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Gardening boom extends to city plots
Sunday, May 24, 2009
By Sara Foss (Contact) Gazette Reporter
 Photographer:
Barry Sloan
Photo of: Cauliflower and rhubarb are seen planted in the
community garden at Cutler Avenue and Sixth Street in Schenectady
Friday afternoon.
CAPITAL
REGION — Michelle and Kyle Ardolino live in a condominium. They
don’t have any land. Last year they grew tomatoes on their deck in
pots, but this year they wanted to have a real garden.
So they
contacted Capital District Community Gardens, a nonprofit
organization that manages 46 neighborhood gardens in Rensselaer,
Albany and Schenectady counties. Because of increased demand, the
organization could offer them only a half plot. But the Rotterdam
couple happily took it.
At the
time, the Ardolinos had virtually no gardening experience.
“I didn’t
know anything,” said Michelle Ardolino, 30, an attorney.
But with a
little bit of research — “we’re big Googlers” — and assistance from
Capital District Community Gardens, the Ardolinos have planted a
wide array of vegetables, including three different kinds of
lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, eggplants and peppers, in their plot in
the community garden at Craig and Wyllie streets in Schenectady. At
first, the half plot, at 150 square feet, seemed “huge,” Michelle
Ardolino said. But “now we could use a bigger plot. We bought too
many seeds.” She said she hopes she and her husband will get a full
plot next year. Gardening is on the rise.
Experts
say the surge in interest can be attributed to several factors: the
burgeoning local foods movement, the downturn in the economy and
increased concern about food safety. They say that the trend began
last year but has intensified in 2009. According to the South
Burlington, Vt.-based National Gardening Association, 7 million more
households plan to grow herbs, berries, fruits or vegetables this
year, a 19 percent jump. In 2008, the number of households with
gardens increased 10 percent.
Urban
gardening, in particular, is on the rise.
“It’s
skyrocketed,” said Amy Klein, executive director of Capital District
Community Gardens. “It’s off the charts.” 300 new gardeners
Typically,
the organization sees 100 new gardeners each year; this year, that
number tripled, to 300. In order to accommodate the influx of new
people, the organization decided to give new gardeners such as the
Ardolinos half plots, while returning gardeners — CDCG has an 85
percent retention rate — got whole plots.
Klein said
initially she worried that people would be unhappy with the half
plots, but it’s worked out well. “Most of the new people we’re
seeing are new in every sense of the word,” she said. “A half plot
is much more manageable.” She said the organization has also ramped
up its education programming.
Last
year’s gardening boom caught local garden centers by surprise, and
many ran out of vegetable plants in May, said Chris Logue, executive
director of Cornell Cooperative Extension of Schenectady County. But
this year, garden centers are better prepared. “A lot more vegetable
plants were produced,” he said.
“People
are looking for inexpensive things they can do close to home,” said
Logue. “They think they can save money producing their own
vegetables.” He said one of the things he’s learned is that new
gardeners “have to be successful the first time around, or they’ll
never do it again.”
Cornell
Cooperative Extension has started teaching gardening skills in its
nutrition courses, which are geared toward low-income residents,
Logue said. “Farming, gardening and nutrition go together,” he said.
Ned
Chapman, owner of Sunnyside Gardens in Saratoga Springs, said the
store’s customer count is up about 10 percent, but people are
spending less money than in years past. He said that higher-end
items — such as water fountains — are not selling, but sales of
“materials that customers can take home and plant themselves” are
up. “It makes sense,” he said. “People probably have a little less
disposable income to spend.”
Chapman
said he’s noticed a number of new vegetable gardeners. Sometimes, he
said, they have big expectations. “They want to buy two or three
flats of tomato plants,” he said. “I say, ‘Why don’t you start with
a six-pack?’ ”
Bruce
Butterfield, market research director at the National Gardening
Association, said he’s seen similar increases in gardening during
past recessions. The one thing that’s different this time around, he
said, is the number of young mothers with children who are
gardening. In the past, “we have not seen 18- to 34-year-olds step
up to the plate,” he said. “I’m surprised and delighted. There is a
future.”
