2019 youth garden?

Jack Deatherage

(2/2019) Seed catalogs began turning up in our PO box in November 2018. A not too subtle reminder that I've yet to establish a garden suitable for families with children that might be interested in growing flowers and edibles while possibly learning something about the sciences gardening encompasses. If the garden were to go in the direction I envision the youngsters would also set up and operate a market stand for the vegetation they grow- hopefully gaining some understanding of entrepreneurship.

The market stand could be expanded to fill the holes the closing of Willow Pond Farm and Hacienda Shiloh have left in the local culinary and medicinal economies. As usual, my vision outpaces reality.

Slow coach that I am, I've been a few years trying to acquire ground for a youth garden within a comfortable walk of the town square. At Commissioner Buckman's suggestion a plan was written and sent to the Sister in charge of the old Seton Center. Sister allowed the idea was a good one, but the old Center location was being returned to cropland as soon as the new Center was built and opened. She suggested I work with the town. After months of studying satellite photos of Emmitsburg and its surrounds I settled on the Scott Road farm- which the town owns- as the second best place for a youth garden.

I'd tramped about that farm decades ago and thought it could be used not only for a garden adventure, but as a working farm offering opportunities for town kids to learn about animal husbandry, butchering and food preservation. (The vision was expanding exponentially to encompass beekeeping for pollinating a orchard while supplying honey and wax for mead and candle making, chickens for eggs and meat, heirloom sheep, swine and- Hell. What happened to my garden?) I wrote a second proposal and presented it to the town commissioners who asked the town staff to consider the plan.

As I understand the situation the farm was a gift to the town with a number of conservation leases and easements in place. With leases delaying any chance of a garden before I'm too old to care, let alone to farm, I withdrew my proposal and went to look at a nearer piece of town property Commissioner O'Donnell suggested. After talking to the farmers willing to help me get a garden going- they recommended the town put in drain tiles and use the ground for any community project other than gardening.

Having sat through a number of town meetings I've finally gained some small understanding of why the commissioners began suggesting I work with a private landowner in my efforts to establish a garden the local citizens could care for and profit from. The amount of bureaucratic paper shuffling and consulting time with a lawyer over the legal aspects and liability for the town is ridiculous considering I don't have a single family ready to join the garden adventure.

"Gather as many people willing to support you as you can." I was told by more than one commissioner. "We like your idea and hope you succeed. But you stand a better chance acquiring ground for the garden if you have a group ready to create it when you approach either private or public landowners."

With those words of encouragement I went back to the satellite photos and eventually settled on a bit of ground a causal walk from the square. I wrote another proposal and sent it along to the property owner, certain that I'd once more picked the wrong spot. A few days later I found this waiting in my email account:

"Hi Jack, The land is for sale. But I think that we could lend to you to give gardening a try. Give me a shout back next spring."

Oops. I's caught unprepared for that! The scramble to find families interested in gardening, or buying produce from the garden begins. I turn to the tattooer, my mentor in learning to deal with people. "What do I do now?"

"First, put your ego aside and decide what it is you want to accomplish." He suggests. "If you're doing this for altruistic reasons, and I believe you are, then you have to understand your vision isn't necessarily what will end up driving this venture. You will be the one to get the garden started because no one else has the time to do that, but you won't be able to control how it evolves once other people join the project. Can you get past that?"

I allow proposing a plan and seeing it begun are my goals- I'm 64 years old and don't much care when I begin the next turn of The Wheel. If the garden ends up needing someone better able to deal with organizing people than I, I'll happily get out of the way.

"Start a Facebook group." The tattooer advises. "The young people you want to introduce to market gardening won't see it- they're using other social media platforms you're not interested in. But their parents will see the group, and they'll be the ones who bring the kids to the garden.

"Talk to the librarians you're always bothering. Maybe they know which families would be interested in a youth garden. See if they'll pass your idea along. Go home and write an ENJ column explaining what you want to do. Get out of my shop and go do something!"

"Oh," He adds. "Once you've a Facebook group set up I'll promote it to my clients. I don't think you realize how many people here are looking for something like this garden to get their children involved in. And don't doubt that people will step up and support the garden with their money when vegetables become available for sale. I'll be your first customer."

So I creak, crackle and pop home to create the Facebook group- Emmitsburg Youth Garden, though I don't invite people to join it because the season of holy days is upon the area and people aren't generally thinking of gardening as winter finally begins to act a bit like winter. And, I honestly think I and the DW should begin building the garden by ourselves the first year, though a neighboring family tells me they'll show up to help if we acquire the ground to garden on. Setting ego aside, I'll take their help.

The DW sighs, knowing money we can't afford to spend on the garden will be spent and her labor will be required to build the first rows. "Try to keep the cost under $200."

"Yes, dea-" I hesitate as I see her face redden and her evil eye begins to jump. Balor longs to make a smoldering cinder of me. Evidently now is not the time for my sarcasm.

"I've got this gardening method to a bare minimum now. I can stay under $200."

The red fades, my life is temporarily given back. Will I ever learn?