"This has worked out really well and it's great to learn from the other gardeners," said Sheetz, a Culinary Institute of America graduate with solid restaurant credentials. As Sheetz commiserated about tomato blight and an influx of pesky beetles, gardener Euthia Benson, who grew up in the Deep South, told a story about how her mother taught her to grow tasty okra when she was a young girl.
"If her okra plants weren't producing well, she'd show me how to come along with a switch," Benson explained, pantomiming a tap-tap-tap on the plant's stalks with a slender stick. "She'd hit the okra and talk to the plants. I swear they grew bigger." If you want to hear human tales and discover the essence of "The Story of Albany," spend some time between verdant rows of cabbage and cucumbers, collard greens and carrots, strawberries and Swiss chard. Or, as we did, you can loan a few digital cameras to staffers with Capital District Community Gardens and encourage them to document the vitality and love evident in the faces of the people who tend the 46 community gardens across Albany, Schenectady and Rensselaer counties. Community
gardens are an urban oasis, a window that opens onto a cultural
melting pot. All that's required is a bit of labor and a yearly
donation of $20.Here, you'll find Jamaicans raising callaloo, a leafy green vegetable used in Caribbean stews and soups. Burmese refugees who managed to escape their embattled homeland with a pocketful of seeds coax vegetables nobody has seen before from the soil. Gardeners from India grow varieties of beans as long as the span of one's arms. In these inner-city acres, rich and poor, white and black, young and old and people spanning the social, economic and ethnic spectrum mingle and create a community that is something of a surrogate family. Over the years, the community gardens have been the site of weddings, at least one funeral and fertile ground that has spawned countless romances and lifelong friendships.
The experiment started in Troy in 1975 with Dean Leith, who joined Garden Way executives and a loan of Troy-Bilt rototillers to give urban dwellers the tools and land necessary to grow vegetables. In the late 1970s, Mayor Erastus Corning 2nd heard of the gardens in Troy and imported the idea to Albany. Schenectady joined in, too.
About 3,000 gardeners currently participate, some of whom have
tended their plots for decades. As a response to tainted food scares
and the economic recession, the number of new applicants doubled
this year and a usual 500-square-foot plot had to be trimmed in half
for newcomers to meet the demand. "What's so great about community gardens is that you get people mingling with each other who'd never meet otherwise," Klein said. "We've got lawyers pulling weeds alongside laborers and immigrants. They help each other and form an amazing community. They become families, in essence."
For gardener Jay Browne, a 2008 Albany Law School graduate, his plot in the Sand Street community garden was a welcome diversion from studying for the bar exam. "The garden was my reprieve after studying for eight hours," said Browne, who had minimal gardening experience and yet managed a good crop of potatoes, squash, carrots, beets, kale, Swiss chard and strawberries. "There's nothing like giving what I've grown to friends," Browne said. Margaret Diggs has been gardening at the 3rd Street community garden in Arbor Hill for 25 years. This year, fingers crossed, she's growing Hand melons for the first time. She's also been enjoying harvests of her usual crops: collard greens, broccoli, onions, carrots, cucumbers, Swiss chard and tomatoes (she escaped the blight). "Coming to the garden is my respite," Diggs said. "I meet people. I refresh myself." In the heart of the inner city, Diggs also invites tough young thugs, who fly the colors of gang-bangers, to sample summer's bounty. "They'll walk by and I'll ask if they want to try something," Diggs said. "It breaks them down a little, smooths some of those hard edges. Gardening softens people." Paul Grondahl can be reached at 454-5623 or by e-mail at pgrondahl@timesunion.com. Tell your story Go to http://timesunion.com/storyofalbany and click on the Story of Albany links to share your stories and photos. On the Web
To view a video about community gardeners, go to
http://timesunion.com/
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"What
happens in a community garden is very special," said executive
director Amy Klein.
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