Community Gardens

This week on the Wild Developments podcast, we talk to Jeff and Dot from Loveland Presbyterian Church’s Community Garden about how they manage their plots, give back to the community, and what keeps them inspired season after season.

Wild Wisdom:

1. Gardening is a lifelong learning journey – Each season brings new lessons, from dealing with unpredictable weather to learning about pest control.
2. Grow what you love – Focus on planting vegetables your family will enjoy and use.
3. Build community – A garden thrives with collaboration, whether it’s sharing seeds or learning new techniques.

Loveland Presbyterian Church Community Garden
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Transcript

Would you say that being part of a community gardener, just gardening in general, 
that there's always something new to learn? 
Yes, and every year is different. 
What you learned last year may not apply to the next year. 
Welcome to Wild Development Studio. 
Join us as we venture into the breathtaking realm of wildlife arts and untamed adventures. 
Adventures with captivating stories from the field and ideas to dive into the visual arts will ignite your passion for conservation get ready to develop something wild welcome to wild developments i'm your guide lauren and today's episode is a bit different from our usual format i was working on a documentary following a few incredible community gardens over the course of a year each garden has its own unique way of giving back to the community one garden releases leases over 500monarch butterflies. 
Another hosts a festival, and another partners with a local elementary school to teach children how to garden. 
And the garden you're about to hear from donates produce to a local food pantry. 
Community gardens are truly special. 
Not only do they offer their community so much in so many different ways that we don't even know about, 
which is part of the reason why I wanted to do the documentary, 
but they also enrich the lives of those who care for them now this project has been put on hold indefinitely due to some exciting and major life changes more on that in the coming months but I had the privilege of interviewing Jeff and Dot two inspiring garden leaders and their insight was just too good not to share we recorded this episode in their garden so you might hear some birds and some nature sounds in the background my husband John also helped out by asking a few questions if you hop on over to our. 
YouTube channel, during this intro you'll see the first -person drone video he captured of the garden and throughout the interview you'll be able to watch the footage from this interview. 
Without further ado, here is Jeff and Dot from Loveland Presbyterians Church's Community Garden. 
Enjoy. I'm Dot Jamison with Loveland Presbyterian Church. 
I'm Jeff Jamison with Loveland Presbyterian. 
Church. And can you tell me a little bit about the history of the garden and how it started? 
The garden originated back in 2014when one of the members of the mission committee, 
her name was Betty Hayes, suggested that we use the property around the church for a community adventure in a community garden where we could help support the low -income people by donating produce and also provide a safe area where people in the community could grow their own produce and be self -sustainable. 
What is the primary mission of this community garden? 
It is an outreach program again to help put sustainable food on people's tables. 
And how do you go about deciding what to grow each season it depends a lot of it is at least what i grow is based on what the food pantry uses the most which is uh tomatoes and squash and green beans and peppers and peas it's something that they like i've reached out to them and what moves the best i mean we've had some other odd vegetables that we've grown something that's not typical and they said well what is that so and then what impact has the garden had around the surrounding community how often do you donate do you know how many families that touches we just donated down to the live food pantry in Loveland. 
And this year we've had an abundance of tomatoes. 
So I've been taking down either every day or every other day a good amount of tomatoes. 
Very good. And then what makes this garden unique compared to other gardens? 
One of the things that makes this garden unique is its location. 
It's very close to downtown Loveland, which makes it accessible. 
We have several walking neighborhoods that gives people access. 
There are several apartment buildings on down the street. 
People who don't have land to grow their own produce on can take a spot here and produce their own vegetables in an organic growing manner. 
So what inspired you to volunteer at a community garden? 
Well, I've always been involved with gardening from when my dad had a couple of large gardens when I was growing up. 
And then I think every house that we've owned, we've had a small garden. 
And I've been involved with gardening or volunteering with gardening ever since then. 
And one of the reasons that we got involved with this particular garden is we are on the mission team and Betty Hayes who started it ended up coming down with ALS and was unable to continue and they were looking for someone to take it over and so Jeffrey volunteered and I volunteered to help maintain and be the coordinators and then what role do you guys play in the garden what tasks are you responsible for? 
I'll start. Very little. 
I help him in deciding what we're going to plant. 
I help him with the watering of the seedlings when he starts plants from seeds or if we get starter plants. 
I paint the rain barrels. 
