John Klonoski & Sharon Rowen | Norris Lake Community Garden
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From left: Wes Lucas, Sharon Rowen, John Klonoski and Jean Harrison under the pavilion at Norris Lake Community Garden.
John Klonoski & Sharon Rowen
Norris Lake Community Garden
Snellville, Gwinnett County
There are many community gardens across metro Atlanta, but only one that exists on an island! Tucked inside a Gwinnett County neighborhood is Norris Lake Community Garden. In 2018, Elena Klonoski and her father, John Klonoski, set out to transform an island filled with native and invasive plants into a space where neighbors could grow food and connect with nature. “We’re very diverse, economically, socially, ethnically. There’s probably nothing like this garden–now park–that has people conversing, walking dogs, picking fruit, and working together,” said John.
Without vehicle access and only a footbridge to cross, bringing supplies to the island was difficult. In the beginning everything was carried over by hand. Eventually, John had the clever idea to create a pathway by placing gravel under the water, making it stable enough for a vehicle to pass through. Since then, Elena has moved to Boston, but her parents, John and Sharon Rowen, keep the community garden alive with help from other involved community members such as Jean Harrison and Wes Lucas.
Watering their plants turned out to be one of their biggest challenges. “Well it’s not the water itself,” explained Sharon, “because we get the water from the lake, but getting it to where it needs to be was definitely a challenge.” At first they relied on a solar pump, but as the garden grew, the pressure wasn’t strong enough to do the job. With a little creativity and the Garden Forward Grant from Food Well Alliance, they were able to install an electric pump. “With our grant money, we were able to run electricity for the irrigation,” said John. That meant running a line from the street all the way to the island.
Now it’s much easier to water the garden's 26 beds, the in-ground plots for donated produce, and the orchard, which includes pears, pawpaws, pomegranates, figs, apples, and blueberry bushes. The island is full of life in more ways than one. Neighbors walk their dogs, gardeners share what they grow, and kids play on the island’s playground (also transported to the island via John’s underwater road). “Kids come out here and I give them a tomato and they love it,” said Wes.
Now that they’ve got the electric pump, they’re looking to get wifi on the island to automate irrigation when members are away. “Dollar for dollar their donations are in the tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands if you do the true math of what their dollars really did,” said John waving his hand around all that they’ve been able to accomplish thanks to donors.
