A volunteer cares for the chicken coop, which houses four hens who provide eggs for the restaurant. A cat named Jolene resides at the farm and chases away pests .Through my field observations of 26 active sites, I found that community gardens, school gardens, urban farms had many unique and shared qualities. UA sites ranged in size from 0.06 to 8.5 acres, though exact measurements were not available for some sites . Sites that did not report an exact size were estimated to be less than one acre. Except for the two largest UA sites, LBCG and the Growing Experience most UA sites were smaller than two acres. Nearly all sites were secured by a chain-link fence or gate. In this study, the VA Hospital Patient Garden and the Michelle Obama Neighborhood Library Learning Garden were the only UA sites without a gated front entrance. However, the Patient Garden was protected by video surveillance, locked buildings, and fenced areas. Each site had decorations, reflecting the population using the garden . All UA sites offered communal areas for resting, in the form of logs, chairs, or picnic tables and benches. Trees, gazebos, and arbors covered in vine plants provided shade. UA sites typically implemented policies for membership, etiquette, and growing. LBO’s nine community gardens have a $55 minimum membership fee per six-month season, while LBCG’s membership fee is $160 per year. Though LBCG members pay more, they complete less service hours: LBCG requires four hours per year, grow rack compared to at least 20 hours per year for LBO members. Both organizations prevent gardeners from selling produce for profit. Even UA sites without membership fees enforced certain rules. Most UA sites prohibited the use of tobacco, cannabis, alcohol, or other illegal substances.

Ground Education’s gardens have signs with a list of rules for students. At the beginning of each class, Garden Educators ask students to respect others and “celebrate nature” by leaving insects alone and only picking plants with permission. Some UA sites enforced rules for the types of products and plants allowed. LBO and the Peace Garden only allow gardeners to use organic fertilizers and insecticides. To avoid plant diseases that occur in winter, LBCG only allows nightshade family plants from March 1st to November 15th. LBCG also has a common area for herbs, including rosemary and mint, which can quickly spread throughout plots and are difficult to remove. Several UA sites created food donation programs to distribute to community members, local pantries, and organizations. Every week, the LBO Director harvests from Zaferia Junction Community Garden, collects any produce donated by gardeners, washes the produce, then weighs and organizes donation bags. Connecting to my first research question, many UA sites were built by community members to revitalize vacant spaces and increase food access. For example, Santa Fe Community Garden and Farm Lot 59 were established by community members on littered, empty lots. In some cases, UA sites were intended for a specific population, such as the VA Hospital Patient Garden, which primarily serves veterans receiving long-term care at the hospital. Touching on my second research question, communities created UA by drawing on both agricultural knowledge and leadership skills. Typically, UA sites were built and maintained through community volunteers, who constructed raised beds, dug in-ground plots, weeded, and planted crops. UA sites were managed by an organization, city department, or at least one lead person. The partnership between UA leadership and landowners was critical for creating and maintaining sites. Over half of the active community gardens included in this study established a lease agreement with the City of Long Beach. School gardens were built with the permission of LBUSD.

Other sites were built on land owned by individuals or entities such as CVC, VA, and the LA County Housing Authority. The next section on former sites will discuss the significant influence that landowners hold over UA.The table is organized alphabetically, as there was limited information on when each former site was originally founded. Some websites provided outdated information, and many of the phone numbers listed were no longer in service. Gladys Avenue Urban Farm, originally owned by LBO founder Captain Charles Moore, was sold to another private landowner with the condition that the land must be used for UA. The site was rented to Heritage Farm in 2022, described previously in this chapter. Another urban farm, Long Beach Farms, is now a community garden managed by Puente Latino Association. Three Sisters community garden, owned by the City of Long Beach and located at Orizaba Park, was managed by a community group, and is now managed by LBO. In 2015, the landowner of former LBO community garden, Top of the Town, began renting the space to Organic Harvest Gardens. That same year, LBO opened Zaferia Junction Community Garden, which was built on the land of Wild Oats Community Garden. Wild Oats, which was constructed on a former Pacific Electric railroad, was closed due to construction of the Termino Avenue Storm Drain Project, a nearly two-mile long storm drain system designed for flood relief . These formerly closed sites demonstrate how UA can change over time due to changes in ownership and management, as well as public construction projects.As of 2023, most of former UA sites including Fifth Street Garden, Foodscape Garden, Hill and Atlantic Garden, New City Urban Farm, and Wrigley Village Community Garden, are empty lots. Former UA sites were forced to relocate or close due to the city or private owners choosing to not renew the lease. Figure 28 is a collage of Google Map images of the original Fifth St Garden , from 2008 to 2022. According to a blog written by Jon Rosene, the community garden was nearly 8,000 square feet. In 2009, the landowner offered a lease of up to three years for $1 a month . After the lease ended, gardeners built a school garden at Franklin Classical Middle School, which is now managed by Ground Education.Other former UA sites were repurposed for use by the city and other entities.

