With Food Prices Rising—

Vegetable Gardens Are Taking Root In Newtown’s Yards

By Nancy K. Crevier

Manicured lawns are giving way this spring to vegetable gardens.

“People are definitely planning vegetable gardens this spring, from what I’m hearing here at Hollandia Gift and Garden,” said owner Sally Reelick. “We are selling more tomato plants than ever, and hot pepper plants, onions, everything. The vegetable seeds are just flying out of here. People are opening up new gardens, and for some, it is the first vegetable garden they have ever had, so they’re looking for advice,” she said.

The first advice Ms Reelick gives to new farmers is to keep the size of the vegetable garden manageable. “Don’t go nuts putting in a big garden,” she said. For those who are turning sod to soil, she suggests using a snow shovel to dig out the grass layer, and warned, “It’s work getting down to good soil.”

A newly dug garden often needs a nutritional boost, and Ms Reelick said that sales of compost have been up this spring, too, as gardeners look to revamp the soil. Products that deter deer have been selling out, with people looking to protect their new investment.

She has also been pleasantly surprised to have customers ask if she has ever canned or frozen produce before. “I think you’re going to see a lot of people trying their hand at canning and freezing fruits and vegetables, more than ever before,” she predicted. It is the repercussion of high gas prices and high food prices, she believes, that is driving people to harken back to the Victory Garden of the World War days — “The recession garden, we could call it,” she said — to offset fresh food costs. “I think people’s ways are going to be changing, real fast. People should have been [putting in vegetable gardens] a long time ago,” she added.

At Shortt’s Garden Center on Riverside Road in Sandy Hook, Jim Shortt said that they are selling more vegetable plants and seeds this spring than ever, despite a relatively cold month in May. “People are buying everything this year — all of the stuff we grow here. Tomatoes, squash, peppers, eggplant, cucumbers, celery — they’re buying it all. There is a huge diversity in the types of plants they are buying,” said Mr Shortt. It is to combat the high cost of fresh produce in the grocery store that his customers say they are attempting to grow their own vegetables or expand existing gardens this year, he said. “They’re figuring they’re going to save a least a few bucks by doing so.”

He has also observed that people seem more serious about what was previously just a gardening hobby, and more concerned about “doing it right,” even those who have raised vegetables in the past. “With every vegetable sale we are selling compost and people are asking about the fish emulsion we sell,” he said.

As a vendor each year at the Sandy Hook Organic Farmers’ Market, he is wondering if the increase in the number of home growers is going to affect business there. “It could go one of two ways: people aren’t as successful in their gardening attempts and we are really busy, or people are so successful that they don’t come to the market. Hopefully, the people who aren’t gardening will be looking for fresher, locally grown produce at a better price,” said Mr Shortt.

It is hard to say whether the impact on food prices has affected sales or not, said Lexington Garden owner Tom Johnson, but the season has definitely been ahead of itself on the sales of starter vegetable plants, he said. “It appears we have sold more than we normally would have at this time,” Mr Johnson said.

The Church Hill Road garden center grows a huge variety of vegetable seedlings, including 28 varieties of tomatoes, and all of them have been extremely popular this spring.

Not only are younger people looking for advice on starting a new garden, said Mr Johnson, but there appears to be more awareness of what is in the air and what is going into the soil. “I have noticed this spring that we have a lot more requests for organic vegetable seeds and people looking for organic mixes to start the seeds. We have sold seven or eight of those kits this spring, when usually we sell only one or two,” he said.

He is pleased that people are taking on the responsibility of a vegetable garden, and added, “Hopefully, people won’t be discouraged. The weather has not been so good this spring so far.”

At the corner of Great Hill and Fox Run Roads, Cherie and Stuart Hall and their three children, Nicholas, Brendan, and Emma, are hoping for the best with their new garden. “My parents had a big garden on their Shepaug Road property,” said Ms Hall, “and they thought it would be great to put one in for us. This is the first year we’ve done anything other than tomatoes.”

This year, after adding some topsoil to boost the claylike soil, the Halls have spinach, lettuce, broccoli, and green beans growing alongside the tomato plants.

“The kids are excited about the garden, especially Brendan, I think,” said Ms Hall. “He brought home the bean and tomato seeds from school, so he’s hoping it’s really going to work. I love fresh vegetables and the cost of fresh vegetables is so high now,” she said.

Already the Halls are thinking about how to improve next year’s garden. “We’re just learning as we go along,” she said.

‘Gardening Is About Renewal’

On the other hand, Tammara McMahon has been gardening her whole life, inspired by her parents and grandparents, all of whom kept large vegetable gardens. “I can remember pulling up the rocks and shaking off the grass clumps for my dad when he was tilling the soil,” she said. A number of her friends are putting in vegetable gardens this year as a “political statement,” said Ms McMahon, but she thinks that while successful gardening can offset economic downturns, “Gardening is about renewal, it shouldn’t be about politics.”

Her Sandy Hook garden is phase one of an ongoing plan to terrace the entire steep hill behind her house, said Ms McMahon, who also keeps a garden on property on West Street. For now, the various plots she tends are host to summer and winter squashes, basil, parsley, tomatoes, red cabbage, lettuce, radicchio, beans, leeks, carrots, and Egyptian onions. She uses marigolds and nasturtiums not only for their beautiful flowers, but because marigolds ward off a number of garden pests and the heirloom mahogany nasturtiums are very attractive to honeybees, not to mention the flowers are edible.

