Block Party and Music Festival and a Juneteenth Freedom Festival. Both were successful events, and we will keep our eyes on the prize— self sufficiency and economic development.
Meanwhile, back to the farm. In addition to the raised beds, the vast majority of the garden land base, which has already been tilled once this season, will be rowed up for planting. We will bring in at least eight more yards of fresh planting soil to give the old soil some nutrition, and till it in with the old.
Our greatest obstacles remain finding irrigation techniques (in case of a drought) and marketing the harvest. We are learning to do both of these things better as we go forward.
Thus far, the vegetables and fruit we are committed to plant are okra, squash, zucchini, cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, turnip greens, collard greens, mustard greens, kale, watermelon, purple hull peas, sugar cane and much more.
To keep up with the development of this year’s crop, track us through The Burning Spear newspaper and UhuruNews.com. And you can always visit the garden at 3707 Brill Street, Houston, Texas 77026. Donations are also needed.
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