This morning we visited a few more community gardens in vicinity of I45 and Beltway 8. These are all listed as allotment-style gardens on the Urban Harvest map of affiliated gardens.
The Bronson Street Community Garden is located at St. Stephen Presbyterian Church. It’s a large garden – fenced, but not locked. They have a number of cinder-block raised garden plots, some fruit trees, compost piles, etc. We checked in with the office before entering the garden, but we just asked permission to enter – I didn’t ask for details about how the garden operates (I think the office was officially closed for the holiday).
The South Houston Community Garden is a little pocket garden in South Houston. The whole garden is perhaps 25-ft wide and 125-ft deep tucked in between some mobile homes. The sign above the garden reads: “Jardin para los Abuelos” – Garden for the Grandparents. I really like this little garden. It reminds me not to let the perfect prevent good-enough. I would like to come back and meet some of the grandparents in the spring when the garden is in use again.
Finally we went to a garden labeled “South Belt Mustard Seed Garden” on the Urban Harvest map. We missed the garden at first – it’s overshadowed by the huge Sagemont cross. But the garden is at A Community of the Servant Savior Presbyterian Church. The church burned down back in 2010 (arson) and now they operate out of a single trailer. The garden is a mis-mash of construction materials with the Sagemont mega-church as a backdrop. The garden looked in disrepair aside from being out-of-season, but when your church burns down, I guess the congregation’s energy get put elsewhere. When I first saw the garden, I saw it as a cautionary tale of what happens when you don’t have enough interested volunteers and gardeners. After I read more about the church, its mission and their recent hardship, I see it a little differently.
There should be a coffee-table book about little community gardens. There probably already is.
BAUUC Community Garden 
the mustard seed garden has been replanted and reenergized! COME SEE!!