The Firehouse Community Farm was located at a former fire station, and featured beehives, community gardening classes, and monthly crop swaps. A neighborhood association managed the farm with a right-to-entry permit, but the permit expired in 2019 without the city’s renewal. The space is currently used by District 9 council office . Another city-owned property, the Civic Center Edible Garden, was removed when the previous civic center, city hall, and library were demolished. The buildings were “seismically deficient” according to a 2015 press release from the City of Long Beach. The Spring Street Farm Project, led by the Long Beach Community Action Partnership , planted an orchard, created an aquaponic system, and raised chickens, ducks, and a goose. The organic urban farm was part of the LBCAP Youth Opportunity Center’s Green Jobs program . According to an LBCAP employee, the space was leased from the Salvation Army. The Salvation Army asked LBCAP to relocate due to renovations, but LBCAP was unable to find a new location for its farm. Overall, it appeared that no matter how successful UA sites were, their longevity was determined by landowners, not the community members using the space. Regardless of the UA site’s scale or amenities, they could be demolished due to the construction of a new building or reverted into a vacant lot for sale. As of 2024, four of the nine nonoperational sites identified are still unused. The space that formerly hosted Wrigley Village Community Garden, which was closed in 2016 after a real estate investor sold the property, is covered in litter . Nonoperational sites highlight the precarious nature of UA. Without the support of landowners and policies to protect sites, UA benefits of food access, green space, drying cannabis and neighborhood beautification can be reversed. The next chapter will share insights from UA leaders and provide a deeper analysis of study findings in relation to CCW and SDOH.In the summer of 2023, I had the opportunity to visit Captain Charles Moore Urban Community Garden, which was constructed in April 2023 and officially named on February 18th, 2024. Before the garden received its name, gardeners would call LBO’s ninth garden, “the new garden,” or simply “3121,” from the address, 3121 Long Beach Boulevard. I interviewed a UA leader who rented a plot there, named Nana . Though Nana had just started renting her 10’ x 10’ in-ground plot at the new garden, she had decades of experience, as she had been growing plants since the age of six. With a smile, Nana reminisced how her grandmother “hauled [her family] into the garden.” As the descendant of slaves, her grandmother wanted to “pass along the skills of growing your own food.” Out of 11 grandchildren, Nana is the only one who continues to garden. She estimated that she grows 80% of the food she eats. Growing food was essential for Nana to take control of her own health after being diagnosed with cervical cancer. She used to take 27 different medications per day. At that time, Nana felt that she was “a zombie [who] woke up to sleep.” Growing her own food and medicinal plants empowered Nana to take control of her diet and improve her physical and mental health. She explained that if she has a bad day she goes into the garden. Nana said, “It just brings me so much happiness to grow.” With pride, she described her recent crops: watermelon, winter squash, onions, chives, fava beans, stringless string beans, snow peas, black-eyed peas, moringa, borage, chamomile, and mint. Watermelons were her biggest success.

Nana grew multiple watermelons per year in different varieties, like Klondike , moon and stars watermelon , and a sweet variety from Louisiana. She also loves mint tea because it soothes stomach aches and helps with her liver issues. As Nana showed me around her garden plot, she expressed her joy at seeing new life come from the seeds she planted, “like a mother birthing a child.” Following in her grandmother’s footsteps, Nana hopes to pass down her gardening skills and knowledge to her kids. She said that growing food was her grandmother’s “longevity”: a lasting contribution to her family. Nana’s story demonstrates how UA provides not only a space for growing food, but for community members to enhance their overall health and environment. Through interviews with UA leaders and field observations of gardeners, school garden educators, students, interns, and volunteers, I learned that UA allows people to connect with others, transform their neighborhoods, and share knowledge. Building on the previous chapter, which provided context for the UA sites, Chapter 4 will discuss recurring themes from interviews and field observations. While Chapter 3 provided a broad overview of how community members create, maintain, and engage in UA, this chapter will focus on the specific forms of skills and knowledge fostered by UA, and how UA addresses health. I analyzed transcripts and field notes by using ATLAS.ti to identify phrases and words that were emphasized by participants or related to CCW and SDOH. Following the primary-cycle and secondary-cycle coding procedure described by Tracy , I developed a codebook to organize qualitative findings.UA brought Long Beach community members together through the collective experience of being involved in a garden or farm, often by volunteering and sharing food. One UA leader explained that they were interested in creating “more venues for more classes [and] more activities.” They remarked, “It’s not just about people growing stuffany more. There’s more community involvement or community building.” Another described a “sense of social connectedness” by getting to meet community members at volunteer days. These are examples of social capital, described by Yosso as social networks and community resources. At LBO’s nine gardens and LBCG, gardeners socialized during Saturday “work parties.” Gardeners completed community service by weeding and cleaning common areas, but also mingled with one another, swapped crops, and enjoyed potlucks together. Though LBO only required a minimum of 10 community service hours per six-month season, one person had set a record of 102 hours. Others reached over 90 hours per six-month season. A volunteer had 70 hours completed at the time of writing. He volunteered every week “to beat that 102 record.” In this scenario, community members used social capital to maintain gardens, even if they were not growing food.