Trying to End on a Positive Note

As October and my time on Stoddart Avenue wind down, I am hoping to end on a positive note.   One of our gardeners ended up donating over 75 pounds (of mostly tomatoes) and that has helped us to exceed the number of pounds of fresh produce we collectively donated last year and we still have two more weeks to go with radishes, herbs, beets and turnips left to harvest.   Despite the forecasted cold weather coming on Friday, I am hopeful that we will get the Garden cleaned up by the end of the season, although only three of us have cleaned out our plots so far.   The City is removing the water meter today (so I do not have to worry about it freezing over the winter and we won't be charged for having it every month).   I emptied the tall rain cistern yesterday and turned off the downspout diverter to the big tank. 

A Capital University sorority was supposed to volunteer on Saturday to make up for their earlier

volunteer date which was rained out, but they cancelled on Thursday.  It was just as well, because they would have gotten rained out again.  (Note to self; invite Capital students during the next drought because they apparently make it rain).   I ended up declining our Environmental Court Community Service volunteers because of the weather as well.   But, the kids from across the street came over yesterday while I was there to hold the bags while I harvested lettuce and dill weed.   They received a bag of fresh leaf lettuce for their troubles.  

As reflected on our charts, I have taken most of our produce donations to Faith Mission's homeless shelter this year.  It is the only place in Central Ohio that serves at least two free meals every day 365 days each year.  It is also the only place open to accepting fresh produce donations on Saturday afternoons when I am able to make the deliveries.  They take produce donations until 5 p.m. every day.   I have the court volunteers until at least noon every day and sometimes until 2 or 3 p.m., so I cannot make the deliveries before then, but I get criticized nonetheless for not accommodating other food pantries that have only weekday hours, and/or close before noon on Saturdays.  Last year, I tried to organize our gardeners to supervise the volunteers earlier in the day so that I could make the donations before noon, but they did nothing but whine about it and it became more trouble than it was worth.   

I have joined another community garden and they do not have an organized produce donation
system.  The coordinator (who is retired) tends several food pantry plots, makes the donations when it suits her schedule and does not attempt to organize the other gardeners so that she can also deliver their donations on a set schedule.  They still donated over 1000 pounds this year, but it has exhausted her and she plans to cut back by at least half next year.    She even asked me to take over from her in 2021.  Ha ha.  There is no perfect system and we community gardeners simply do not have enough experienced hands to help us.  This is particularly true of those of us who work during the week and can only garden on the evenings and weekends.  

I told our Board of Trustees in August that this will be my last year managing the Stoddart Avenue Community Garden.  It has been 11 seasons and it is time for new blood.  We have been trying to find someone else to manage the Garden since 2013 or to expand and reorganize the Board, but we are not having much success.  Too many of the new neighbors look to me to be providing a service to them (as though I get paid for any of this), instead of joining to provide a service to their community.  Lots of people stop by every month asking about joining and getting a plot, but no one wants to be tied to a set schedule or to manage the Garden.   Unless someone else or a team steps up, the SACG will close for good in two weeks and there will be no more produce grown or donated for ourselves, the community or the hungry.  While this makes me sad, I am exhausted and burned out.  I hate to see our orchard of 5 peach trees, 4 apple trees, 2 plum trees, 4 tart cherry trees, 3 bing cherry trees, 2 grape vines and 350 feet of black raspberry bushes go to waste, not to mention the blueberry bushes and strawberry patch.  The neighborhood kids and many others have enjoyed them over the years and I'd like to think that we have improved the quality of life for some people, even if only temporarily.  

An downtown retiree contacted me recently about donating his coffee grounds.  He used to garden at the Franklin County Community Garden downtown (on Town Street), but it closed.   He liked our platform raised garden beds.  I invited him to manage the Garden and he's considering it as long as there isn't any heavy lifting.    But I have not heard from him in the past week.    We have reached out to the OSU Master Gardeners, the Conservatory and just anyone we know who has ever grown their own food.   If enough people got together and divided up the responsibilities, it would be more manageable because many hands make light work.  But, like at most community gardens, most of the work tends to fall on one or two people.   I still have a few ideas, but if anyone reading this wants to see the Garden continue, NOW is the time to step up.  

Trying to End on a Positive Note

As October and my time on Stoddart Avenue wind down, I am hoping to end on a positive note.   One of our gardeners ended up donating over 75 pounds (of mostly tomatoes) and that has helped us to exceed the number of pounds of fresh produce we collectively donated last year and we still have two more weeks to go with radishes, herbs, beets and turnips left to harvest.   Despite the forecasted cold weather coming on Friday, I am hopeful that we will get the Garden cleaned up by the end of the season, although only three of us have cleaned out our plots so far.   The City is removing the water meter today (so I do not have to worry about it freezing over the winter and we won't be charged for having it every month).   I emptied the tall rain cistern yesterday and turned off the downspout diverter to the big tank. 

