Gardens can be a lifeline
In difficult year, growing can be a source of hope
0ara Tyler grows thousands of peonies, dahlias and bulbs at her cut-flower farm in Oxford, Pa., but when the pandemic arrived in 0arch, there was one glaring gap in her -acre property a veggie garden.
Enter friend 0atthew 5oss, a guy well-versed in vegetable cultivation but without land. fter a three-week construction frenzy, they created a plot that provided Tyler and her family, and 5oss, with months of fresh produce. There s kale he put in the garden in the spring, and I m still eating it,” she said.
ut the proMect has been about more than Must putting food on the table. earning new gardening skills kept her spirits up this year amid the stress, sacrifices and general weariness of life during the pandemic. It was mentally therapeutic, because if I m learning things, I feel positive,” said Tyler, whose business is called the )arm at Oxford.
If ever a home garden vegetable or ornamental was needed, it was this year. It became a place to spend time, safely, with others to supplement the table to replace the lost travel destinations and to provide kids with an alternative to the computer screen. Then there s the mental succor. :hen you re tying up a tomato vine or pulling a weed, you can put aside for a while the unrelenting news of an upended world.
The garden has given me a lot,” said Elizabeth Gomez, reflecting the shared sense of blessing for those who threw themselves into gardening this year. Her flower and vegetable garden in :inchester, Va., became a lifesaver.”
Tyler lives near ongwood Gardens in .ennett STuare, Pa., where 5oss is the director of continuing education, and when he expressed a desire to create a veggie garden as the world was shutting down, the response was immediate and positive. y the end of pril, they had identified a site for the garden, and Tyler s husband, Greg, and 5oss set about establishing the raised beds, putting up a deer fence, laying landscape fabric against weeds and adding compost to the beds. 0eanwhile, 0ara was tending the seedlings started in the farm s greenhouse.
5oss and the Tylers -year-old son, -ulian, planted the spring garden soon afterward. s it grew, 5oss would come by once a week to consult with 0ara and take his share of the goodies. They would text when she needed day-to-day guidance. I got to learn from someone very experienced, so I felt very lucky,”
she said. The minor duds the flea-beetled eggplants, the stinting watermelons were overshadowed by all the successes, including a surfeit of choice varieties of tomatoes, greens, beans, sTuashes and okra, to name a few.
Gomez is a retired horticulturist her husband, -orge, is a landscape designer and contractor. )airly new to their home, they had planned to put in a vegetable garden this year, but the pandemic and the early fears of food shortages pushed them to make it bigger than planned. They also have a patio framed in curving retaining walls that became an ideal spot to socialize, with guests entering through the garden.
The gatherings have helped fill the void of having to cancel three planned vacations abroad.
The proximity of neighboring backyards brought everyone together, she said. They would exchange perennials with one another. I ve even had people drop plants in my
yard and I don t know where they have come from, and that s never happened before,” she said.
The garden has also been a lifeline for parents this year, giving them screen-free options for their children, both young and not so young.
In rural 1elson ounty in central Virginia, Paul and Sonya :estervelt built a house on acres, where they raise their -year-old daughter and -year-old son. -uggling child care and work is the new norm they both work for the nearby nursery Saunders rothers , but their expanse of garden, woodland and meadow has been a boon.
Gathering fallen branches to form twiggy sculptures in the woods has been a welcome distraction for the children. I don t know if it s registering with them at all, but it s keeping us sane and keeping them outside,” Paul said. The easiest thing would be to plant the kids in front of computer screens, but that s not
the kind of parent I want to be,” he said. He set up a motion-sensor camera to capture images of wild animals bears are common, but a fleeting view of a raccoon seems Must as thrilling to the kids.
The pandemic and its disruption of school and social life has been especially pressing on older children. Tatiana isle, who lives in Springfield, Va., with her husband, rian, said their two teenagers took an active part in tending their Tuarter-acre plot, including harvesting fruit trees and weeding. They have become good at identifying weeds,” she said. ast 0arch, her -yearold daughter, ngelica, was in the middle of school sports, lots of social groups, so it was hard to pivot, to Must hit that wall,” she said.
She turned to a farmer friend, who allowed ngelica to foster three newly hatched ducklings they lived in her bedroom in a box with a heat lamp. ucks are wonderful little creatures. They would follow her around the garden.” fter a few weeks, when they were grown, the ducks went back to the farm, but ngelica and her parents also tend a few thousand other charges honeybees, with one hive in the garden and another two at Green Spring Gardens near lexandria. The isles year-old son, Thomas, is now skilled in the related tasks of honey extraction and bottling.
ynthia 0iller, who lives in a small townhouse community in nnandale, Va., spent a chunk of time attacking a stand of mature bamboo that had invaded the common grounds, using some of the harvested culms for veggie tepees. She also volunteers in the edible demonstration garden at Green Spring, where she helped raise produce for food banks while socializing at a distance with other gardeners. It gave us a sense of accomplishment,” she said.
In 0organtown, Pa., ridget :osczyna and her husband, -ohn riddes, moved from one historic farmhouse to another about five miles away over the summer. The new” property dating to was more isolated, had more acreage and appealed to the couple for its remoteness in the pandemic. 0y husband and I are not particularly private people, but we wanted some separation from other people. :e wanted space where people couldn t be near us unless we chose that,” she said.
The rub was that :osczyna is a collector of unusual bulbous plants such as Mack-in-the-pulpits and other aroids, as well as spring flowers such as trilliums. She had to dig and move them to the new property, either to replant this year or carry over in containers. 0oving years of accumulated plants is a big task, especially as the summer heat sets in, but the work had its benefits.
It helped me to not think about what happened this year, and certainly the politics as well,” she said. I was able to remove a lot of the stress by moving the garden.”
Gardening tip:
heck hristmas tree stands daily to ensure the water level does not drop below the bottom of the cut trunk. dried-out tree is full of flammable pitch and poses a serious fire hazard.