Starting A Vegetable Garden
Growing your own vegetables is an incredibly rewarding experience. Not only will they taste better than those from the grocery store, but you’ll also gain both physical and mental benefits.
To start a vegetable garden, first choose a site that gets plenty of sun. Then prepare the soil, adding plenty of compost or well-rotted manure.
Rick Ditaranto spends many peaceful mornings watching the birds and insects pollinating the colorful flowers at the Gibbsboro Community Garden in Camden County. Beyond the serenity, the garden has given Ditaranto and his partner, Liz Tiffany-Ellis, a meaningful sense of community.
“I’ve met a lot of nice people,” said Ditaranto, who moved to Gibbsboro about five years ago. “They have different events throughout the year, from a get-together with a harp player to a tutorial from a beekeeper.”
Since joining the garden three years ago, the couple has started their planting each April with vegetables that prefer cooler temperatures, including lettuce and peas. In mid-May, they plant tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, and lots of herbs.
They tend the garden three or four days a week, watering, weeding, and pruning alongside the other 30 or so plot owners. By October, they’ve harvested their crops and cleaned out their 9-by-5-foot plot for a winter break.
Community gardens are more popular than ever, with more than 300 in and around Philadelphia, according to Justin Trezza, community gardens program director for the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society (PHS). Community gardens beautify the landscape, make fresh produce accessible, and strengthen social connections between neighbors.
In Pennsylvania, PHS serves as the “stagehand,” Trezza said, offering support and resources through its Garden Tenders program, as well as free tool rentals and starter plants. PHS expects to donate 260,000 seedlings to community gardens this year.
Communities set their own rules regarding who can join their garden, often limited to town residents. They also determine the size of each plot, plants to avoid (such as invasive mint that will creep into a neighbor’s garden), and the types of products, including fertilizers and pesticides, they can and can’t use.
“COVID really introduced more interest in our gardens,” said Debby Sweeney, greening chairperson for Washington Square West. “People saw the value of community gardens, particularly in an urban setting.”
The gardens are financially self-sustaining, using funds for materials from the $30 per plot fee and donations. Plots measure about 100 square feet, and gardeners can choose whatever they want to plant as long as they avoid the prohibited species. Plot owners get first dibs on the food they grow, with the excess donated to neighborhood groups.
» READ MORE: A new way of vegetable gardening, with someone else’s hands in the dirt
The South Street garden includes two plots where all the food grown is donated to Ready, Willing & Able, which helps Philadelphians who face social and economic challenges, including histories of incarceration, homelessness, and unemployment. The Waverly Street garden donates excess food to the Waters Memorial AME Church Food Bank.
Stressing the importance of urban gardens, the city is in the final stages of developing an agricultural plan. Philadelphia’s Urban Agriculture Plan: Growing from the Root aims to uplift the city’s rich history of urban farming and gardening while clearly defining the resources, policies, processes, and programs necessary to sustain it for future generations, according to a draft of the plan.
“We are hoping that the plan gets the city rethinking about the significance and important role of urban agriculture and community gardens, not just for food sovereignty but for building community, especially when we hear so much about communities being broken apart,” said Trezza.
In addition to flowers and vegetables, the garden features birdbaths and feeders, an herb and meditation garden, doggy rest area, a “Pollinator Pathway” filled with butterflies, hummingbirds and songbirds, a stone bridge rain garden, children’s whimsical perennial walk-through, and a little free library and toy bin.
“We’re trying to teach the community, especially the younger community, how to grow organic food,” said Christina Ritz, a master gardener and a committee member of the Gibbsboro Community Garden. “How do you avoid using pesticides and grow all these wonderful things safely?”
Even residents who aren’t garden members are encouraged to take part in activities, including their annual post-Halloween pumpkin collection. The discarded pumpkins are used to make compost to enrich the soil for the next growing season. Also popular is a sweet potato event for kids. Garden members plant sweet potato seeds in a huge bale of hay, and once they’ve grown, invite kids to come pluck out the sweet potatoes.
There can be challenges in community gardens, including one gardener taking another gardener’s vegetables or having their crops encroach into another plot. Sweeney and Ritz said their gardens have avoided problems because their rules are clearly defined. Transparency and clear communication are the keys to a successful community garden, Trezza said.
For Ditaranto, the community garden is inspiring.
“You appreciate the toads and bees in your garden,” he said. “I send my daughter honey every year that came from our flowers. It’s really amazing.”
Source: inquirer.com
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