We collect rainwater off the church roof and then pipe it up pump it down to the garden and then jeff takes over and he does the planting he does the harvesting he and until i retired recently he was doing all the driving it down to the food pantry because it's open during the morning and i was working and how often do you guys say you volunteer week to week and what motivates you to come back well i'm pretty pretty much here especially this year pretty much every day because uh the water barrels had to make sure there's plenty of water for all the other gardeners to have access and um for there for a while there i was picking produce uh pretty much every day to take down to take home and also to take down to the food pantry and we created a memorial garden next to the community garden as a memorial to Betty Hayes and it's the pollinator garden for the vegetable garden so I do help plant that I'm not too good on the maintenance of it I will get better you also grow produce that we like too it's very important that you use the produce that you buy I mean that you grow and some people were trying different plants just for the fun of it which is good but we wanted to have things that we could actually use and so not only did we grow the tomatoes in the squash and the peppers and things like that we also grew bok choy and sweet potatoes and some other plants like okra. 
African okra it's huge it is and then have you guys noticed that you've developed any new skills or knowledge since your work since you've been working at the garden we've learned a lot about companion planting and we're practicing succession planting where as one crop is going down you're planting the next crop to get it ready so that you have continuous harvest and that's something that we're learning how to do we've also learned a lot about pest control we've had one year we had trouble with squirrels that jumped the fence and ate the tomatoes this year we had rabbits that ate through the fence and we had to do some maintenance and so it's it's been each year is different but we're learning each time and we also take classes down at Civic Garden Center because we're partnered with them and that helps with our education that we share with the other gardeners what do you enjoy most about being part of this community garden. 
The interacting between the gardeners and passing on tips that we learn you know like she was saying it's from the Civic Garden Center either through email or hands -on. 
And also being out in nature you know it's very calming and very good for your mental health to be out in a garden and you're hearing the birds and you're seeing the butterflies and the different other things that are out and it it's really calming. 
What has been the most significant success this garden has experienced? 
This year the abundance of the tomatoes. 
And zucchinis. And zucchinis. 
We planted that like we were saying with the succession planting well I planted one area of tomatoes in one bed I I planted maybe about two, 
three weeks later, another bed of tomatoes, and maybe a month later after that, 
I planted another bed. 
So I was constantly having tomatoes pretty soon. 
Do you have any memorable moments that represent success for this garden? 
Besides the tomatoes, like, do you have any, how do we want to change this question? 
Um maybe as far as community or um yeah impactful moment well we've had people from as far away as like half a mile away that have come into the garden to observe what we're doing so that they could take that information back to their place we've had one man who used to be in our garden who lived drew lived about two miles away and he would run here every day to water his garden and pick produce and then run home he was a runner that was that was interesting and it gave us another you know element to consider and and then also when the same person he grew a lot of the seedlings and the one year he said can you use some of the tomatoes and stuff like that and he donated a lot of tomato plants even though he wasn't still gardening here. 
Wow. 
Have you had any unexpected positive outcomes from the garden? 
The. 
The interactions that we've had with the new members, we have a Japanese family and a family from Bulgaria right now that are working in the garden. 
And it's interesting to see what they grow and to share seeds and even the produce itself to see how it differs from what we're used to. 
What kind of impact do you think the garden has on the volunteers? 
They enjoy having a place, I don't know if it's an impact or not, 
but they enjoy having a place that is protected and available that they can grow fresh organic produce. 
They don't have to worry about the pesticides, they don't have to worry about deer, 
they don't have to worry about the rabbits, or they don't have to worry about the neighbor's shade tree. 
So they can have more sun in the garden that we have. 
So what kind of challenges have you faced in maintaining the garden? 
Well this year, the drought. 
Because I mean, according to the weather forecasters, this has been one of the worst summers of droughts in this area. 
The other one early on which we took care of was pests particularly rabbits. 
Yes it was interesting how the gardeners came together when we discovered that we had rabbit issues. 
They came they helped put the extra fencing around the garden then they realized that they had trapped two rabbits inside the garden and so they all came together and they brought their kids and they were able to catch the rabbits and release them out in the wild outside of the garden so that was kind kind of like a community building exercise as well. 
