Once each year, generally in December, Betty and I are asked
to provide a report to our town’s Conservation Commission on the state of our town’s
Community Garden. It is usually a fairly placid affair, documenting how many
gardeners had plots, how much the garden took in, and how much it spent. Not
exactly a snoozefest, but neither is it a page turner.
The report for 2021 will be an exception.
We started the year with a major public works project, or at
least major by community garden standards. We’ve been at 55 plots for the past
seven years (65 when you include gardens subdivided into half plots), all
snugly conformed into an acre-sized space. There is talk of creating a second
community garden on the grounds of the old state hospital on the north side of
town, but that is at least five years in the future.
 |
| In 2020, we squeezed in 70 gardeners |
Last year, Covid turned the United States into a country of
gardeners; everyone wanted to be outside, but in a safe space, and what could
be safer than a secluded community garden? The number of applications for
gardens spiked, but we also had a like number of RSVPed regrets from long-time
gardeners: a number of plot-holders elected to ride out the long quarantine in
summer homes elsewhere. Cape Cod’s gain was also our salvation. By limiting all
new applicants to 300-square-foot spaces, we squeezed in 70 gardeners, 20 of
them new.
 |
With the garden extension
we had a record 80 plots
and 86 families |
It was clear, though, we had a one-time solution. At the end
of the 2020 season, almost everyone wanted to come back, and most of the
refugees who moved temporarily to Dennis and Falmouth let us know they would be
returning home for the summer gardening season. We asked the town to allow us
to add 3000 square feet of gardens – ten new plots if all were half-gardens.
And, it isn’t that we couldn’t afford it. There is actually a line item in the
town budget for the Community Garden Revolving Fund. All excess revenues over
expenses go into the fund and, at the start of 2021, the account held sufficient funds to pay for the work. The Conservation Commission approved the expansion and, in April, we
added the new spaces. It was excellent timing because we had 18 new applicants
for gardens. We opened the season with a record 80 plots and 86 gardening
families.
Had that been the end of the story, we would have filed our
report in early November, taken our bows, and accepted the accolades of a
grateful gardening nation.
 |
Betty's talk was canceled
two years in a row |
There were, unfortunately, a few hiccups along the way.
The first one can be blamed on Covid and human nature. Each
March since 2009, Betty has given a talk at the town library on how to design
and plant a vegetable garden. Attendance is required of new gardeners, but
there is always a standing-room crowd from returning gardeners picking up
pointers and 20 or more home gardeners that want to hear from an expert.
Her 2020 talk was cancelled on the Wednesday before her
Saturday morning lecture as the world closed down. The poster for her talk was
still the dominant feature of the library bulletin board almost a year later
when the library opened on a limited basis. The 2021 edition was also a
non-starter because of social
 |
Our handy 'how to' guides
were unread, and 'old hands'
didn't want to move to plots
that received morning shade |
distancing requirements. Instead, we emailed a
dozen wonderful documents showing why and how to bury fences, use sturdy corner
posts, and all the other things that turn novice gardeners into experts. Apparently,
they weren’t read.
And, because
returning gardeners were happy with their existing plots, no one was willing to
move into the new section of plots or the front row of gardens that, because of
trees along the road, get less sun. The folkways and mores that are passed down
to new gardeners missed a generation. As a result, much mis-information was
passed among the new gardeners. I will leave it at that.
 |
New gardeners can borrow
'Ogre fencing' rather than
spending $50 or more |
The second problem was one of our own making. Our town is
perceived by the outside world as fairly well-to-do. There are Patriots
first-round draft picks standing in line at the local Starbucks, for Pete’s
sake. The average sale price of a home in town is nearing the million-dollar
mark. Not everyone in town owns a Tesla Model S, though. We also have modest
homes and apartments, and gardening is not a cheap undertaking. We may charge
just $18 for a half plot, but thrown in a $20 start-up fee, $50 for steel posts
and fencing, and $20-30 for seeds and starter sets, and you are quickly well
north of a hundred dollars.
 |
For the first time ever, four
gardeners walked away from
their plots mid-season |
To that end, we offer first-year gardeners the loan of ‘ogre
fencing’ – 50 feet of fencing, stakes, and tomato cages left behind by
long-departed tenants. We will also quietly waive the start-up fee. While it
levels the playing field for everyone, it also decreases what can best be
called ‘skin in the game’. Something that has never occurred before happened in
2021: four gardeners abandoned plots in mid-season. Those plots were cleaned at
the end of October by volunteers. Our question to the Commission is, do we
implement a refundable plot-cleaning fee for first year gardeners, or count
walk-aways as part of the cost of being equitable?
Finally, the Commission’s 2020 decision to grant a hardship
waiver to a gardener who said he had already laid down plastic sheeting before a
ban went into effect, came back to bite us in 2021. Covered with plastic for
two seasons, the plot was biologically dead this year. An experienced gardener,
moving up from a half plot, found nothing would grow in the space and pulled
what remained of her plants in July. We reimbursed her fees and the cost of her
vegetable sets, and promised her a new space for 2022.
We address the Commission in January. This year we expect a wide range of questions.
