Ludlow: Will the Community Garden Be Revitalized This Spring?

Just a few years back a grant provided the opportunity for one of Ludlow’s numerous vacant lots to be transformed into a garden. However the project along Master Street appears to have since failed. As Maria Velasquez walks past the space with her daughter Angela and their two dogs, she can’t help but scrunch her face in disgust.

“They really need to do something with this,” she says.

Overturned picnic tables and scattered gardening tools are reminiscent of a site once well utilized, now abandoned and overgrown. What stands out most strikingly is the handful of human-sized, mannequin-scarecrows dressed in bizarre costumes placed throughout the lot.

It was once used by senior citizens who shared a common interest in gardening. But according to Velasquez, homeless people in the neighborhood often took up residence in the garden at night, destroying the crops and leaving behind piles of trash. The upkeep eventually became too much of a hassle and the garden’s gates have since been closed with padlocks.

Velasquez wants the space cleaned up. She lives in an apartment complex around the corner and passes “the ugly thing” on a daily basis. She’d love to see the garden revitalized to its former state and perhaps even the addition of a farmer’s market come to the neighborhood. “Then the whole community could benefit from it,” Velasquez says.

She feels as though a new garden would be a nice place for families to spend time together and even where children could learn firsthand about agriculture and sustainability. It seems possible that a rejuvenated, secure garden could provide a useful and productive gathering place for the community.



Megan Linkfield and Sandra Rollins, group 40, Ludlow