Troy Gardens: A Farm in the City

By Stephanie Resnik

The Madison area has many community-supported agriculture farms, but Troy Gardens is among the more unusual ones. Not only is it an urban farm, located within the Madison city limits, it also has a range of aspects that reaches far beyond the traditional activities of a farm.

During my first semester of college at UW-Madison, I remember going to see the Rocky Horror Picture Show at the old Majestic Theater.

Some friends from my dorm kept describing the area around the capitol as “downtown.” As someone from Minneapolis—an actual city—this was hard to swallow. In my 18-year-old narrow-mindedness, I saw none of the raw material I felt was necessary to constitute an official “downtown”: tall buildings, trash, and places you weren’t supposed to wander alone. Instead, Madison’s downtown was like a city playing dress-up. Someone had sprinkled urban fairy dust here and there, just for kicks.

I’ve matured some since then. One of the things I try to remember to appreciate about Madison is its proximity to rural areas—for example, how you can bike five miles out of Fitchburg and be surrounded by rolling hills, cornfields, and other signs of country life. Paoli, only 20 miles away, really seems like its own town, rather than the outer-ring strip-malled suburb it would become if it were outside the Twin Cities.

This hodge-podge of urban and rural also seems to contribute to the city’s strong fervor for local food, land stewardship, and sustainable agriculture. The potency of these beliefs have been encouraged and nurtured by businesses such as L’Etoile, the farmers’ markets, and Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). Troy Gardens, then, on Madison’s north side, seems to epitomize our city’s ability to develop the urban while respecting the rural. Both, after all, are necessary for modern life.

In 1995, the future plot of Troy Gardens was filled with garden plots, dog-walkers, and bird-watchers, until the State of Wisconsin decided to put the area on the “surplus land” list and sell it to private developers. A coalition of non-profits was formed to try and save the land from development. With help from the city of Madison, by 2001 the Coalition had raised enough money to purchase the 31-acres from the State of Wisconsin and protect the area from development.

Troy has been in bloom ever since and now includes a 5-acre organic Community Supported Agriculture farm, 30 units of mixed-income housing, community gardens, 3.5 acres of native prairie, and a kids’ garden. The non-profit Friends of Troy Gardens was formed in 2001 and has been instrumental in carving out a space for land stewardship and preservation, education, and sustainability inside Madison. The organization now has 6 employees, a 12-member Board of Directors, and dozens of seasonal volunteers and interns. Here are just some of the programs that the Friends of Troy Gardens offers:

Troy Community Farm
Claire Strader was hired in 2001 to start and manage the half-acre Troy Community Farm. Today, the farm has grown to 5 acres and has 115 CSA members; the farm considers education to be a central part of its mission. The farm also grows and sells sprouts, such as legume mixes, mung beans, alfalfa, and clover, at the Williamson Street Co-op (1221 Williamson Street). Troy Community Farm offers a popular internship program that teachers the ins and outs of organic farming, everything from seeding to weeding to selling at the market. Strater and the rest of the organization hope that Troy Community Farm’s emphasis on education will continue to encourage people along the career path of small-scale sustainable farming, or at least to grow food in their own yard. Because of its small size, as well as a steady stream of interns and volunteers, the farm can rely largely on hand labor rather than tractors and other machinery, and is able to consciously move away from dependence on fossil fuels for farming the land.

Kids’ Garden
Troy’s K-8 Kids’ Gardening Program engages Madison’s north side youth in land stewardship, nutritional education, and creative gardening. Kids plant and maintain their own gardens, eat their veggies right off the vine, and sometimes take the food home to their families. By stimulating an interest in nutritious food and gardening, the program builds skills the kids can carry through life.

Community Gardens
Each spring, North Side community members sign up for garden plots and share in the responsibility of garden maintenance and management. Garden plots help assure a healthy source of food for these families, and due to Troy’s location the gardens attract a diverse array of cultures, ages, and incomes. Raised beds are also offered for those who have difficulty gardening on the ground. Troy also provides low-cost educational workshops on organic gardening, pest control, seed saving, fall planting, and other topics throughout the growing season.

Mendota Apple Orchard
In an effort to increase the food security of the community, the Mendota Mental Health Institute allows Troy Community Gardens to maintain its 29-tree antique apple orchard. Gardeners use sustainable, chemical-free methods and gain skills in orchard care. Apples are harvested and sold at the Troy Community Farm stand, with the money raised reinvested in the orchard project.

Farm and Field Youth Training Program
The Farm and Field Youth Training Program in Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Areas Restoration teaches teenagers about ecological and agricultural sustainability—hands on. In the process, these 14- to 17-year-olds gain a variety of job skills, an educational fellowship award, and learn the skills to be self-sufficient. The teenagers help harvest and sell the produce on Troy Community Farm, help restore and maintain Troy’s natural areas, and also serve as mentors in the kids’ garden.

Natural Areas Program
Since its inception, Friends of Troy Gardens has been restoring and maintaining a 3.5 acre native prairie in an attempt to recreate an original habitat. Volunteers, staff, and community members have cleared the area of invasive species and planted native trees, shrubs, and wildflowers, bringing the area back to life after years of neglect. There are also several educational demonstration gardens and ornamental plantings, including an edible herb garden where visitors can graze and a Hmong traditional medicine and herb garden. The natural areas program also coordinates a volunteer stewards program with monthly volunteer opportunities, typically a one-hour workshop led by an expert (on invasive species, for example) followed by a 2-hour activity directly related to that morning’s lessons (such as removing garlic mustard).

Troy Gardens Cohousing
Yes, people actually get to live at Troy Gardens, and wake up every morning to a neat grid of garden plots in their front yards and an organic farm just around the corner. Thanks to the Madison Area Community Land Trust, 20 of the 30 units were sold to low-income families. The Troy Gardens Cohousing provides a diverse community with the advantage of city life and the comforts of food security and ecological sustainability.

Troy Gardens seems to be a symbol of all that is possible in communities that are fortunate enough to encourage and balance urban vitality and agricultural health. For me, Troy Gardens is a sign that Madison is surely doing something right. So go visit! Take your dog, pick up a trail guide, and wander.

For more information on Troy Gardens and how you can get involved, visit
www.troygardens.org
or call (608) 240-0409.