The dirt

Jack Deatherage

(2/2023) Brian McKenny is of the opinion that we need to build a garden before anyone will turn up to help with it. This opinion is echoed by various acquaintances who've been down similar roads. My oldest, continuous internet friend, a homesteader, writes, "a community garden should be funded thru group efforts, not philanthropy. If the community has no stake in it beyond writing a check, there will be no effort. And if they write that check, they have the expectation they are paying for a service and they'll just sit back and wait for their weekly vegetable delivery. I've been up against this attitude too many times to count!"

I've ignored the homesteader more times than I can remember, and still admit she is often correct. However, there are a variety of community garden themes to chose from:

• Allotment - leased from, but built and maintained by the town government (most likely option)
• Communal - Supplementing Food Banks And Charitable Outreach Programs
• Children's - introducing gardening practices, sciences
• Educational - open to libraries, schools, church groups, children's clubs and Master Gardeners for teaching the How, Where, What, When, Why and Who of gardening
• Experimental - trialing various new species/cultivars in local growing conditions
• Market - (to raise money to sustain the garden) supplying rarely available produce
• Senior Citizen - requiring raised beds so old people, such as the DW, wouldn't have to bend, stoop, or kneel very often
• Seed Saving - growing, preserving and distributing seeds
• Pollinator - bees (native and domestic), flies, butterflies, humming birds, moths
• Native Plant Propagation - sowing, growing, seed saving, distributing natives

I'm hoping Brian's head is on straighter than mine because I want to incorporate all these types of community gardens into the one we're going to build once the powers that be okay our design and plan, assuming we manage to produce them! If Brian is as scattershot as I am, we definitely need some sober minded people to step up and call us to heel. Now would be the time to get involved in the planning!

So far, the current brain trust (may the gods have mercy as I'm half the trust) has settled on a long, narrow flowerbed paralleling the sidewalk along Cedar Avenue. This would be primarily an annual flowerbed, easily converted back to sod if the project fails due to lack of support. Next, we'd build a coupla 4' X 10' beds for the librarians use. If the library chooses not to take advantage of the beds I suppose the towns' homeschooling families or church groups might. Moving deeper into the lot, Brian suggests we each build two beds for our use.

The town's current community garden plots are leased for $20, refundable if the plots are cleaned up at the end of the season. I'm thinking the new garden's leased beds would also cost $20 for the season, but the money would go toward upgrades the following year. The garden will eventually need a storage shed and an elevated water tank capable of supporting a drip irrigation system.

I'd eventually like to establish permanent beds which the current community garden doesn't allow. Perennial flowerbeds, as well as an asparagus bed- perhaps one of the rarer cultivars for spears that would be sold at the market to help cover the costs of the garden.

There has to be an herb bed for serious cooks. Fresh herbs snipped from the garden on market day and dried herbs created as the season progresses!

Building tater/garlic beds is a way to utilize a newly made bed. Working up the soil for spring spud planting lets me see the soil in greater detail. After summer harvest I add compost or sow a quick growing cover crop before I have to churn the bed again for a fall planting of a few gourmet cultivars of garlic. The garlic is harvested the following summer and the bed rebuilt for a fall crop of leafy greens, brassicas or another cover crop. The third year, the ground is amended and ready for whatever vegetables or flowers one might be interested in. This is one of the few ways I succession plant a garden bed throughout an entire year!

Commissioner Amy Boehman-Pollitt - the Citizens Advisory Committee liaison who brought the new community garden idea before the board of commissioners, is gathering suggestions for revitalizing the town's farmers market. It has been suggested that a community garden near the farmers market could spur interest in both the market and the garden. That is definitely in my mind as I plan the new garden.

During the latest committee meeting discussion about the new garden, the need for soil testing came up. The University of Maryland Extension site says ALL soil in the state is deemed to contain lead, Pb for those who paid attention in high school chemistry. (I wasn't one of them.)

The University of Maryland Extension site lists the University of Delaware for testing soil. The U of D lab offers two tests I think would serve the garden- "Home Lawn and Garden Soil Test – Includes Lead Screen" for $17 which would provide general information concerning the entire garden area. And the "Soil Lead Screening Test" for $15, which I seriously recommend for individual garden plots to protect the gardeners from potential lead poisoning and the town from avoidable lawsuits.

Tattoo Don, pillar of the community and a founder of the Emmitsburg Business Alliance asked how many tests were needed and how much each test would cost. He thought the community garden project might be something the business community would be willing to support financially.

I'm in a panic over accepting donations! I'm pretty sure there are laws pertaining to such things. If I'm not much of a gardener, I'm less of a 501(c)(3) bookkeeper! Until someone knowledgeable about the laws concerning nonprofits appears to deal with the legal aspects I'll not be accepting cash donations. However, I did ask town manager Cathy Willets if handling donations might be a task the town staff could manage. She's checking with the town's accountant and attorney. I'd much rather the gardening community and the town staff avoid that paper-chase if at all possible.

Since last month's ENJ, I've gotten one offer of help to organize the community garden- an out of towner who used to work a plot in Baltimore's Druid Hill Park. The deeper I dig into this project the more questions I'm coming up with. It would be nice to have a few more advisers on board.

Brian and I seemingly have the dirty end of the garden handled. We have various hand tools, a rain barrel, drip irrigation system, plenty of flower and veggie seeds, starting trays, books, online resources and the promise of two rototillers. What we don't have is a community to tell us what it wants garden wise. We need all the help we can get in planning and organizing the garden! One volunteer is a start. Do I hear two?

I can be reached via the post office at: Deatherage, PO Box 417, Emmitsburg, MD 21727. Or by phone at 301-447-2151 (if the answering machine picks up, please leave a contact number- speak slowly and clearly - English is a struggle for me, all other languages are beyond me), or Email at jackdeathjr@juno.com