A Capital University sorority was supposed to volunteer on Saturday to make up for their earlier

volunteer date which was rained out, but they cancelled on Thursday.  It was just as well, because they would have gotten rained out again.  (Note to self; invite Capital students during the next drought because they apparently make it rain).   I ended up declining our Environmental Court Community Service volunteers because of the weather as well.   But, the kids from across the street came over yesterday while I was there to hold the bags while I harvested lettuce and dill weed.   They received a bag of fresh leaf lettuce for their troubles.  

As reflected on our charts, I have taken most of our produce donations to Faith Mission's homeless shelter this year.  It is the only place in Central Ohio that serves at least two free meals every day 365 days each year.  It is also the only place open to accepting fresh produce donations on Saturday afternoons when I am able to make the deliveries.  They take produce donations until 5 p.m. every day.   I have the court volunteers until at least noon every day and sometimes until 2 or 3 p.m., so I cannot make the deliveries before then, but I get criticized nonetheless for not accommodating other food pantries that have only weekday hours, and/or close before noon on Saturdays.  Last year, I tried to organize our gardeners to supervise the volunteers earlier in the day so that I could make the donations before noon, but they did nothing but whine about it and it became more trouble than it was worth.   

I have joined another community garden and they do not have an organized produce donation
system.  The coordinator (who is retired) tends several food pantry plots, makes the donations when it suits her schedule and does not attempt to organize the other gardeners so that she can also deliver their donations on a set schedule.  They still donated over 1000 pounds this year, but it has exhausted her and she plans to cut back by at least half next year.    She even asked me to take over from her in 2021.  Ha ha.  There is no perfect system and we community gardeners simply do not have enough experienced hands to help us.  This is particularly true of those of us who work during the week and can only garden on the evenings and weekends.  

I told our Board of Trustees in August that this will be my last year managing the Stoddart Avenue Community Garden.  It has been 11 seasons and it is time for new blood.  We have been trying to find someone else to manage the Garden since 2013 or to expand and reorganize the Board, but we are not having much success.  Too many of the new neighbors look to me to be providing a service to them (as though I get paid for any of this), instead of joining to provide a service to their community.  Lots of people stop by every month asking about joining and getting a plot, but no one wants to be tied to a set schedule or to manage the Garden.   Unless someone else or a team steps up, the SACG will close for good in two weeks and there will be no more produce grown or donated for ourselves, the community or the hungry.  While this makes me sad, I am exhausted and burned out.  I hate to see our orchard of 5 peach trees, 4 apple trees, 2 plum trees, 4 tart cherry trees, 3 bing cherry trees, 2 grape vines and 350 feet of black raspberry bushes go to waste, not to mention the blueberry bushes and strawberry patch.  The neighborhood kids and many others have enjoyed them over the years and I'd like to think that we have improved the quality of life for some people, even if only temporarily.  

An downtown retiree contacted me recently about donating his coffee grounds.  He used to garden at the Franklin County Community Garden downtown (on Town Street), but it closed.   He liked our platform raised garden beds.  I invited him to manage the Garden and he's considering it as long as there isn't any heavy lifting.    But I have not heard from him in the past week.    We have reached out to the OSU Master Gardeners, the Conservatory and just anyone we know who has ever grown their own food.   If enough people got together and divided up the responsibilities, it would be more manageable because many hands make light work.  But, like at most community gardens, most of the work tends to fall on one or two people.   I still have a few ideas, but if anyone reading this wants to see the Garden continue, NOW is the time to step up.  

Friday Night Buckeye Football Helps Community Gardens

October has turned out to be a freakishly productive month at the Stoddart Avenue Community Garden.  Our produce donations have been off the charts, particularly because one of our gardeners has been donating most of his giant tomatoes.  We have also had more volunteers help than we have had at this time of year in the past.  Yesterday, we had 15 OSU students helping to clean out the Garden for the season.  We have also had some vandalism, which severely damaged our front gate.


At the beginning of the month, I took both of our Community Service volunteers to the Bexley Community Garden to help for a couple of hours put that Garden to bed for the season.  Then, we took some of their end-of-season produce (mostly green tomatoes and some okra) to a free produce giveaway at nearby Fairwood Elementary School that was organized by the Genesis of Good Samaritans.  There was a long line of people when we arrived, including many senior citizens.  Then, it was back to the SACG where we watered our food pantry and neighbor beds, harvested around 50 pounds of tomatoes and peppers, raked, mowed, etc. for a couple more hours.  It was a very, very long day of gardening, even before I returned to my own home garden.

