By DOUG GRAVES
Ohio Correspondent

CINCINNATI, Ohio — Many lawns on Enright Avenue in Cincinnati never see a lawn mower. Instead, front and back yards of many houses in this Price Hill neighborhood, located a few miles west of downtown Cincinnati, receive attention from a rake, hoe or perhaps a plow.

Enright Avenue looks more like a vegetable lover’s paradise than simply a street dotted with small lawns. The community is located just a short drive from downtown Cincinnati, and this is not an ordinary CSA (Community Supported Agriculture).

Members of the Enright Ridge Urban Eco-Village include volunteers who have turned their yards into a community garden. Inspired by the acquisition of a rundown greenhouse last winter, the farm project members organized their own CSA.

“We’re in our first year as a CSA and we have six gardens involved on Enright Avenue,” said member Josh Miller. “We want not only to expand in the neighborhood, but we want the movement to expand. It’s all about the training of urban farmers.

“With crops you purchase you don’t always know where the vegetables are coming from, and most of the time you’re exploiting a lot of people. On a small scale like this it’s a lot more viable and sustainable.”

Spearheading this effort is Charles Griffin, a California native who brings experience of growing vegetables in the Mediterranean climate of central California. He also farmed many years for the Sisters of St. Francis near Batesville, Ind., and he helped establish a CSA near Oldenberg.

Griffin now resides on Enright Avenue. Other CSA members gave him the confidence to offer his energy and experience for their project.

Facing Griffin and the Enright Eco-Village members was the task of developing productive gardens in uncertain spaces, with unknowns such as soil fertility or type, and a proliferation of weeds.
Also of concern was the amount of sun that would reach the beds in the summer months; the trees in this old community are abundant and tall. Another problem in this densely urban environment was the habits of such vegetable-loving animals as deer, ground hogs and rabbits.

“(Our) effort has been wildly successful,” Griffin said. “We’ve been blessed with great gardening weather and very few of the perennial garden problems. CSA members have been very enthusiastic and patient and with the glitches that happen in any startup.”

So excited that the group has its own newsletter, Urban Dirt.
“One of the exciting facts and compelling values of our eco-village is that it responds to two of the major crises we are experiencing in our culture: the economic crisis and the ecological crisis,” Griffin said. “In our eco-village we can have more comfortable and safe lives while helping to conserve Earth resources. This is beneficial for residents, the community and the Earth.”

Most CSA projects involve a single farmer who donates the land. Members pay an upfront price for the startup and share in the labor and the harvest. The Enright Ridge Urban Eco-Village is only different in that the land cultivated is in members’ yards. Their only common space is one-third of an acre and an old greenhouse that was once home to a flower shop.

“This urban CSA is different from existing CSA programs, in that our croplands consist of neighbors’ previously sod-covered back and front yards,” said member Heather Sayre, a certified permaculture designer. “The conversion of unused lawn space is important to raising awareness of food origins, the benefits of eating fresh foods and the aesthetic beauty of edible landscape.”
For more information about this CSA, contact Griffin at 513-244-6824.