New Haven Independent

Anne, who planted her first garden when she was a girl living on a kibbutz in Israel, is one of 21 new gardeners who are members of the newly established Branford Community Garden. The garden is designed in part to feed the poor.

She was working at her garden plot on Saturday morning rather than during the week — because she and her fellow gardeners had been banned from the gardens during weekdays, from 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. (That ban was finally lifted this week.)

Those are the hours when the Branford Early Learning Center, whose backyard houses the new gardens, is in session.

The early learning center is located on a residential street in Pine Orchard, a quiet, upscale residential area. The center, which has 50 children, is a state-funded town facility, not a private facility as originally portrayed. It rents the former Pine Orchard Grammar School from the town for $1 a year. Parents pay according to their needs, as little as $8 a week on a sliding fee scale. Free meals are provided through the federal food program, its executive director said. The town owns the land, including the gardens.

What some might call a win-win educational and cross-generational opportunity — pre-schoolers learning about nature and how vegetables grow — has turned into a conflict that is drawing its energy from parental panic. In a sign of the times, parents of some children view the proximity of the gardeners and their occasionally visiting families as a threat to the safety of their children.

The garden operated full-time until about May 29 when Frank Carrano, the chairman of the Board of Education, asked for the restricted hours in order to work on the issue. A week later, a meeting was held that brought together First Selectman Unk DaRos, top school and garden officials and a group of parents. To raise the ante a notch, one of the parents invited a local television reporter. There was a discussion but no resolution so Carrano extended the daytime ban.

Then DaRos worked on boundaries and rules.One decision was to draw clear boundary lines between gardeners and the day care center.

When the garden began, DaRos said, there were no set boundaries. “Now there are rules that everyone can follow. Everyone knows what they need to do. I don’t see where this is going to be a problem. ”

For one thing, the gardeners are now to wear name tags. After two weeks of behind-the-scenes discussions, the ban was lifted today. At about 2 p.m. a man delivered old hay to make mulch. “Yup, we’re back,” he said.

But the parents seem undaunted. Dan Izzo, of North Branford, has a child attending the center. He emerged from the June 4 meeting as one of the parent spokesmen, telling the Channel 8 reporter that he wanted the garden to stay, “but what we don’t want is to put our children in jeopardy or at risk.” His proposal was to eliminate weekday gardening in favor of weekend and early evening gardening. His wife, Dale, who holds a top administrative post in the town’s recreation department and sits on the day care center’s board, also attended the meeting. The gardeners say the restrictions are unworkable.

Beryl Meiner, the executive director of the center, echoed Izzo’s fears. “You don’t know who the gardeners are,” she told the Eagle.

“You don’t know who they are. Or who their families are,” she repeated. “My teachers are all vetted. They are checked by the FBI and the state police. These are people we don’t know.”

The gardeners, all Branford residents, include a Yale dean and his family, a Yale scientist and his family, a former Killingworth Selectman, a retired CT probation officer, a local, well-known artist, the head of an IT dept at YNHH, a journalist for a local newspaper, a paramedic, a former PTA president, and a musician, according to the garden’s website. The gardeners chafed at the restrictions but have remained calm,

Community garden President Connie Drysdale suggested that the gardeners and the parents might be introduced and get to know one another so that they would no longer be strangers. “I truly believe that once the parents meet the gardeners they will no longer be afraid,” she said in an interview.

Anne, the retired social worker, says she understands the concerns of the parents: “Yes, there are children being molested and there are children who are kidnapped. I’ve seen it all. But the media hypes it and they listen. They get scared. It is unfortunate.”

The gardeners work from behind wire fences put up to keep the deer out. The children, mostly 3- and 4-year-olds, are under constant supervision. The underlying concern is that the parents do not have any control over the strangers on the property. They believe there is an increased risk to their children.

Until today the gardeners were permitted to work in the garden only after 5:30 p.m, weekdays and on weekends, both difficult time periods for many.

Some said they would not plant their gardens until the conflict is resolved. They were upset about the restrictions. Others said privately they were deeply upset that they were being perceived as child molesters.

On the community garden’s website, Drysdale said: “The gardeners are … being targeted for suspicion and discrimination and were being held to a higher standard than any other person who is free to use nearby trails that straddle the day care center.” Somehow, she said, as soon as the gardeners “walk into the vegetable gardens they somehow become unwelcome.”

