It is six o’clock on a Tuesday evening, the summer sun still strong. Raphael Notin, chair of Rhinebeck’s first community garden, is standing dead center of 28 garden plots. For all the enthusiasm and verve he has exhibited in the past 90 days to get this garden off—or, rather, in—the ground, he looks as if he has just been punched in the stomach.
“Well, it’s a good start,” he says.
He has just had a peek at what may be “late blight,” a highly contagious form of fungus. And it was on his tomato plant. His wife, Kim, co-leader of the garden, is quietly pruning, tending the Cherokee Purple tomatoes in their garden, before bringing Raphael over for another reason to fret: A huge caterpillar, the kind that some cultures eat for dinner, is attached to one of the tomato vines. They stare at it.
A neighboring gardener says, “Here, let me get it off for you—I have gloves,” and he peels the creature off before throwing it into the adjoining field.
And that is pretty much what this garden is about.
Every stakeholder in this small community garden knows a lot about caring, and lending a helping hand. People know who is who, which plots they tend, and what their communal job functions are. And this comes in handy, especially in getting advice from fellow gardener Chris Quimby, who volunteers with the Cornell Cooperative Extension. He tells the Notins that what they thought was the devastating “late blight” on their tomato plant appears to be classic “black spot.” (Although later in the summer, the garden’s tomatoes did succumb to late blight.)
And if you stand long enough on any given day or evening in this peaceful enclave, listening to the sounds—children playing in the recreational park’s pool across the parking lot, the chirping of crickets in the surrounding field, a shovel digging the earth—you will eventually be greeted with a smile from one of the gardeners and an offer of a green bean, a radish, a cherry tomato. The air seems to encourage good will.
Transformation
“If you could have seen this place a month and a half ago,” says Alexi Stokas, who is helping his daughter, Ariana, tend her garden, “you wouldn’t believe it.” The land, a little over half an acre located in the Thomas Thompson-Sally Mazzarella Park near Starr Library, had been farmed as a corn field for 50 years until receiving approval in March for a community garden, part of the town’s master plan. Flanked by tall native plants on three sides, the spectacle is stunning.
The garden plots, each 15 by 20 feet, are as varied as the gardeners themselves. A hanging, woven planter with squash on each of three tiers stands in the corner of the Notin’s garden, peppers, melons, and mesculun grow in neat rows, and a wooden bench sits in the back. A plastic marker reading “Plant a row for the hungry” emerges from the soil amongst the tomatoes, cucumbers, and zucchini in the portion of the gardens that Chris Quimby oversees to provide food for the Red Hook Food Pantry. Chiropractor Denice Munier-Martin’s garden is resplendent with beans, corn, and basil as wells flowers, bursting with peonies and the dahlias and zinnias she entered for judging in the Dutchess County Fair. Children from the town’s day camp have hand-painted rocks around the perimeter of their flower and vegetable gardens.
And then there are the gardens of Patricia Hammar and Lori Doty, the envy of all. With trellises, a white picket fence, and a little umbrella attached to a beach chair on Hammar’s plot, there is nary a weed to be found. And the kale! And the peppers! “Patricia told me that she’s on her second planting,” says Alexi Stokas. “I don’t want to hear that,” he smiles. He walks away with two radishes and two beans from his daughter’s garden.
Adversity and Diversity
This summer was a difficult growing season. The late blight, similar to the one that caused the Irish potato famine, destroyed tomato plants in nearly every state in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic. June and July brought record rainfall. Despite this, or perhaps in defiance of it, this little piece of land is thriving through hard work and optimism.
As for the rain, “I didn’t have to water for two months,” says gardener Evan Quimby. And that was a good thing. Garden treasurer Larry Miller, a freelance educator and librarian, notes, “If we had the garden where it was originally going to be planted [down a hill], it would’ve been rice paddies.”
“It can’t fail,” Alexi Stokas says of the community garden. “Every gardener helps each other.” He says something in Spanish to a Latino woman who is retrieving water from the 275-gallon water tank in the garden’s back corner, and she smiles with a Spanish reply.
One of the most resounding comments on this community garden reflects the noted diversity of the gardeners themselves. In a town where over 90 percent of the population is white, one quarter of the Rhinebeck Community Garden’s members are Latino—a result of outreach of gardeners Judy Schneyer, whose son was born in Guatemala, and Evan Quimby, a retired Spanish teacher, who translates along with Ariana. Longtime Rhinebeckians mix with those newer to the area; families mingle with older couples and friends, children interact with adults.
“I’ve met so many people that I didn’t know,” says Hammar, a Rhinebeck resident for 35 years and a recently retired occupational therapist. She is one of the garden’s most ardent contributors, keeping all records as garden secretary/historian. “I don‘t think I would have met them otherwise,” she says, noting the span of three generations. “It was just such a find for me, starting a new point in my life.” She recalls connecting with Latina women in the garden plot near hers through nonverbal communication. “I couldn’t understand them. I was just welcoming them, and everybody was happy. I gave them some of my plants. We were gesturing. There was a language barrier,” she says, “but not a friendship barrier.”
