About Alice's Garden, a community on Milwaukee's north side

Tomatoes are just one of the many vegetables you’ll find planted at Alice’s Garden, one of the city’s best-known community gardens, on the city’s north side at North 21st Street and West Garfield Avenue.

Born out of an abandoned highway project, the 2-acre garden is located along a larger, 3-mile corridor where entire blocks of houses were torn down in the 1960s to make way for the Park West Freeway. The project cut through the city’s west and north sides, displacing several thousand residents and disrupting the community’s economy. Ultimately, the highway was never built, largely because of sustained neighborhood opposition. In its wake, large swaths of empty land were left.

Out of that empty land sprang Alice’s Garden, now a thriving community garden and gathering place. The garden is there to reconnect city residents to the land and to oft-lost traditions of growing fresh, healthy food.

Gardeners come from all ethnicities and cultures, and their plots often speak to their heritage. In a Native American’s garden might be corn, beans and squash, known as “the three sisters” for how they are planted close together, for mutual benefit. A Black gardener might grow black-eyed peas, collard greens and okra in homage to past ancestors.

Not only is the garden a place to cultivate food, but also relationships. Walking paths lined with herbs invite visitors for a stroll. Kids race across the grass or sit on picnic blankets for monthly storytimes. The pavilion shelters people sharing fellowship and a meal.

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: About Alice's Garden, a community on Milwaukee's north side