There’s a 10-foot-wide stretch of land cutting diagonally through North Side’s Bellevue neighborhood. It rests in the middle of Fauquier Avenue, separating lanes of traffic. Some might call it a median, but here? Residents might call it their front yard.
About 10 years ago, Erin Wright, who owns Little House Green Grocery, planted her first vegetable garden on Fauquier. Over the years, the grassy patch has been home to dinner-plate dahlias and a field of sunflowers. One year she grew so much lettuce she planted a “Pick Me” sign and donated the rest of her bounty to a food pantry. Even the herbs for sale in Little House come from the median, arriving on shelves with the tiniest of carbon footprints.
Further up Fauquier, others have added their spin on urban gardening, stocking the median with herbs and vegetables, towering bushes, and flowers tumbling out of wheelbarrow planters. The annual planting is a community event as neighbors coordinate their plans and chat with passersby while tending to their seedlings.
Throughout the city, neighbors have taken undeveloped patches of land — some in medians and intersections, others in alleyways and city parks — as their own. They’ve turned graffiti-covered concrete into playgrounds and dog runs.
And in the process, they’ve created impromptu community centers.
Feature originally appeared in R-Home magazine.