The abandoned community garden plot

Before we began managing the Community Garden, plots would
routinely be abandoned, like this one from 2008.

This week, after almost twelve years, I came to the belated realization my wife and I are running the gardening equivalent of a pet adoption service.

In March and April, garden plots are
like kittens and puppies: everyone
wants one.

Think about this: at an animal shelter or similar organization, there is a never-ending demand for kittens and puppies.  Why? Because, with a newly-weaned domesticated animal, all things are possible.  You will instantly bond with an adorable creature than will reward you with unstinting love and affection.

What’s wrong with an older animal? Sure, they’re still attractive, but you know from experience there are going to be vet bills, litter tracks in the laundry room, chewed shoes, and inexplicable sullen moods. Adult pets are a hard sell.

Above: a June 2021 flyover of the Medfield Community Garden

Click to start the video and be sure to click for a full-screen view.

Now, think about this: Every February and March, we announce the availability of our town’s 80 community garden plots. Returning gardeners and would-be newbies beat a path to our door to sign up. They uniformly have vision of lush, verdant plots overrun with pestilence-free zucchini, tomatoes, beans, and herbs. Humans, it seems, have a love affair with the gardens they have not yet planted.

Even in May and June, if a gardener finds his or her plans have changed, filling the space is as simple as putting out an announcement to existing plot-holders that an additional space is available. We choose a replacement by lottery from as many as a dozen applicants.

But, what about July?  That is another story.

At the beginning of this week, I received this email from a third-year gardener: Hi Neal, Our plot is all cleared out and available for someone else as we don’t need it anymore.

No explanation. Not even a ‘sorry to leave you in the lurch’ post script.  Just a 600-square-foot space with weeds. The fence had been taken down and the vegetables removed.

I had told the gardener the plot was getting
weedy; the gardener disagreed

There is no value in getting angry in such circumstances. It is possible some tragedy befell the departing gardener’s family (though leaving up the fence for the balance of the season would have been a nice gesture). I would feel awful sending out a blistering reply to the issuer of that email, only to learn of a death or life-threatening disease casting a pall over the family. On the other hand, it is also possible the gardener was offered a house on the Cape for the month of August, or just got tired of waiting for the rain to stop.

No matter the reason, we were left with the equivalent of a middle-aged dog or cat. The question on the table was, how do we make this animal adoptable?

The key problem is called ‘growing season days remaining’. The community garden nominally closes down October 31 but, by then, we’ve had a couple of hard frosts. The first frost can come in mid-September by which time we’re down to 12 hours of daylight (versus 16 right now). In short, the remaining growing season is 60-65 days.

Not to mention you can’t buy (short of emptying your IRA) fencing or stakes in July. Or plants. Or any seed package you’d be proud to plant. We didn’t have just a middle-aged dog on our hands: we had one with arthritis, worms, and a heart murmur.

The garden has been weeded, 
and has a fresh fence

So, what did I do? The only thing I could do. I headed straight to the garden. I dug a new trench for a fence. Betty weeded prodigiously. I raided the community garden’s shed (where gardeners can over-winter their supplies) for a gate and enough stakes and fencing to make the garden usable. I will send apology letters to those whose ‘reserve’ materials I purloined, with a promise to put the materials back where I found them.

Today, the fence went up. Tomorrow morning, there will be a gate and a fresh wood-chipped path around the garden border. Work investment? Between the two of us, about twelve hours of very hard and sweaty labor.

Then, I will start the process of giving it away.  Not all of it to one person: no one is willing to make that investment in energy.  Instead, it will be offered in pieces: a place for a 6’x10’ square of corn.  A mound for pumpkins. A sheltered fence line for lettuce or beets.  A good community garden manager keeps a mental inventory of plot holders who have sighed and said, “If I only had a little more sunlight…” or “I would love to grow tomatillos but they take so much space…”

Pumpkins are one option

By the end of the week, the garden will be filled.

A fair question to ask is why I didn’t see it coming. I sort of did. I regularly walk the paths of the garden’s acre-plus and look in on each of the 80 plots. I check for a lot of things but, mostly, I check for effort.  I am the Garden Ogre, but I try to be a patient ogre. We’re all volunteers here. I nudge, I cajole, I offer encouragement. I don’t want to throw people out of the garden; I want them to abide by the garden’s guidelines, enjoy themselves, and come back next year.

Most of my Ogre-grams are fairly gentle.
This one was intended to get immediate
action. Instead, I got an 'out of office' reply.

A few weeks ago, following one of my walks, I sent the gardener a note and a photo of a weedy area of the plot. Usually, my ‘Ogre-grams’ draw a response along the lines of ‘I’ll take care of it this week.’  The one to this gardener earned me the reply, “I disagree about the weeds. Other gardens look worse.” 

No, they didn’t, but I had put the gardener on notice. Two weeks later, part of the garden was covered with cardboard, but the uncovered area was just as weedy. Another photo and missive went out; this one saying the weeds needed to be taken care of immediately. I received an ‘out of office’ reply with a return date a week off.

Upon the gardener’s return, the weeds were noticeably reduced. But so, too, were the plantings: all that remained were some tomatoes and beans. That should have been the ‘tell’. Four days later came the ‘we don’t need it anymore’ note.