Community Gardens: Plan Now

This spring could be the ideal time to carry out your notions of getting together with the neighbors or your religious group to plant a community garden.

Some may recall the large vegetable garden on West Second Street near Liberty. It was shut down when the lot was turned over to a Westfield developer to build houses. Nothing was built, but the garden was not restored, as far as I know. Perhaps it should be.

Bro. Willie Robinson had a garden on West Fourth Street some years ago and the city has permitted use of a Berkeley Terrace lot for a community garden in the East End. A church plot on East Fifth Street held an expanded garden last summer and its produce was donated to nursing homes and other non-profit organizations.

Soon it will be time to plant peas and onions, kicking off the cycle that will turn to tomatoes, peppers, zucchini and many other hot weather crops, then squeezing in another round of cool-weather plants before frost.

Plainfield Action Services used to give out seeds and loan a tiller for community gardens, but turning over the soil with a pitchfork is good exercise and seeds are relatively cheap. Food crops can mingle with flower beds to good advantage in times like these.

Ambitious gardeners can build raised beds and fill them with improved soil that will allow closer planting and repeated sowing for salad crops and the like. And who's to say you can't grow vegetables in the front yard, if you wish?

Some of us have already been daydreaming with seed catalogs and Park Hardware will soon have a selection of seed packets. There are nurseries in the city for plants to set out in late April or May, or you can grow your own on the windowsill until the soil warms up.

Give it some thought and start eyeing up the sunny spots in the yard for possible cultivation. It would be really thrilling to see new little gardens all over the city!

--Bernice