By the time I arrived at Faith Mission’s homeless shelter to drop off the fresh produce, no one could be found to answer the kitchen door.  So, I called the Pantry Manager at the All People’s Fresh Market on Parson’s to see if she could re-open the Market for what was in my trunk.  However, she was on medical leave and could not find her replacement.  Sigh.  So, I called Faith Mission’s help line and found a social worker to let me in.  The delay kinda ruined my benevolent mood.


The next week, I had two CS volunteers who helped rake, mow, water, harvest and pick up litter.   That week, we harvested over 75 pounds of produce.  The next day, someone visited the Garden vandalized our sign, knocked over the neighbor bed tomato trellis and pulled two pickets off the front gate, breaking one of them into three pieces.  Grr.   One more thing for me to fix in all my spare time.

We finally had a frost, but it must have been light because it only killed our sweet potato vines, which turned black, and the melon vines.   So far, that is the only cold damage that we have suffered.  

Yesterday, we were blessed that the Ohio State University Pay It Forward Program wanted to return to help us clean up the Garden for the season after all of the help they gave us for their Community Commitment day in August.  Luckily, I had picked a Saturday when OSU was not playing football, so we had a great turnout.    It was nice to show them the lettuce that their group had earlier planted in August.  

Team One was tasked with cleaning out the corn co-op plot.  This involved chopping the corn and bean stalks down to no higher than 6 inches and then cutting back the out-of-control black raspberry brambles in the west fence and bagging everything.  I had to discuss the concept of lawn waste bags because it has become apparent that only suburbanites use them.

Team Two was tasked with harvesting cherry tomatoes, removing the volunteer-cherry-tomato-plant-that-almost-devoured -Columbus and had taken over the northwest corner of the Garden, harvesting sweet potatoes, bagging the tomato vines and then harvesting peppers.  I had to teach them how to harvest the sweet potatoes, so as not to destroy them, but you know what they say about best laid plans.  


As it was, the groundhog had so completely devoured the vines this season that there was only one large sweet potato to be found.  The rest might make good use for fries, but they were barely larger than my thumb.  Sigh.  We had almost 40 pounds of sweet potatoes last year, and only 5 this year.   What a difference a groundhog makes, n’est pas?  One of their team worked for years at a nursery and was all too familiar with the problems of a groundhog.  She had no wisdom for me, but suggested blood meal deters rabbits.  


Team Three was tasked with cleaning out the food pantry tomato bed, bagging the tomato vines, nesting and storing the tomato cages, and harvesting the sweet potatoes in that plot (which were even less impressive than the other bed).   We had to get some help from Team Four to remove the tomato trellises.

Team Four raked the front lawn, mowed, pruned the brambles around the shed to make room for the tomato stakes, cages and trellises, mulched the fruit trees, cleaned out the summer neighbor bed (i.e. peppers and tomatoes), cleaned out the melon plot, harvested peppers and watered the food pantry plots.

Team Four also helped me to turn off the water hydrants.  Amy and I could not figure out how to turn the water off at the meter, so I had to get a different tool and turn it off inside the Garden and this requires more upper body strength than I have.  I hadn’t planned on doing this for another couple of weeks, but Rain One called in a panic -- just after Friday’s freeze warning was announced - that they could not get into the Garden to blow out our water lines and turn off the water for the winter.  I had changed the gate combination since last year.   I had not expected this and, as I explained, we are thinking of having the water meter removed for the winter because we discovered in June that the City charges us for having the meter every month even when the water is turned off.  It might be less expensive just to have the meter removed in October and replaced next May, if there is even a SACG next May.   But, I hadn’t realized that we were looking at a freeze warning which could cause the water lines to burst when I told them not to worry about us this year.

Simon and his two set of twin daughters came to clean out his plot of their summer crops and to otherwise distract the OSU students and my CS volunteers.  


I cleaned out my 16 tomato plants, cages and trellises and harvested more of Charlie’s tomatoes and ran around answering questions.  Amy came and cleaned up two sections of the strawberry patch and pruned the remaining asters that I had started on last week.  After everyone left, I gathered up all of the tools which the OSU students left lying around the Garden and took our 41 pounds of fresh produce to Faith Mission downtown.

Next week, some of the Capital University students are   

returning after they got rained out on their volunteer day in September.

Friday Night Buckeye Football Helps Community Gardens

October has turned out to be a freakishly productive month at the Stoddart Avenue Community Garden.  Our produce donations have been off the charts, particularly because one of our gardeners has been donating most of his giant tomatoes.  We have also had more volunteers help than we have had at this time of year in the past.  Yesterday, we had 15 OSU students helping to clean out the Garden for the season.  We have also had some vandalism, which severely damaged our front gate.