Seed and Speed
Town board approval for the community garden came on March 23, and Notin was appointed chair on April 13. Planting season was already upon them. “There was an urgency to get plots divided and put plants in,” says Notin, a native of France and stewardship manager of Winnakee Land Trust. “It was created so quickly, it almost started backwards. That sense of rushing into it—it was exciting, it had momentum.”
Knowing nothing about community gardening, but fostering a deep concern for the land and community, Notin says, “The first thing I did was to Google ‘Community Gardens.’ I came up with the American Association for Community Gardens, a great site, that outlined guidelines and a gardener’s contract.”
Without benefit of a local home-delivered paper to announce the news (the Gazette Advertiser had folded just months before), seven people showed up at the first Rhinebeck Community Garden on April 28, most hearing about it through flyers around town.
“I remember that first meeting,” says Miller. “Raphael had us brainstorming a list that Kim was writing on the board. The list kept getting longer and longer. I finally said, ‘Enough already, let’s just do it,’ and Kim wrote on top, in big letters, ‘Just Do It!’”
Ten days later, the garden plots were in place. By July, all the plots were assigned at $25 each; seven were given to low-income families.
Roots
Community gardens rely on donations and volunteerism, and Rhinebeckians have been major contributors with a generous heart and practical help on many levels.
Once the site of the garden was determined with town officials, Raphael Notin sought the advice of Bernie Scholldorf, the man who had farmed that land and who still farms in the southerly field. “He was key in getting this started,” says Notin. “I talked to him, and expected to pay him to plow.” Instead, Scholldorf immediately showed up and expertly plowed the garden property at no charge. The fencing material for the garden perimeter was partially funded by Rhinebeck’s Conservation Advisory Council member Lisa Camp, who was eager to get this started. The posts were cut by garden volunteers from locust trees donated by Wilderstein historic site in Rhinebeck (mutually beneficial, according to Meg Crawford, the landscaper at Wilderstein, as locust trees are an invasive species). Members of Daytop community, a substance abuse residential treatment center with locations in Rhinebeck, helped garden volunteers to dig and place the posts.
Advice was offered by local gardeners on implementing a community garden, stores gave discounts or donated goods, the town supplied the initial water tank and wood chips, truckloads of compost were given by a farm and by community members, and the gardeners themselves built the garden, donating supplies and funding. “This is what’s great about the project,” says Notin. “At the critical moment, everyone has something to give.”
The gardeners worked together, contributing to and caring for the three communal plots that Chris Quimby established for the Grow a Row initiative, linking healthy food distribution to needy families. Maintaining the gardeners’ green philosophy, Quimby personally purchased the huge recycled water tank, which was once used to transport molasses to a horse farm.
By May, a handcrafted sign by artist and gardener Cynthia Linden Carlaw, “Rhinebeck Community Garden,” was welcoming gardeners and visitors (“For a Good Thyme,” written on its reverse). Sunflowers and a potpourri of tall flowers were planted by the gardeners at its base. Kim Notin recalls making the wood-chipped garden path. “We were working side-by-side, all women,” she recalled. “Raphael was working in the garden, glancing over every now and then, and I gave him a look—‘Don’t even think of telling us how to do this.’”
Perennial
Those involved in the garden envision continued growth and success: a possible expansion to the north or east, perhaps building raised beds to ease access for older gardeners, a gazebo/pergola and benches in the central plaza for shade, a full water line, upgraded fencing, and a shed that will probably be built by garden volunteers. As education leader at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, Kim Notin is hoping to use the garden as a teaching tool as well.
What lies beneath the vibrancy of this garden can be felt by the gardeners who have come together in working and growing. At a monthly potluck dinner in the adjoining park, garden members laugh and share stories while sitting at a table laden with tamales, hummus, strawberry bread, and of course, plenty of homegrown salad.
A few nights later, Peter Morfea is tending his plot after work with his four-year-old son, Rocco. As the sun sets and Morfea prepares to leave, Rocco begins carrying on about staying longer at the garden. It becomes clear what Rocco wants to do: sit on his father’s lap, in the beach chair in Patricia Hammar’s garden plot, and watch the stars come out.
And they do.
RESOURCES
GROW A ROW
A local campaign encouraging gardeners to donate fresh vegetables and
fruit to the hungry.
www.gwaa.org
For more information about the local “Grow a Row” in Dutchess county, please contact Mallory Jackson at Cornell Cooperative Extension Dutchess County 845-677-8223 ext 149.
AMERICAN COMMUNITY GARDENING ASSOCIATION
The ACGA is an organization of professionals, volunteers and supporters of community greening in urban and rural communities.
www.communitygarden.org
RHINEBECK CONSERVATION ADVISORY COUNCIL
The CAC examines and recommends measures to improve and protect Rhinebeck’s natural environment. It reviews applications before the Planning Board and makes recommendations on environmentally sensitive
aspects of those applications. It operates in an advisory role only.
http://www.rhinebeck-ny.gov/committees/town-conservation-advisory-council-cac
WINNAKEE LAND TRUST
Winnakee Land Trust The mission of the Winnakee Land Trust is to protect and preserve the natural agricultural, recreational, architectural, cultural, scenic, historical, and open space resources of northern
Dutchess County.
www.winnakeeland.org
This article appears in September 2009.
