The Garden: A Community Garden Documentary

It’s not often you see entire documentaries surrounding gardening, let alone a movie that covers politics, community gardening, and activism all rolled into one. However, “The Garden,” offers this and according to Grist, it’s a must see, in spite of some issues, and a Grist recommendation is good enough for me. This film was also nominated for an Oscar and has won plenty of other awards.

The Garden is the story of one 15 or so acre community garden plot in L.A. The garden was started in 1992 after the Rodney King riots and was going strong for 12 years. 347 families maintained plots there then one day… The L.A. City Council sold the property for $5 million. Of course the new owner posted an eviction notice but instead of leaving the community garden farmers and families decided to fight back.

Grist notes in their review that the movie lacks “Substance about the value that a garden can bring to a community” and there’s no “information about how the greater community felt about the garden.” Those seem like issues that should have been covered in a film like this, but even with those missing pieces the film still looks great. I’ll be looking into renting it. You can also buy the DVD.

Visit The Garden for more info or watch the preview below.