This month, for the ninth year in a row, I will go into a
cave and come out wearing my Garden Ogre suit.
For the next seven months, I will prowl the Medfield Community Garden
with one task: to tell 75 gardeners to weed their plots, tighten their fences,
and be nice to one another. I know with
complete certainty that, by the end of October, half a dozen gardeners will
hate me. The rest will find me merely
annoying.
Nine-and-a-half years ago, Betty and I cornered one of our
town’s selectmen and complained that our town’s small Community Garden was a
wreck. Plots grew up in weeds and no one
cared. Two families took a quarter of
the garden for themselves. Water spigots
leaked or didn’t work. We demanded
action.
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| Abandoned garden plots used to grow up in weeds, like 'Mom's Garden' |
What we got was a call from the Town Clerk, telling us we
were to be sworn in as members of the Garden Committee. After we took our oath, we asked who were the
other members. The answer was: “Just you;
everyone else resigned.”
 |
| We generate publicity seeking new gardeners |
Betty and I took our newfound responsibility seriously. A four-page list of Draconian ‘Rules’ became
a single page of ‘guidelines’. Articles
appeared in the local papers seeking gardeners and new recruits showed up in
droves. Six thousand square feet of
gardens were added, and then another 3,000 square feet, bringing the garden to
a full acre in size. New gardeners were
encouraged to start with a 300-square-foot ‘half-plot’ space, and an
early-Spring class on vegetable gardening became a staple at the town library.
It all sounds idyllic, except even ‘guidelines’ need to
be enforced. The secret to having 75
people gardening together is to ensure that everyone plays nice. That’s where the Ogre comes in.
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| Weeds along the fence |
My number one responsibility is to ensure everyone keeps the
paths around their garden weed-free.
It’s a simple request: every week, spend five minutes pulling any grass
or weeds that are in the three-foot-wide aisles and, especially, along your
fence line. If you have a front-row
garden, there are fifteen gardeners behind you who depend on being able to walk
by your plot unmolested.
Yet, every year, gardeners decide it’s not their job. It begins with weeds growing in their fence
and, left unchecked, escalates until there’s a carpet of crabgrass that will
spew billions of seeds into every plot.
I start with kind notes: “Hey, the next time you’re at the garden, could
you take a few minutes and weed the aisles?”
Some people comply, others don’t.
The next note is just a little testy: “Hey, I’m getting complaints about
the weeds in your aisles. Please take
care of them.” This send-and-ignore pas-de-deux continues until I send out
one that says, “Weed your fence line and aisles or else I’ll do it. And if I do it, you lose your garden.” That’s the note the recipient posts to social
media to show how a simple, friendly community endeavor has devolved into a
dystopian nightmare.
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| Common sense says not to shade your neighbors |
As the season progresses, the problems escalate to include ten-foot-high
sunflowers and eight-foot-high stalks of corn.
With just three feet between gardens, common sense says not to grow
stuff that casts a shadow over your neighbors’ plot. Yet, some gardeners insist it their
Flora-the-Goddess-of-Gardening-given-right to not only grow this stuff at the
back of their plot (where it shades the front of the adjacent garden), but to
use it as a border around their
garden, thereby shading everyone in sight.
Out go the memos, with predictable results.
 |
| I take photos of rogue squash vines |
Come August, two things happen. First, everyone goes away for two weeks. And, second, everyone’s squash vines run
amok. The vines push out fences, turning
three-foot passageways into Amazonian-caliber jungle pathways where machetes
are required for navigation. I plead via
email for cooperation and receive replies from Patagonia where, I’m informed,
the skiing is wonderful but they’ll take care of the vines just as soon as
their holiday is over and they’ve ‘decompressed’. Some express amazement that ‘Madison’, who
had faithfully pledged to tend their garden in their absence, hasn’t stopped by.
Then comes the end of the season. Most gardeners clear their plots during
September, even though they have until the end of October. The days are shorter and few things are
ripening. A few gardeners, though, just
stop gardening; leaving everything in place with predictable results. Three gardeners did this in the autumn of
2017. Oh, they finally took down their
fence and cleared the plot, but not before the weeds were two feet high. They were livid when I told them their plots
were being given away.
Now, it’s March, and the process has started all over
again. Between people ‘aging out’ and
moving away, I have nine plots to fill with up to 18 gardeners. The newspaper articles began appearing last
week and the response has been enthusiastic.
Everyone who inquires gets a copy of those Gardening Guidelines with a
plea to read them before they send a check.
Everyone says they have so. In
theory, this year should be one of bonhomie and bountiful harvests of
well-contained squash.
But I’m not counting on it.
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