The Eggplants are Languishing

The Norwood Community Garden has been in full swing since early June. It is where 72 different households come together to plant, chat, learn, teach and grow. Those households have roots in many other parts of the world…Bulgaria, Portugal, Italy, India and Ireland, to name a few.
Each household gardens on an 8x16 foot section of former pasture land, in the conservation area of Endean Park. Some of the gardeners are old hands while others have never used a trowel. And while there are these two wide gaps of knowledge, all come together in relative harmony and a desire to grow food, pass on their knowledge to their children or to others in the garden.
Gardening as a community is not always easy. Since it’s on conservation land, our garden must be totally organic. In addition, we cannot kill, trap or move critters that may have invaded our space. One of our biggest challenges is the proliferation of weeds, especially in the aisles between plots and along the perimeter of the garden.
Some of the gardeners have not yet accepted that many of the problems we have with insects and disease are due in large measure to how we keep house. It is a matter of education and requires constant reminders by Garden Manager, Susan Clare, her advisory committee, section coordinators and leaders.
Clare credits four Norwood Evening Garden Club members, each of whom are also master gardeners, with helping to identify problems and offering solutions to those problems. “Whether it’s an egg sac, a bug, or some type of blight, these master gardeners are an immeasurable help at the garden,” Clare said. “Six years ago when I started this garden I knew nothing about gardening … only that we needed one. The master gardeners were very kind and most generous in sharing their knowledge and skills.”
Many gardeners have maintained plots from the beginning. Charter member Byron Wyche originally gardened on two plots but had to give back the extra when demand for the plots exploded. Wyche grew up in a rural farming area and has been gardening for over 30 years. This year he is growing purple top turnips, okra, potatoes, kale, peas, eggplant, spinach and tomatoes.
Wyche said, “It’s a bad year for me. On the plus side, the potatoes are doing well and the peas were good, but I have a bumper crop of weeds because of the rain. We were also late planting because of the early cold snap. So, I can’t really brag about much this year. The eggplants are puny and the spinach bolted … I didn’t monitor it well.” One thing he no longer grows at the garden is squash because he was frustrated by the squash vine borer.
Vivien Bouffard is also a charter member and one of the master gardeners on which Susan Clare heaps praise. Bouffard has been gardening for nearly 30 years and grows everything from seed. This year she is growing an unusual tomato that has a “wilty-leaf” gene. “The foliage looks sort of wilty all the time, but its really doing fine,” she says.
Her assessment of her garden this year? “The lettuce was fantastic for months because of the moisture and mostly cool temperatures; the peas were productive, too. I just pulled up the rusty vines yesterday. Everything in the cabbage family that I planted early got eaten immediately. I have been getting some zucchini, but other squash vines have already succumbed to borers and they'll be pulled next. The cucumbers and peppers are just so-so.”
What about insect pests? “Pests were a bit slower out of the gate this year because the plants were less stressed by lack of moisture. Except for the flea beetles, that is, which were terrible early on.”
Section Coordinator Susie O’Donnell says her husband and kids help to maintain her plot. “We all enjoy the season of gardening, learning different gardening techniques and meeting new friends. My plot is doing very well this year with a consistent amount of zucchini and summer squash coming in. There are so many different recipes that use zucchini … my favorite is zucchini bread!”
“This is the first year that my cucumbers have done extremely well. Every year I like to try to plant something new. This year, I planted onions which have done just okay. As we all know, every year of gardening is a bit different. Right now I have a few green tomatoes, but over the next week when they are ripe, it will be nice to be able to share them with the food pantry.”
Seamus Johnston grew up on a farm in Ireland. This is his third year in the garden. He skillfully grows quite a lot in his small plot including spectacularly sized onions and cabbage, peas, strawberries, tomatoes, Brussels sprouts, rhubarb, and for the first time this year, eggplant. He is generous with his knowledge and shares his bountiful harvests. He sometimes finds the community aspect of gardening difficult. He is a perfectionist and is frustrated by people who don’t take proper care of their plots and who let weeds build up. “It’s not fair to everyone else,” he says. Seamus believes the secret to his success is that he visits the garden and waters his plants every day. Checking one’s garden every day is the best way to stay on top of problems as they occur.
This is also the third year for master gardener, Sheela Venkatesh. Except for her eggplants, the rest of her crops are doing well. She is growing peas, beans, onions, tomatoes, Swiss chard, amaranth, lettuce, radishes and, for the first time, potatoes and acorn squash. Like everyone else in the garden, she is battling flea beetles on her eggplant. She is using Diatomaceous Earth and horticultural oil sprays on her crops and experimenting with using vinegar to control poison ivy.
Dympna O’Carroll is a newbie. Even though it’s her first year at the community garden, she agreed to be a section leader. For her plot, she says, “I decided to start small. I planted some tomato starts that were generously donated by you. [I grew way too many tomato plants and offered them to members of the garden club and community garden]. I also planted pumpkin, carrots, beets, red onions, basil, sage, strawberries, rhubarb and, a generous fellow gardener gave me some of his seed potatoes and a detailed lesson in how to plant, care for and harvest them! Before my father passed away in May (in Ireland) I told him that I had planted potatoes and that he should be very proud of me...!!!”
“My husband and children often come to the garden with me; they enjoy watching everything grow. We discovered squash bugs on our pumpkin and began to clip the vines; however, the problem was worse than we originally thought, so we harvested our huge pumpkin a little earlier than we had planned. We will wait a few more weeks before we pop it on our front steps for Fall.”
O’Carroll says, “I have learned so much this summer … how therapeutic gardening is, how generous nature is and, most importantly, how wonderful people in this little community are! There are so many people who are generous with their time and advice, that it has made it a lot less daunting than I originally thought it would be!”
Whether growing okra, gongura, fenugreek, amaranth, Swiss chard or the ubiquitous tomato, the Community Garden is a place where vegetables from many cultures are sown and reaped, where charity and generosity abound, and people of many cultures work and socialize in harmony.
Donna Lane is a Master Gardener, founding member of the Norwood Evening Garden Club, Norwood-based writer, lecturer and designer who shares a plot at the Community Garden. You can reach her at addictedgardener@verizon.net.