Kispest Community Garden Open House

Here in Kispest among all the twelve-story high-rises, there are few green spaces. One of these spaces, only two blocks from where we live, was a small plot of land that people used as a dog run (or more specifically, bathroom). Everyday we pass this place on our way to work. This past March fences began going up along with a sign announcing that this would be the site of the first Kispest Community Garden, and that there would be a meeting for all those interested in applying for a plot. Each week throughout the spring we would notice new developments. In May we saw many people gathering together to seed and plant, and the area continued to transform until it looked like a real garden with several raised beds.

Later it was fun to see what people were planting and anticipate the growth that the summer would produce. When we returned in August, the garden plots were full of tomatoes, sunflowers, eggplants, corn, melons, onions, beans, and peppers. There was also a beautiful "common plot" of herbs.

September 7 was announced as the day of the "Kispest Community Garden" open house. We didn't want to miss it. We were greeted as we entered and immediately welcomed by those that spoke some English. We had an opportunity to meet some of the gardeners, and hear from the dignitaries that would be speaking; Gajda Peter, the mayor of Kispest and Rostas Gabor, a community garden expert and advocate. According to them, the community garden is the first of its kind in Hungary and a model for future gardens throughout Budapest. We listened to several speeches given in Hungarian of course, but then translated by Szilvia, one of the gardeners whose English was very good. Afterwards we were invited to taste food that had been prepared using the produce from the garden. One gardener, Istvan, took us to his plot and picked a variety of tomatoes for us to take with us. It was so much fun to be included in this community event.

Erin, Paul and Jack listening to an explanation in English from Rosta Gábor of the vision of the community garden that he has for all of Budapest. Szilvia, who translated other speeches, is on the left.

These are typical Hungarian sandwiches made with goose fat or cream cheese, topped with produce from the gardens.