Alysse says this year’s best record so far is 15 gardens built by one team on Monday morning. “So far on Tuesday when we start we’ll have installed over 207—that’s a little behind, but we’ll catch up. We’re doing over 500 beds and still have to fill most of them with soil. We started with 40 garden beds in one day in 2009 and are now up to 500 in two weeks.” Here are Gretchen and Alysse on either side of the Wisconsin senator and state representative.
“We believe growing our own food will create a more sustainable, community-based, socially just food system than what we’re currently offered.” —Alysse Gear
The Blitz has begun! This week was the start of Victory Garden Initiative’s Great Milwaukee Victory Garden Blitz. The team has planned for months and gathered tons of volunteers to help install 500 garden beds in yards, schools and businesses across the county.
Gretchen Mead started VGI with the mission to bring a sustainable and socially just food system to everyone, through growing food themselves.
People with Panache’s very own Alysse is part of the small staff that makes huge things happen, so I asked her all about it on Monday: day 3 of 15.
Kate: Alysse, this is such a cool event VGI puts on. What’s a day in the Blitz like?
Alysse: Every morning at Milwaukee Habitat for Humanity, a couple staff members and dozens of volunteers gather to install gardens all over the city. We built more than 110 raised beds on our first day this year!
Jazz, our program manager who runs the event, arrives at our hub early to get out shovels and charged-up power tools, take the tarp off our lumber, hook up trucks and trailers, and prep for the day with Jeff, one of our ridiculously hard-working board members—her right hand in this event. Habitat allows us to cut our lumber, store our tools and host everything there. We rent huge pickup trucks to transport volunteers, lumber and soil. They’re the ones that say HEMI on them; I feel very badass driving that. We break up into teams of two to five and travel around Milwaukee building 4’ by 8’ garden beds and then filling them with Purple Cow Organics soil so people can grow their own food. And every morning Gretchen leads a pep rally. We all cheer and it’s really fun.
Kate: Do these people really use their gardens once they’re installed?
“It’s really rewarding seeing people come back with these huge smiles on their faces talking about how they built all the beds,” Alysse says. “Or they’ll compete in their teams against each other. We get such good feedback that we’ve had people drive from more than an hour away to come and be a part of this.”
Alysse: Yes! Last year, a social work student did a survey on the Blitz beds and found some interesting things that backed up what we’re trying to do: Everyone who had a garden installed grew food, but the quantity and variety varied drastically. 80 percent harvested food for at least 3 months. 90 percent shared monthly with family and friends, which exposed fresh food to many people beyond the ones who gardened.
Kate: Can anyone get a garden bed installed through VGI?
Alysse: Yes, and we don’t want your financial situation to be an obstacle so we’ll work with what you can do. At least half are offered at reduced rates to people in need.
Kate: Does VGI partner with other organizations to make all this happen?
Alysse: It’s really nice that we get to partner with other groups, not only to help fund this program but because they’ll help us spread the word. We get grants through other community organizations to help their neighborhoods. We created a partnership with a local hospital that then helps us provide reduced-rate garden beds to people in certain areas. Community partnerships really help make this happen. Saturday, Gretchen and I got to go around delivering soil with a senator and a state representative, and it was really interesting to talk to them about what they do and why they came to the Blitz.
“I think it makes you more open-minded about people who live differently than you do.”
Kate: Why is the Blitz important to VGI?
Alysse: Because it provides an opportunity for a huge amount of our friends, neighbors and members of our community to learn to grow food in a very approachable way. It’s affordable and ready-to-go—we refer to them as “no fail” gardens because the soil is so wonderful, it’s manageable for a city lot and it brings together our community to make it happen, which is extremely important to us. We need hundreds of volunteers to build these gardens.
Milwaukee is small enough that you will definitely run into someone you met at the Blitz! Here, Gretchen and Jazz kick off morning three.
If someone doesn’t have access to fresh food at a grocery store close to where they live, they can have their own little farmers’ market right in their backyard. It’s really neat when you’re doing the Blitz and people are watching you put in the soil or put together the bed—everyone tells you a different reason why they’re excited about it.
I think it makes you more open-minded about people who live differently than you do. They may have different reasons for why they want a bed, but they’re all excited about the same thing: growing food, being outside and creating something together.
Kate: What are some of the things people say?
Alysse: These two guys yesterday were excited because their grocery bill is going to be so much less this summer. Others talk about how they can’t wait to grow their favorite fruit. All one woman talked about was that she couldn’t wait to teach her grandkids how to garden. You meet people from all walks of life, and it’s kind of intimate. You’re in their backyard or front yard, and you’re changing it in a way that is helpful to them. After this year, we will have planted more than 2,000 gardens.
Kate: That’s so many gardens already!! The city must be full of them.
Alysse: You can drive by and see them all over the city. When you see the “This is a grassroots movement. Move grass, Grow food” signs, you know you were part of something big in Milwaukee that helps people, helps our planet and helps each other. And it’s really cool to build these beds and put in the soil; it’s not that hard, but you do these things that can be intimidating… you push these double-wide wheel barrows and power tools you haven’t had much experience with before, and you’re doing it!
The Victory Garden Blitz takes place May 10-24. If you want to volunteer, sign up here!
[Photos by Alysse.]
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