Barrhead’s community garden, which officially opened in May, has since exploded with life. The plots that were once mere squares of dirt are now lush and full of life.
As summer begins to fall away and the cool breeze of autumn fills the air, the garden’s veggies have ripened and are ready for harvest.
Community and development coordinator with Barrhead FCSS Ros Rudd was out with a group of eager volunteers last week tending to growing veggies. Between the County of Barrhead and FCSS, Rudd said she and the County’s agricultural fieldman Marilyn Flock have been looking after about 18 plots.
The official community garden harvest for FCSS will take place Saturday, Sept. 7. The plan is to harvest the remaining vegetables, then place the leftover leaves and plants in composts.
However since the vegetables have begun ripening, Rudd said FCSS has been coming to the garden once a week. Here a number of volunteers tend to the plots, which involves everything from weeding to harvesting ready veggies.
The groups work together, learning as they go along. Sometimes there are just a couple of volunteers, while other days the garden is filled with many helping hands.
“What I love about this is, we’re all learning from each other,” said Rudd. “Another thing that happens too, is often when you’re down here working then other people will just come down and help. Especially from the apartments nearby.”
A surprise to many was the successful growth of artichokes, which were given to FCSS by Southside Greenhouse.
“We didn’t think they would grow, but they were donated to us, so we thought we would give it a try,” laughed Rudd. “We really are learning as we go along. Thanks to Southside Greenhouse we’re growing vegetables we never would have dreamed of doing.”
Ornamental cabbages were another vegetable many of the FCSS volunteer gardeners were not that familiar with. However help was always nearby.
Though the majority of the plots were overflowing with life, the combination of heavy rain and lower ground in certain areas caused flooding. Unfortunately, some gardeners were left with dead gardens.
However a silver lining appeared when the individuals without a growing garden turned their ambition towards the plots FCSS had.
“We felt so bad when these folks’ gardens were just terrible. Now it’s turned out to be fine,” said Rudd. “Sometimes something really wonderful comes out of disaster. It really has brought the community closer together, and that’s what the community garden is all about.”
Barrhead resident and avid gardener Yvonne Hoffman had plans to grow corn, cucumbers, carrots, zucchini when the garden held its grand opening May 18. Unfortunately her plot fell in one of the flooded areas, and her garden suffered.
“I did have my own plot, but it got drowned out,” she said. “But I’m going to try again next year. I’m not a giver-upper.”
At home, she does have a small garden at home where she has successfully grown rather large heritage tomatoes from seed. Though she doesn’t have her own vegetables to tend to at the community garden this year, she lent her green thumb and gardening knowledge to FCSS.
Glenice Wilson and Phyllis Nanninga, who are sharing a plot, also found themselves in an area with flooding. However when they began helping out FCSS, something peculiar happened.
“Our garden started growing again,” said Wilson. “It came back to life.”
Though their corn won’t have enough time to mature this year, the ladies can enjoy freshly grown onions, lettuce, and zucchini, from their own garden.