Gardening
has long been popular with the baby boomers, but not the younger
generations, Butterfield said. “It’s almost as if the baby boomers
got the message,” he said. “But what happens with the children of
the baby boomers? I used to say, ‘If these people don’t start
gardening, we’re going to fall off a cliff.’ ” Warning about lead
Gardeners
in urban areas should make sure they test the soil for lead
contamination, experts said.
“Lead
contamination is a major issue,” said Albany resident Scott Kellogg,
who co-authored the “Toolbox for Sustainable City Living.” “It’s so
prevalent, and it doesn’t ever go away.” He said people can either
test for lead or assume they have dangerously high levels and build
raised garden beds on a layer of landscape fabric to create a
physical barrier between the ground and the plants, he said.
Uncontaminated soil should be used in the raised beds.
Kellogg is
waiting for the city of Albany’s Board of Zoning Appeals to approve
plans to build a sustainability education center at the corner of
Grand and Warren streets, the site of an old gas station. “One of
the first things we’ll do is test for lead,” he said. He said it is
possible to reduce contamination levels through phytoremediation —
the process of using plants to take up heavy metals from oil.
“Certain plants have the ability to accumulate lead and pull it out
of the soil,” he said.
With lead,
one of the main concerns for urban gardeners is dust and the
potential for exposure through leafy vegetables, Logue said.
“There’s lead paint chipping off buildings,” he said. “We used to
put gasoline in our cars that had lead in it. That lead is still out
there.” He said gardeners should make sure they wash their
vegetables, particularly leafy vegetables and vegetables that are
consumed raw, properly. “If the site is near a busy road or an old
building that’s been knocked down, you probably want to test,” he
said.
Cornell
Cooperative Extension is one of the agencies that will test for
lead. County health departments and the New York State Department of
Environmental Conservation can also provide information and
assistance.
Lead is a
toxin that can impair a child’s development.
Klein said
CDCG has been fortunate in that lead contamination has not been a
problem. “We test the soils for lead, heavy metals, sometimes
asbestos,” she said. “We’ve only had one garden with a lead issue.”
Looking for land
Capital
District Community Gardens saw a 20 percent increase in new
gardeners in 2008 and built three new gardens to meet the demand.
Already, the group is scouting the Capital Region for more locations
and contemplating expanding into Montgomery and Saratoga counties.
Klein said new garden development occurs in late summer, and it
costs between $10,000 and $30,000 to develop a new community garden.
Michelle
Ardolino said that an interest in environmentalism and the local
food movement — last year she started an environmental blog, Little
House on the Great Flats — inspired her to start gardening. At that
time, “I didn’t even know we had community gardens,” she recalled.
Then she stumbled across the Capital District Community Gardens Web
site while surfing the Web.
“They’ve
been really helpful,” she said. “They give you free seeds,
information on mulching — anything you need.”
Cheryl
Spaulding, 45, grew up on a farm in Schoharie County but now lives
in Schenectady. This year, for the first time, she is gardening in a
community garden plot at Cutler Avenue and Sixth Street. She said
her children, Mikayla, 10, and Gabriel, 7, are old enough to help in
the garden. “We’ve done gardening in the house and backyard, but
we’ve decided to go a little bigger,” she said. They’ve planted
beets, radishes, onions, lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes and squash.
Gabriel
and Mikayla are home-schooled, and gardening is part of their
education, Spaulding said. Some of the food they grow will also be
donated to the needy, she said.
Spaulding
said urban gardening is different from gardening in a more rural
environment. “The biggest thing is trying to figure out how to plant
things and make the best use of our small plot,” she said. “We got
books out to research what can be planted next to each other.”
Because
this is the first year she’s gardened through CDCG, Spaulding
received a half plot. “It’s good for this year,” she said. “But
we’re hoping that next year we can double that amount of space.”
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