The growing season is well underway at Eugene’s organic public gardens as the hot summer weather cajoles plants of all species to grow. These small farms have proved themselves to be a win-win opportunity for community members, and the vibrant, patterned landscapes of such sprawling patches of green are only outdone by the colorful characters who show up to till them.
GrassRoots Garden
Tucked behind St. Thomas Episcopal Church at 1465 Coburg Road, GrassRoots Garden is turning out vegetables at full capacity.
GrassRoots began in 1991 when the church donated 2.5 acres of vacant adjacent land for the creation of a community garden, for which the church continues to pay for all water and electricity expenses. The next year, FOOD for Lane County got involved and hired a coordinator to run the garden and help spur its productivity. Now, GrassRoots donates all produce to FFLC.
Merry Bradley, a certified Master Gardener and GrassRoots’ coordinator, describes the garden’s inception as a “tri-agency affiliation.”
“(The) church donated the use of the land, OSU Lane County Master Gardeners started the garden, and Food for Lane County helped with the majority share of the operational costs,” Bradley said.
Throughout its almost 20 years of operation, the garden has seen a more prolific harvest each year as the hard, clay-ridden ground slowly gives way to the black, puffy, aromatic soil long-time gardeners sweat and bleed for. GrassRoots’ most recent output record was set in 2009 when 2,400 different volunteers logged more than 24,000 hours to grow nearly 65,000 pounds of produce.
Master Gardeners of the soon-to-be-defunct OSU Extension Service in Lane County toil side-by-side with landscape architecture students from the University and Lane Community College, while contingents of local high schoolers earn their required volunteer hours beside ex-convict serving out the remainder of their parole and probation sentences.
“We are primarily volunteer-based; schools and corporate groups and youth groups and church groups and court-ordered folks and special needs folks and everybody in between, all at once, and nobody really knows who’s who but me,” Bradley said. “And everybody gets to be the same.”
The garden depends entirely upon the generosity and astuteness of its regular volunteers to perform a long list of necessary chores. A vegetable-heavy lunch is served every day using ingredients grown on-site, offering an incentive for volunteers, as well as an educational opportunity, which, as the garden’s staff puts it, is just as important as the methods of tillage.
“We make lunch every day because … if we teach people how to grow healthy, nutritious produce but they don’t know how to cook, eat and appreciate it, then what’s the point?” Bradley said.
On a particularly productive day, it is not uncommon for more than 100 pounds of cauliflower, lettuce, cabbage, carrots, tomatoes and other earthly treats to be harvested from the garden’s 40 to 50 different plant varieties and then washed, weighed and boxed-up for transportation to FFLC’s processing warehouse. There, some ingredients are made into soups and casseroles and flash frozen into individual portions, while another share is prepared into fresh meals to be served at The Dining Room, FFLC’s free kitchen and restaurant.
Courthouse Garden

The Courthouse Garden Project looks now like how GrassRoots must have looked 19 years ago. Its soil lacks the rich, exuberant texture of gently-cared-for land, and the unwieldy yellowish-gray terrain is punctuated by towering piles of broken concrete shards the size of dinner tables.
But it’s a start.
The garden’s land is owned by the city, was leased to the University for three years, and approved as a temporary gardening space. Construction of the 2.5 acre garden began on February 12, when several diverse groups of community members orchestrated a massive landscaping operation involving the donation of a ton of leaves and chicken manure, a backhoe, fruit trees, drip irrigation systems, 300 cubic yards of processed loam, 200 yards of finished compost and thousands of vegetable seeds.
This first baby step was made possible by students and faculty of the University, members of Eugene’s business community, local justice system officials, the City of Eugene, Lane County, EWEB, state politicians, community volunteers and local non-profit organizations.
Whether through donated materials or volunteered time, these entities helped make the vision of U.S. District Court Judge Ann Aiken a reality, and laid the foundation for an ongoing opportunity for compassionate community members from all walks of life help others.
Aiken used to sit in her office in the courthouse, looking upon the plot that at the time resembled a landfill, and wondered if there was some way to utilize the space for the good of the community and to serve as a resource for the criminal justice system. Now the garden offers individuals “in transition” within the court system an opportunity to gain valuable skills and develop their work ethics as part of Aiken’s “re-entry program.” All produce is donated to FFLC and the Eugene Mission.
Tracy Gann, a former inmate whom Aiken calls “The Guardian of the Garden,” coordinates volunteers’ activities, grateful that he has been given the opportunity to become a force for good.
“The stuff I do here is way better than the stuff I used to do out there,” Gann said.
Another of the garden’s original purposes was to give University landscape architecture students a template on which to practice their urban gardening and design skills.
Lorri Nelson, the adjunct instructor for Advanced Plants (LA 410/510), emphasizes a hands-on approach to urban gardening where, in addition to site design and event planning, students get to construct beds, compost, plant starts and work wheelbarrows all outside of the classroom.
Environmental studies major Tyler Pell is taking the summer class and is as enthusiastic about the notion of “learning by doing” as he is about one of the class’s major perks: filling a burlap sack full of fresh produce at the end of every work session.
“Lorri is a great instructor, (and) this kind of understanding is something I want to learn,” Pell said. “Also, I like the free food.”
The garden sits atop the site of an old Agripac cannery, the only memory of which is the boarded-up, dilapidated office building in the corner of the lot.
This tinge of green in an otherwise cement-grey landscape offers a comforting juxtaposition. Aiken feels this stark change in the landscape will instill some hope in the community and act as a testament to underserved Lane County residents that they will be cared for.
“We are going to feed a lot of people,” Aiken says.
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