caption, page 1:
At the Rugged Beginning
Volunteers at the forlorn TEEG Community Garden in May --- back when they started from scratch. More photos on page 4. Expanded photo array on Wed. night on our FB page: Putnam Town Crier & Northeast Ledger. Linda Lemmon photo.
captions, page 4, top to bottom:
Dedicated volunteers. Photo by Anne Miller.
Old fencing
This is what the TEEG Community Garden looked like in March. Photo by Josh Marohn.
Harvesting last week were, from left: Joshua Marohn, Eric Levesque, Jordyn Butler and Carl Asikainen. Linda Lemmon photo.
The shed a couple months ago. Gorgeous transformation on page 1. Photos by Josh Marohn.
Putting a community garden back on its feet
By Linda Lemmon
Town Crier Editor
TEEG, how does your garden grow?
With a wheelbarrow full of volunteers and donations.
The Community Garden at TEEG had languished for years. First it fell victim to vandalism and then to varmints – especially the neighborhood groundhogs.
Among the volunteers who rescued the garden was the Putnam Rotary Club’s Interact Club. Restoring the garden was on the group’s short list. First the club was awarded a $1,000 Rotary District Grant this past spring, which it gave to TEEG. Last year’s Interact co-presidents, Eric Levesque and Jordyn Butler, also spearheaded a $385 donation from Thompson Pride based at their school, Tourtellotte Memorial High School.
The $1,000 was earmarked for the most serious need: A fence. Last week, according to incoming TEEG Executive Director Carl Asikainen, bankHometown donated $8,000 toward the fence. Asikainen said $4,000 would be coming this year and the balance would come next year. He told volunteers last week that TEEG had enough money on hand to allow the fence to be installed this year (probably this fall) and it would reimburse itself when bankHometown’s next $4,000 comes next year.
“It’s exciting. It’s quite an investment,” he said.
He said the fence is from Alliance Fence in Brooklyn. It is 180 feet of black chain link with fabric over it and it will have an 8-foot door.
Volunteers did yeoman’s work earlier this summer, digging a trench 1 ½ to 2 feet around the perimeter of the garden. “The fence will be buried 2 feet below to prevent our groundhogs and other opportunists from nature from getting in,” Asikainen said. It will be angled outward to stop tunneling varmints.
In the meantime, for this season, volunteers removed the old, ineffective fence and put up a cattle panel and plastic fence. So far it has worked. There’s about a dozen raised beds and some arbors for climbing plants. In addition, outside the garden are large stock tanks for the overflow.
The garden serves so many purposes, according to retiring TEEG Executive Director Anne Miller. It provides a place for clients to experience gardening. The fruits of their labor stock TEEG’s Community Market and the flowers are sold.
The volunteer list is impressive. In addition to Interact Club members, Butler and Levesque recruited students from Tourtellotte to work in the garden. Interact Club advisor Woody Durst rototilled and did other chores. TEEG staff members, of course, were involved. Help from the Quiet Corner Garden Club was invaluable. Experts from that club advised on everything from soil tests and drip irrigation to setting up garden chore lists and schedules. They created a rundown on each plant’s requirements. They also donated seedlings at the beginning of the season.
Volunteers who went to the garden last week were all “stunned at how much the vegetables grew” since their last visit.
Levesque said the season is already winding down in the garden. “We’re already discussing fall chores,” he said.
When she received the $1,000 donation from the Interact Club in the spring, Miller, said, “With you guys involved, it feels like it will really get done this time.”
And so it has!
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