“My belief is that our presence in the vegetable gardens, rather than creating a risk, actually enhances the safety of the children and would tend to deter those with evil intent from hanging around the school. Additionally, the gardens can be a learning experience for the children. Malaine Trecoske, our secretary/treasurer, is working with Walsh Intermediate students to teach them the joys of gardening. We would still like the children and teachers here to be able to take a tour of our gardens when the plants are further developed, and at harvest time.”

Accidental encounters are sharply discouraged. One day when a couple was at work in their garden at the end of a row, a few naturally inquisitive children playing ball stopped by to ask what they were doing. The staff repeatedly shouted to the children that the gardeners were strangers and to stay away, several gardeners reported. The gardeners found themselves in the awkward position of not being able to reply. They have been barred from talking to the children. They are “strangers” and children are not allowed to talk to strangers.

One gardener, a retired probation officer, spoke of an inter-generational garden in Wallingford that brought seniors and children together.

“How the kids learned and how wonderful that was. And here is a learning experience literally in their backyard that they want to ignore.”

Trecoske, a young mother herself, is the resident expert on growing vegetables. When gardeners have a question about planting, they turn to her. She pitched right in the other day to help plant pumpkins. Trecoske likes to drop her kids off at school, run errands and swing by the garden in the morning. Gardening after 5:30 with a family to feed at dinner time won’t work for her. And often she is busy on weekends.

“I think the kids could benefit from our garden. ‘What part of the veggie can you eat?’ we could ask them. And we could tell them. I think this situation is very unfortunate.”

She and Drysdale (pictured) are in charge of an organic plot whose contents will be given to the Community Dining Room in Branford. As she moves along the plot, she explains which vegetables like heat and which do not. A teepee provides the entryway to their garden, under which cucumbers will grow. It was constructed with left over cedar posts donated by the Branford Land Trust.

Back in February, the idea of the town’s first community garden was greeted with widespread enthusiasm, especially from Carrano, the board of education chair and an ardent supporter of the project from its inception. The board approved the use of the community garden at its March 19 meeting and the public soon learned about it.

At the outset Meiner met with Board of Education officials and Drysdale and was on board with the project, but it does not appear that the parents were brought into the process. And that is what might have triggered the dispute, several gardeners said they learned.

Well before the ban occurred, the land was divided up into 21 plots that measured 20- by- 20 feet or 20- by- 10 feet. For a small fee each plot was rented to a gardener.

As tractors moved the earth and gardeners started to arrive, the project generated new concerns. Gardeners found that sometimes parking places were scarce. A few needed to use a bathroom and headed for the daycare center. And a few parked too close to the children’s recreation area.

“My parents don’t want people driving their cars back where their children play,” Meiner said. “The cars have driven right up to the playground. Wouldn’t you be concerned if a car driven by an elderly lady was driven right up to the playground?” This driver did so in order to get heavy bags of mulch nearer to her garden area.

“And somebody was yelling at their dog,” Meiner said. “And it really wasn’t appropriate before young children.”

During the period of the ban, one of the men helping out with his tractor went on the property to do some work. He had been on vacation and had not read his email about the ban. Meiner immediately snapped a photo of him and called the Board of Education to tell them of the violation, gardeners said.

Carrano tried to calm the parents, reiterating that their children are supervised, that their fear was baseless. He reminded them that the public space behind the center has been used by various public groups for years and a well-traversed trail on which numerous people walk overlooks the property.

DaRos stepped in to establish rules. He set up fences to close off the gardens from the day care center. The most recent one runs along a path from the parking lot to the gardens. He said he will get additional parking spaces and have a port-o-potty delivered for the gardeners. He will also get water routed to the gardens.

He said he did not agree with “some of the concerns” voiced by the parents, especially in a place like Pine Orchard. The gardeners, he said, “are their neighbors. They are responsible people. All they want to do is see some vegetables grow. I would think they would have used this as an educational tool. Every other school district seems to do it; I don’t know why it isn’t working in ours.”

Meanwhile, the first community garden is becoming a community. There is a warm feeling of camaraderie, of helping one another, of getting to know one another, of making connections.

At least this is the reality on one side of the fence.

##