Got Available Ground? Want Free Vegetables?

By RACHEL CROMIDAS for the Chicago News Cooperative
pub. July 16, 2010 in the New York Times

In return for vegetables rather than money, some Kenwood residents are letting their properties be used by community gardeners — many of them strangers — who are strapped for space.

This so-called urban sharecropping has also been growing in popularity in Austin, Tex., and Portland, Ore., thanks to networking Web sites.

Kenwood, known for its arts-and-crafts mansions and President Barack Obama’s house, is considered a natural place for the partnerships because thousands of square feet of lawns dot the blocks between 47th and 50th Streets.

“It’s an unusual relationship,” said Deborah Hammond, a gardener who tends to 300 square feet behind a three-story mansion. “I’m not a service provider, I’m not a friend of the family, but I have a key to the back gate.”

Her use of the land has involved negotiating with the homeowner over who would pay for topsoil (they do), and plants (she does), and what to grow.