At the beginning of the month, I took both of our Community Service volunteers to the Bexley Community Garden to help for a couple of hours put that Garden to bed for the season.  Then, we took some of their end-of-season produce (mostly green tomatoes and some okra) to a free produce giveaway at nearby Fairwood Elementary School that was organized by the Genesis of Good Samaritans.  There was a long line of people when we arrived, including many senior citizens.  Then, it was back to the SACG where we watered our food pantry and neighbor beds, harvested around 50 pounds of tomatoes and peppers, raked, mowed, etc. for a couple more hours.  It was a very, very long day of gardening, even before I returned to my own home garden.

By the time I arrived at Faith Mission’s homeless shelter to drop off the fresh produce, no one could be found to answer the kitchen door.  So, I called the Pantry Manager at the All People’s Fresh Market on Parson’s to see if she could re-open the Market for what was in my trunk.  However, she was on medical leave and could not find her replacement.  Sigh.  So, I called Faith Mission’s help line and found a social worker to let me in.  The delay kinda ruined my benevolent mood.


The next week, I had two CS volunteers who helped rake, mow, water, harvest and pick up litter.   That week, we harvested over 75 pounds of produce.  The next day, someone visited the Garden vandalized our sign, knocked over the neighbor bed tomato trellis and pulled two pickets off the front gate, breaking one of them into three pieces.  Grr.   One more thing for me to fix in all my spare time.

We finally had a frost, but it must have been light because it only killed our sweet potato vines, which turned black, and the melon vines.   So far, that is the only cold damage that we have suffered.  

Yesterday, we were blessed that the Ohio State University Pay It Forward Program wanted to return to help us clean up the Garden for the season after all of the help they gave us for their Community Commitment day in August.  Luckily, I had picked a Saturday when OSU was not playing football, so we had a great turnout.    It was nice to show them the lettuce that their group had earlier planted in August.  

Team One was tasked with cleaning out the corn co-op plot.  This involved chopping the corn and bean stalks down to no higher than 6 inches and then cutting back the out-of-control black raspberry brambles in the west fence and bagging everything.  I had to discuss the concept of lawn waste bags because it has become apparent that only suburbanites use them.

Team Two was tasked with harvesting cherry tomatoes, removing the volunteer-cherry-tomato-plant-that-almost-devoured -Columbus and had taken over the northwest corner of the Garden, harvesting sweet potatoes, bagging the tomato vines and then harvesting peppers.  I had to teach them how to harvest the sweet potatoes, so as not to destroy them, but you know what they say about best laid plans.  


As it was, the groundhog had so completely devoured the vines this season that there was only one large sweet potato to be found.  The rest might make good use for fries, but they were barely larger than my thumb.  Sigh.  We had almost 40 pounds of sweet potatoes last year, and only 5 this year.   What a difference a groundhog makes, n’est pas?  One of their team worked for years at a nursery and was all too familiar with the problems of a groundhog.  She had no wisdom for me, but suggested blood meal deters rabbits.  


Team Three was tasked with cleaning out the food pantry tomato bed, bagging the tomato vines, nesting and storing the tomato cages, and harvesting the sweet potatoes in that plot (which were even less impressive than the other bed).   We had to get some help from Team Four to remove the tomato trellises.

Team Four raked the front lawn, mowed, pruned the brambles around the shed to make room for the tomato stakes, cages and trellises, mulched the fruit trees, cleaned out the summer neighbor bed (i.e. peppers and tomatoes), cleaned out the melon plot, harvested peppers and watered the food pantry plots.

Team Four also helped me to turn off the water hydrants.  Amy and I could not figure out how to turn the water off at the meter, so I had to get a different tool and turn it off inside the Garden and this requires more upper body strength than I have.  I hadn’t planned on doing this for another couple of weeks, but Rain One called in a panic -- just after Friday’s freeze warning was announced - that they could not get into the Garden to blow out our water lines and turn off the water for the winter.  I had changed the gate combination since last year.   I had not expected this and, as I explained, we are thinking of having the water meter removed for the winter because we discovered in June that the City charges us for having the meter every month even when the water is turned off.  It might be less expensive just to have the meter removed in October and replaced next May, if there is even a SACG next May.   But, I hadn’t realized that we were looking at a freeze warning which could cause the water lines to burst when I told them not to worry about us this year.

Simon and his two set of twin daughters came to clean out his plot of their summer crops and to otherwise distract the OSU students and my CS volunteers.  


I cleaned out my 16 tomato plants, cages and trellises and harvested more of Charlie’s tomatoes and ran around answering questions.  Amy came and cleaned up two sections of the strawberry patch and pruned the remaining asters that I had started on last week.  After everyone left, I gathered up all of the tools which the OSU students left lying around the Garden and took our 41 pounds of fresh produce to Faith Mission downtown.

Next week, some of the Capital University students are   

returning after they got rained out on their volunteer day in September.