She’s Bringing Agriculture to Apartment Living – Charlotte Magazine

Charee Alexander is ready to plant. She’s wanted to be a gardener for years, but it was tough to learn a new hobby while parenting and working. Now that her kids are grown and she’s downsized her home, she’s found her chance. The place that’s giving Alexander the opportunity to get in touch with her inner gardener is an unexpected one, however: her new apartment complex. 

“I want to be able to go out and pluck a tomato or a cucumber or a jalapeño pepper,” she says. “I’m looking forward to being out in the garden and getting my hands dirty. That’s God right there, in nature, in the soil. I’m a nature girl.”

Apartment living may seem incongruous with gardening and nature, but Mariah Henry proves they’re a natural fit. The Stead, an apartment complex in northeast Charlotte, found Henry through an Artist Building Community program and tasked her with implementing a community garden for its residents. She’s brought a wealth of agriculture and food expertise to the job: She’s a Johnson & Wales University graduate and a trained chef, she’s studied food systems and sustainability, and she’s the director of Urban Agriculture for Carolina Farm Trust. At The Stead, Henry designed and installed a community garden and helps residents like Alexander advance from gardening-curious to gardening pros. She lives at The Stead, too. Henry didn’t just come to build the garden and leave; she’s staying to help it thrive.

Henry’s mission at The Stead is bigger than a garden, though. She wants to show how much a small plot of land can do for the physical and social health of a community. With just eight raised beds and two vertical planters, Henry demonstrates that agriculture belongs to everyone, wherever they are—even in an urban apartment complex just 15 minutes from Concord Mills Mall. 

“The community wants this. The residents want this,” Henry says. “And the garden isn’t just something pretty to look at, but they want to utilize it as part of their everyday lifestyle.”

In a city where new apartment complexes woo prospective renters with high-end features—from dog parks to rooftop pools to coworking spaces—could a community garden become the next hot amenity?

Turning Brown Thumbs Green

Alexander isn’t the only garden newbie at The Stead. With one exception, Henry says that the people who come out to the garden are new to growing.

“Oh, I hear a lot of people calling themselves brown thumbs, who tell me, ‘You give me a plant, and I’ll kill it,’” Henry says. “But I’ve gotten people to start mini gardens on their patios. I’m working to extend the reach beyond the garden. I tell them: You can do this right where you’re at, right outside your door.”

Henry hosts food and agricultural events that teach residents how to grow seeds, how to transplant, and how to choose soil. She enjoys watching hesitance bloom into confidence. Alexander is a perfect example: After attending Henry’s container-gardening classes, she’s preparing to grow herbs in pots on her windowsill—“It’s the beginning of my own little farm,” she says—so she can clip fresh parsley, mint, and basil while she’s cooking.

The classes foster more than growing skills; they forge friendships. Alexander has only been in Charlotte for a year, and now that her children are grown, she’s shifting the focus to herself: developing hobbies, finding friends. In this garden, she does both.

“I’m all about doing things together,” she says. “Everything that Mariah does here is a chance to form a connection outside of your normal circle. We’ve got to get outside of our normal circles, we’ve got to open up. You might meet a new best friend at one of these events. That won’t happen if everyone’s staying in their apartment.”

This, of course, is part of what Henry is up to. She knows that creating a communal space will bring people together, that gardening offers a well-evidenced boost in mental health and confidence. A lot can come from a group of people sharing a purpose and learning a new skill in a mood-boosting environment.

Mariah Henry in the gardens at the Stead at Farmington apartments.

“This is the first time I’ve been in an apartment complex where we’re hanging out in the spaces together, we know each other by name. We support each other,” Henry says. “We’re really building community here, and to see it manifested has been beyond what I could imagine.”

Not Just a Garden. A Food System.

When Henry hears people say that there isn’t enough land to feed everyone who needs food, she believes that the problem isn’t space—the problem is the system. With a little knowledge, creativity, and encouragement, people can grow quite a lot in the spaces they have. Between the community garden and residents’ own gardens, The Stead is creating its own food system, Henry says. A grocery store is just half a mile down the road, but she hopes that residents will go to the garden or to the pots on their own patios before they head to the store. 

Henry offers on-site culinary programming to teach residents how to grow flowers, herbs, and vegetables.

Imagine what could happen if each community—of apartments, townhouses, or single-family homes—reserved a small area to grow food together. Imagine what could happen if the value of land was determined by what could grow there and not just what could be sold there. The seeds of that idea are what Henry has planted in this garden. 

“My big vision is this: I would love to see a change in how we’re developing spaces and land,” she says. “I would really like to affect change on a larger level, where one day, developers are saying, ‘This has to be a part of our communities.’”