Sharing Trees
by Robin
The Black Seeds Urban Garden in Uptown Memphis and the Frayser Community Urban Garden sit in food deserts where they are committed to improving the availability of fresh foods in their respective neighborhoods. Back in 2023, several Friends in our Meeting met these gardeners during the Experience Memphis Garden Tour that summer. When the Frayser Garden held their Annual Greens Cookoff Fundraiser last fall our meeting made a contribution and Adrian and I attended the event.
In our early discussions with them about their plans and dreams, leaders from both gardens expressed an interest in acquiring pawpaw trees and elderberry bushes. That summer, Adrian, Shahin and I gave each garden a pawpaw tree and several elderberry bushes. Serendipitously, during a site visit to the Cookeville TN meeting last October, Shahin and Adrian received two more pawpaw trees from Friend Annie Black’s Cookeville nursery to bring back to these gardens as a gift.
The fig tree in our side yard was given to us several years ago by Kelly and Joanne. Anticipating last winter’s hard frost, Sandy rooted several cuttings in case it did not survive. These cuttings are now viable trees and House & Grounds has donated one to each garden in honor of two F/friends who passed away in 2023: Denise Cox (who met with clients in our counseling room for several years) and Doris Connor (who grew lush flower gardens for us for the first decade of our tenure at 3387 Walnut Grove).
We hope these tiny trees will grow to be as prolific for these gardens as our own tree has been for us. We have been harvesting and enjoying sweet, ripe figs for many weeks now and our tree was still producing figs late into the summer.