Have you guys struggled with community involvement or maintaining the interest of the volunteers at the garden? 
This year with the drought, people are losing interest at the end of the season of coming in and harvesting and maintaining. 
And I think a lot of it has to do with, we have more families that have small children, 
so they're involved in other activities. 
So time management is more difficult. 
Plus the record heat. 
I mean, it being 95degrees, I mean, like I said, a lot of people would either come in the morning or the evening. 
It kind of restricted and you couldn't be out here for any length of time when it was 95,
98degrees. 
What lessons have you learned that might help other community gardens? 
We've learned that we need to be mindful of the space that we have for for planting, 
that we've over planted, which makes harvesting and pest problems and disease problems more prevalent. 
If you have the plants out farther apart, you don't have the mold and the mildew buildup. 
And so that would make it easier for our harvest and we wouldn't be overwhelmed. 
So I think next year maybe we will suggest putting in a plant by, 
what is it, square foot gardening, where they suggest that you plant two tomato plants in this amount of space, 
rather than the 12that we planted in a four by 10bed. 
Would you say that being part of a community gardener, just gardening in general, 
that there's always something new to learn? 
Yes, and every year is different. 
What you learned last year may not apply to the next year. 
You may have a whole different type of issue going on. 
Well early on in April I planted some lettuce and radishes and we had a spike in temperature in April. 
For a week or so it was at 85degrees. 
It all bolted. 
It all bolted or grew real fast and then tried to go to seed because you know it wasn't used to those temperatures. 
Usually those are cool weather crops and 85degrees is not cool weather for April. 
What does being involved in this garden mean to you personally? 
It gives us an opportunity. 
It feels good when you're able to give back to a community and to help people in need. 
And I feel by planting extra beds that are strictly for produce to donate to the Life life food pantry it really benefits them and it makes me feel good it makes him feel good and our sharing of of what we've learned from previous years to new beginners people who've never gardened before is very helpful do you think that community gardens are essential for society yes well let's see mental health stress reduction food sustainability green space better for the oxygen I think I covered a lot of it in a place that people can grow food that they know where the food is coming from and just. 
Just the community part, talking with the different people as you are working on the field or your plant plot is wonderful. 
Communication. 
Yep. 
What message would you like to share with others considering getting involved with community gardens? 
Time management, plan ahead, only grow what you like to eat, try maybe a few new things, 
but for the most part grow what you like we had one guy grow pumpkins and squash and his family doesn't like those but he was prolific and what else. 
What about somebody that just wants to come in they've never garden before and they want to help out what message would you have for them come on you are welcome. 
Volunteers are welcome. 
We have one we have one bed in the back that they grew dahlias. 
It was wonderful to see the flowers as you can see one bed is full of sunflower seeds or sunflowers so you know you can grow whatever you want in your plot. 
I don't know how to phrase this but someone who's intimidated because everything they grow at home dies. 
That's why the community garden works because you're working as a community we can answer questions that you may have of what didn't work for you and why um and if we did if we don't know we have resources with civic garden center the garden center is very i mean they sponsor uh these community gardens and they they offer free classes for members of the community garden to go to their facility and learn to visit other community gardens in the community in within the cincinnati northern. 
Kentucky and Indiana border and you get to see what works in your area and what doesn't. 
Also, we try to work with people who have never gardened before to try to make it simple. 
There's certain vegetables that produce right away. 
You can put radishes in and a week later they're starting to sprout and in two three weeks later you starting to pull the radishes but it's just something that you see that's coming up we had a family a couple years ago that had two kids and the one you know that they just enjoyed every time they came the garden looked different stuff was coming out of the ground so that's that's a joy to see that you know the kids they learn where their food comes from. 
It doesn't come from the grocery store. 
Perfect. Does growing, the kids growing their own food make them more likely to eat it? 
Oh, that's a good one. 
I can't promise that, but it's more likely. 
We have a preschool here, tender years, and last year they said, well this year they're going to take a tour of the garden too just they're learning about gardens and plants and stuff but last year I had some carrots that were maturing and they were the mini carrots and I said well go go ahead I said you know you can go ahead and pull carrots so I don't know how many I think they had 10or 11kids and they all pulled carrots and they cleaned them and they ate them for a snack so maybe that's a good question and until next time get outside and see what develops. 
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