Her 10-year-old son Brenden has joined her in her gardening hobby since he was 2 weeks old. “It’s fun to garden,” said Brenden. “I like the planting and the harvesting and I like to see all of the stuff that grows. Some of it is just beautiful.” He and his mom are excited about a new crop they are trying this year, edamame, or soybeans, and he is anticipating a bumper crop of his annual favorites, green beans and tomatoes. The weeding part of keeping a garden is not really his favorite part of gardening, said Brenden, but it is something that must be done.

Her experience in vegetable gardening puts her ahead of the game from those attempting a vegetable garden for the first time, Ms McMahon admits, but she is more than willing to share her knowledge with those new to the game. “People don’t seem to know that the whole thing about gardening is soil preparation. You have to have good soil to grow things, or the seeds just won’t germinate,” she said.

Along with tilling the soil, nourishing the soil is important. She uses fish emulsion and a “manure tea” — fresh cow manure simmered with water in the sun for at least one week, stirred, and strained — to rejuvenate the soil and feed the plants, and rotates her crops from plot to plot each year. “I apply about five gallons of tea for every 50 square feet of garden, and it is important to apply it just when the plants are forming the fruit, not when they are in flower,” she recommended. A garden fence to deter nosy wildlife is essential, as well, in most parts of Newtown, said Ms McMahon. Planting in succession means that when one early crop has petered out, another is at its peak, providing fresh produce all season long, and little tricks she has learned along the way, like planting peas behind the taller foundation plants near her house to provide shade to the cool weather vegetable, enable her to extend the growing season for many of her vegetables. “You learn by trial and error if you want a good crop, though.”

It is not too late to start a garden this summer, said Ms McMahon. “If you put some seeds in the ground now, you can harvest a lot of crops in less than 90 days, and we have that growing season here in New England.”

Trinity Production’s offshoot program “Back To The Earth” offers opportunities for people to get involved in gardening and helps people find a spot to garden or learn more about gardening, said director Cindy Miller. “It is taken for granted that people have a spot for a garden, but not everyone does,” she said.

Last year, Paul Murphy initiated a garden on his Greenleaf Farm Road property with the help of Trinity Production members and other community members. It involved threading 500 feet of hose over a ridge and down to the roadside garden, many hours of weeding, and an unsightly fence to keep out predators. This year, he wanted to make a resource friendly garden that would work in synchronicity with the environment and his neighbors, he said, so he has decided to plant corn and sunflowers. “The garden is right next to the road, so I wanted something that would look good, for my neighbors, and be low maintenance. What corn and sunflowers have in common is that they grow tall and can outgrow the weeds, I hope,” said Mr Murphy, of the garden that he sees as an extension of taking care of his house and property. Rather than running the hundreds of feet of hose, he is counting on Mother Nature to provide enough rain and the hybrid varieties of corn and sunflowers he selected to withstand some drought conditions and flourish, he said.

“Corn is not necessarily a primary food of local animals, either, so I don’t need to put up a tacky fence. So far, the seedlings have not been bothered, and I hope that the animals will continue to ignore the garden,” said Mr Murphy.

In addition to the roadside crop, Mr Murphy has planted a mound just behind his home with more corn. It is small right now, but he is hopeful that with rain and sun, he will be picking ears from six-foot stalks in August.

Sharing With food Pantries

As with last year’s crop, Mr Murphy plans to donate a portion of the corn harvest to FAITH food pantry and other shelters in the area, and has invited his neighbors to pick from the field as the corn ripens. The sunflowers may provide seed for birds and other creatures, or he may gather and roast some of the seeds this fall for consumption.

“I’ll share the corn and use it myself,” he said. “If I get one full bag of corn, it will have paid for itself.”

In past years, Back To The Earth has also planted gardens for an AIDS center in Danbury, an herb garden at the Shelter for the Cross homeless shelter in Danbury, a children’s garden in Sandy Hook, and last year, Mr Murphy’s plot on Greenleaf Farms to grow vegetables for a soup kitchen. The harvest was also donated to FAITH Food Pantry, said Ms Miller. “Every year, the people who garden together do canning, too,” she said.

Ms Miller, who plants a plethora of vegetables such as green beans, zucchini, beets, lettuce’ watermelon, cantaloupe, peppers, tomatoes, fennel, horseradish, herbs, and even edible flowers, prefers to garden without the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. “It’s more economical to grow things organically,” she said, “and there’s nothing like going out and picking a fresh cucumber or making a salad with things from your own garden. I do it for the enjoyment as much as for economical reasons,” she said.

She offers community gardening opportunities at her Hanover Road property to those who want to dig in but have nowhere to do so, and another Back To The Earth member, Jeannie Foege, has space for gardening at her Shepard Hill property.

It is not too late to consider a garden this year, and anyone in need of a garden plot can contact Ms Miller at 426-9448, visit backtotheearth.net, or e-mail her at trinity@trinityproduction.org.

As more people become concerned about sustainable living, Ms Miller said she would not be surprised to see continued interest in activities like gardening. “Life is about nature and community,” she said.