Walking with their bicycles alongside them, Peter Krsko and University graduate student David Pearlman bobbed down Suydam Street in New Brunswick in the early afternoon sunshine, putting their soles to the sidewalk with each step. The two had tossed their shoes aside at the start of the journey, which began at Peter's house on Duke Street.
Krsko and Pearlman were touring the community gardens, a network of public and private gardens people living in the city work together to turn over the dirt, seed, plant and harvest.
Four years ago, a large community garden was thriving where the Hope IV project currently sits, Krsko said. When the New Brunswick Development Corporation set its sights on the land, it was purchased and the garden was uprooted to make way for the low-income housing project.
In the past three years, city residents have been opening up their backyards to have community members come and garden a patch of their land.
Gardeners gather each Wednesday from 6-7:30pm at the publicly owned Suydam Street Community Garden, the largest of the gardens, to have a garden work party.
Thirty to 40 people garden at various locations each week. Some will come every week to tend to their own patch of dirt, and others come just once or twice and help by weeding or watering. The gardeners welcome any kind of participation. "People can come anytime they want," Krsko said. "It's where neighbors meet neighbors."
"Most of the work involved in the season is planting and harvesting," Pearlman said. Since seeds have just begun to be sewn, the bulk of the help is needed now.
The two agreed it's not hard to find people to join in gardening, unlike other clubs or events that may be politically charged or have a political undertone.
"People want to garden. It's not a political thing," Pearlman said. Once people know about the community gardens, they are eager to join in.
Krsko's garden behind his house at 3 Duke St. is home to a few gardeners but is really just his own place to plant and grow.
That day, his garden had given birth to the first asparagus of the season. The somewhat urban landscape of New Brunswick still allows for residents to plant a wide range of vegetation, he said. Lettuce, radishes, broccoli and cauliflower can all grow in city backyards and front lawns.
From Duke Street, they walked deeper into New Brunswick down Louis Street to the next garden. They stopped in a backyard behind Steve and Kathy's house. The couple owns a large community garden in East Brunswick called The Land, which attracts a large number of gardeners.
Pearlman said he goes there when he can but it's hard to access without a car.
As they left the Louis Street garden, Krsko said most of the gardens are outside of the 5th and 6th wards, where the residents are "people who are more in and out. ... They don't want to start gardens."
"Landlords don't want it on their property. To them, it's just commercial land."
On their way to the Suydam Street Community Garden, the largest plot of land for city gardeners, Krsko saw a man bent over weeding on the other side of the street by the sidewalk and called his name. The two boys crossed the street to meet him.
Knelt down on one knee, Morris Kafka looked up to greet the passers-by. He was plucking broken glass from the soil.
Kafka, who resides on Suydam Street, has lived in New Brunswick for 20 years and has been a part of many community initiatives over the years, including a push to get trees planted along his own street.
Years ago, an abandoned house sat in the lot of 220 Suydam Street, he said. When the eyesore was finally demolished, he and the Community Health and Environment Coalition of New Brunswick went to the City Council meeting and requested the space be used for a community garden. "It seemed like the perfect solution because the lot was so small" and would not be well-suited for another house, Kafka said.
The City Council agreed to lease the land to the commission for a dollar. The city also committed to insuring the land, just like it would a public park. If the commission had needed to find the money to insure the land, it "would have been a major hurdle," Kafka said.
They are now starting their fourth season gardening on Suydam Street.
After parting with Kafka, the pair continued walking. Pearlman pointed to some homes along Suydam Street that had old bathtubs on the lawn serving as a flowerbed.
"Bathtubs have perfect drainage, " Pearlman said with a laugh.
Finally, they came upon the garden. Like grass that sprouts up between cracks in the sidewalk, the Suydam Street Community Garden is an unexpected bit of nature thriving on a narrow lot between two standard New Brunswick homes.
Though it appeared to be just a few mounds of dirt, most of it had just been turned, but some had already been sown. Pearlman leaned down to tug a piece of asparagus from the ground. He brushed it off and gnawed into the stringy vegetable.
Soon the garden will be filled with strawberries and perennials, Krsko said.
Three waist-high containers filled with water crowded the corner of the plot. They are filled regularly by the fire department, Krsko said, because the garden does not have a water source. The city also contributes soil and wood chips. Most of the seeds are donated.
While the soil at the Suydam Street Community Garden is good for planting fruits and vegetables for consumption, some backyards in the city are filled with soil contaminated with lead.
Krsko and the other gardeners realized this was a problem in New Brunswick when the New Jersey Urban Ecology Program was testing the soil at a community garden on Commercial Avenue.
Lead-based paints and lead in some bricks chip and contaminate soil, Krsko said.
"We have to figure out how to take the soil out and clean it efficiently," he said.
In order to determine if the soil is suitable for growing food for consumption, soil can be tested at Cook College for $10, Krsko said.
Once soil is tested, he said, "a small piece of land is all that you need. ... You just plant the seeds and let them grow."
Krsko said planting can start "as soon as you can work the soil" in the spring season.
After swinging past a private community garden in the backyard at 154 Commercial Ave. for a wheelbarrow and window box, the travelers went down the street to the Paul Robeson Community School.
They also picked up University graduate student Kristen Gilmore, who joined them to check out the newest of the gardens.
Pearlman and others successfully lobbied the city to provide Robeson students gardening space in Feaster Park, which is adjacent to the school. The garden was opened in March as a part of Health Harvests - a year-long garden-school education project that emphasizes nutrition and exercise.
On behalf of the New Brunswick Second Ward Neighborhood Block Club, the owner of the Commercial Avenue Community Garden, Wil Barker and CHEC-NB board member, Dr. Anne Bellows, raised $2,260 to support Healthy Harvests. These funds came from a mini-grant program sponsored by the Healthier New Brunswick 2010 Initiative and New Brunswick Tomorrow.
Bellows, a research associate in Rutgers Department of Nutritional Sciences and a member of the New Jersey Ecology Program, said students in classes at the Lord Sterling School and Roosevelt Elementary School and an after-school program at the Paul Robeson School participate in Healthy Harvests. Lord Sterling and Roosevelt students garden in the Suydam Street Community Garden.
Pearlman has volunteered to work with the school children at Robeson School every Monday since March to tend to the garden. "I want to start something here the school can take ownership of ... and then move on and start something else."
Although the garden is small now, nestled right next to the basketball court, they hope to extend it all the way to the corner of the property as interest grows and student volunteers increase in numbers.
Gilmore bent down to touch a seedling that had just poked its head out of the dirt. "Radishes - they're my favorite seedling because of the shape," she said.
Other vegetation was coming up around the radish, but they, like the community gardens of the city, were just beginning to grow.
**The article above was modified from its original version to reflect facts that came to light after publication.**
Be the first to comment on this article!