Durham/Middlefield Giving Garden, Middlefield, CT
2019 is year 1 for this garden, and they have already accomplished a lot!
This group includes people from Coginchaug Area Transition, Church of the Epiphany, Middlefield Federated Church, and others.
The team first smothered the grass with cardboard and compost last fall, on their plot next to the Town Offices, so that they’d only have to dig up the planting rows themselves—and the time and labor saved were then put to good use by quickly putting up their 8-foot fence and hardware cloth to forestall the deer, woodchucks, and rabbits who (unaccountably) thought all these yummy veggies were intended for them!
This team is also highly organized: Jen supervises the infrastructure (shed, water, compost bin), Betsy oversees the planting, weeding, and tending (this is the tidiest garden *I* have ever seen), Judy is the original visionary and current Weed Queen, Tina focuses on the pollinator plants—flowers to you and me—and Sue seems to be always there, always working, along with a varied group of seniors, Girl Scouts, teens, kids, and parents, who weed, water, mow, haul, and harvest!
Since the original groundbreaking, local scouts have built 5 additional raised beds, and small grants have been received from the Osterman Foundation, Community Foundation of Middlesex County, Durham Fair Foundation, Rockfall Foundation, Eversource, and the Coginchaug Valley Educational Foundation. Smaller donors can also sponsor individual rows, with signs to acknowledge them!
Records are kept of the harvested veggies, including their dates of harvest, weight, and designated recipients. The produce is brought to the Durham and Middlefield food banks and senior services, and Middletown soup kitchens, for distribution (tireless Madelyn!), and also given directly to low income residents living in the area.
The Giving Garden also holds workshops at Saturday noontimes, including how-tos from chefs about preparing and eating the veggies, yoga tutorials about staying limber with all the bending over of weeding, native plant info-sessions, and art sessions.
Standout vegetables this summer: Peas and lettuce early, now kale, beans and tomatoes
Plans for the immediate future: Finishing the water spigot, adding fruit—and an apiary for a bee colony!
