A COMMUNITY OF GARDENERS

Gardeners are down to earth. They put down roots. This helps to build strong communities. This has certainly been the case in Ithaca, NY.

Ithaca is a community of gardeners. The area is well known for its community gardens. Located near the Ithaca Farmers' Market, the gardens are a place of beauty and hope. Apartment dwellers and others who want to get their hands in the dirt can obtain plots there.

A number of these land-hungry gardeners concentrate on veggies and other edible crops, while others grow a mixture of flowers and vegetables. Certain ones cultivate perennials and shrubs for they can keep the plots year after year. Fruits are also grown in these gardens. Tree fruits are uncommon. However some do grow small fruits, especially blueberries, raspberries, and the like.

Most of the individual gardeners in Ithaca's Community Gardens are organic growers. But strictly speaking the community gardens aren't strictly organic. That's why some area gardeners choose to use the community plots at Cornell University's organic farm. (Cornell is located in Ithaca.) The land there has been maintained as organic, so there is great demand for these plots.

Yet everything has its price, and in this case it's a lack of permanence. The organic fields are plowed each year and the plots are reassigned. So the gardeners there can't grow perennial plants or fruits.

Community beautification is a strong tradition in Ithaca. Local governments support community efforts in various ways. One example shows how this works to everyone's benefit. I'm a member of the Master Gardeners program at Cornell Cooperative Extension Service in Ithaca. One of our Master Gardener projects is to raise plants from seeds in a greenhouse that is provided by Cornell University. We grow annuals and perennials as well as vegetables. On occasion we've even propagated cuttings of woody plants. Often these plants are donated to community beautification projects.

In one case residents of local housing projects received plants, potting soil, and containers. The Master Gardeners donated the plants, while local businesses provided everything else.

The Master Gardeners are also involved in other community beautification projects, including one at the Ithaca Farmers' Market. We also plant and maintain the demonstration gardens around the extension building. The butterfly garden, which is undergoing a makeover at the moment, is especially popular with the public.

The Master Gardeners also help to maintain a seed swap program for local gardeners. In the extension building there are two storage cabinets side by side. One is used for storing flower seeds. The other cabinet is used for vegetables and herb seeds. All the seeds are arranged alphabetically. Throughout the growing season gardeners collect open-pollinated seeds from their gardens, and save them to put in the seed cabinet. We put the ones we're donating into the proper drawer, and take out any we want for our own use.

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