On Saturday May 15, 2021 we broke ground at the latest expansion of the Farm Without Borders along Springwood Avenue in Asbury Park. The vacant lot owned by the City of Asbury Park is to be transformed into a garden. We plan on growing ‘A Lot of Flowers’. With the help of several local volunteers, we picked up the trash, covered the grass with cardboard, and covered that with mulch. This will prevent weeds from growing and help with retaining moisture. Next we’ll add clean topsoil and mix in compost from our community compost site, also located at the Farm Without Borders.
We hired Charles that used to live in the apartment complex right across from the lot. He has a green thumb but never really had the chance to really develop it into something bigger. He was hired as part of the Kula Farm Experience, a job training program that the Farm operates.
Many local residents in the area face barriers for employment. We take away the barriers and help them back into the work force. By acting as a stepping stone, even a short term position can help formerly unemployed people find confidence and maybe a steady job elsewhere.
Many participants describes the program as being therapeutic. I’ve often noticed people walk in kind of down, but they soon get their senses tickled with the nice smells and sounds and start lifting up their head. They really enjoy the serene and safe environment at the Farm.
The job training program has been on hold during the pandemic and lost part of its funding. We could really use some more guys/gals working here, it’s a big job to build the new garden and we would like to see it completed sooner rather than later. The Farm gets its revenue from restaurant sales, but of course that came to a halt last April when the restaurants closed. We survived by opening up to the public. Please take a look at our assortment on our website, we could use some support. What we offer is highly seasonal. The only exception is for the greens that we grow in our hydroponic greenhouse these we grow year round.
The Farm Without Borders originated on a vacant lot owned by Interfaith Neighbors. Over the next years it has been expanded several times onto neighboring lots owned by others. Food grown on the Farm Without Borders is free to pick by anyone in need. Soon we’ll have strawberries, gooseberries, blueberries, tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchinis, melons, spinach, chard, peaches and much more. Few believed that a garden without a fence could work in this area. So far we have had no vandalism or problems of any kind. Our biggest struggle is water, since there is no spigot. However, we have a large 275 gallon reservoir that gets filled up regularly by the Asbury Park Fire Department. It’s super kind of them, without that, plants would dry out during long hot and dry periods.
