Growing Community with Edible Container Gardens in Lloyd
We’re excited to share the success of our new project providing edible container gardens to our neighbors in the Lloyd!
This initiative focused on delivering balcony garden supplies and hands-on gardening instruction to low-income community members, particularly those living in multi-family apartment complexes.
A Fresh Start for Container Gardening
At Lloyd EcoDistrict, one of our main goals is to create more community garden spaces in the neighborhood, and this project marks the start of that effort. While a dedicated community garden is still in the works, we’re thrilled to have brought small, portable container gardens to our neighbors this year. Our aim is to make urban gardening accessible to everyone, no matter their space or experience.
As part of our Greening Lloyd initiative, we’re promoting urban gardens that provide fresh, local produce—nothing is more local than your balcony! These gardens also help build stronger community bonds, boost urban biodiversity with pollinator sites, and combat the urban heat island effect, all contributing to a greener and more sustainable Lloyd.
Cultivating Connection
This summer, we launched our pilot container gardening workshop at Central City Concern’s Miracles Central Apartments. Partnering with an expert from Growing Gardens, residents planted their own balcony container gardens filled with tomatoes, lettuces, chards, and more. We were also pleased to distribute additional garden supplies to Right 2 Dream Too, BIPOC Village, and community members across the EcoDistrict. In total, we shared 70 container gardens with Lloyd community members this summer! You can read more about how this project started here.
We then offered free edible container gardens to the broader Lloyd community and invite them into the Lloyd EcoDistrict office for a gardening experience where about 25 Lloyd neighbors walked away with their very own container garden!
It was wonderful to see so many residents get their hands dirty planting produce at our office in the Lloyd Center. We followed up with those gardeners and here’s what some of them had to say about their growing experiences along with a few photos from the day of planting:
“I’ve already harvested a meal’s worth of the kale and chard and enjoyed the arugula in a salad. Thank you, EcoDistrict!”
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“It’s fun to watch the growth every day… Some of the tomatoes will be ready to harvest in a couple of weeks.”
We’re thrilled to see Lloyd becoming a little greener! Building on this year’s success, we’re excited to continue the momentum of Greening Lloyd and grow our community garden efforts!
A special thank you to the East Multnomah Soil and Water Conservation District (EMSWCD) for helping to financially support this pilot program.