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Gardening While Black Newsletter - July - September 2024

Let our Ancestors and Mother Nature be your guide

July - September 2024


 

At Gardening While Black, we explore the gardening heritage that began in West Africa and was transported to the Americas and Caribbean in the Middle Passage. Explore a treasure trove of gardening wisdom, historical anecdotes, current news and updates. We hope our content will nourish mind and soul, fostering a deep connection to the land and each other. Gardening While Black provides News and Updates (conferences, festivals, educational and urban farm events); a compendium of Organizations and Resources devoted to this gardening story; an exploration of the roots of our gardening heritage in Sankofa: Go Back and Get It! and, finally, Gardening Chronicles is a reference for gardening plans, resources and a guidebook for plants that connect West Africa and the African Diaspora.

 

Upcoming Events

Woman and girls in a procession line carry gifts on their heads for the Paramount Chief during a Yam Festival in rural Ghana, West Africa.
Woman and girls in a procession line carry gifts on their heads for the Paramount Chief during a Yam Festival in rural Ghana, West Africa.

 

Did you know?

Native women of San Basilio de Palenque with their brightly colored dresses dance in a plaza.
Native women of San Basilio de Palenque with their brightly colored dresses dance in a plaza.

 

 Select African Diaspora Plant Inventory

 

The enslavement of West Africans to provide labor for the economic engine for European nations and the colonization of the Americas and the Caribbean. Africans who landed on these shores adapted their agricultural knowledge to newfound conditions - on large-scale agricultural productions on plantations, on plantation subsistence gardens they created to supplement their own food needs and in villages of freed slaves who fled from their captors and created their own agricultural economies to sustain their maroon communities.

 

We have assembled more than 100 plants from various sources - books, publications, prototype gardens and conferences.  But this is just the beginning.   Our current select African Diaspora plant inventory is North American and Caribbean-centric.  We will add more plants from the current gardening scene in West Africa, the Caribbean and South America.


 

Get In Touch


Whether you're a seasoned gardener, an aspiring green thumb or simply passionate about preserving cultural heritage, Gardening While Black welcomes you to join us on thus journey of discovery, growth and community empowerment. Together, let's sow the seeds of knowledge, nourish our roots and cultivate a future where gardens thrive and cultural heritage flourishes. Let us know if you have any questions or suggestions for improvement.


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