Michelle Liu Photo
Walter Stelkovis weeds his bed at ChapelSeed.
At the beginning of her career, Rachel Ziesk was a sculptor. Somewhere down the line, she became a master gardener too.
Ziesk arrived at her neighborhood community garden, ChapelSeed on 1592 Chapel St., Saturday morning to answer some questions the other gardeners had: how to prep their beds, what to plant at this time of year. There’s the “same primal thing,” she said, about sculpting in clay or working with soil. But teaching gardeners is different from teaching artists, she was quick to add.
“There’s nothing ambivalent or up for discussion about soil health,” Ziesk said.
Master gardener Rachel Ziesk, with ChapelSeed coordinators Regina Jett and Bob Frye.
She and the ChapelSeed gardeners were some of many neighbors who came out to the third annual Citywide Open Gardens Day hosted by the New Haven Land Trust. A dozen gardens received a deep clean, as people turned over soil, yanked weeds and raked leaves in anticipation of the new growing season.
The Land Trust’s Bradley Fleming drove around from garden to garden, checking in. He said he’d already delivered two dump trucks’ worth of soil to the gardens scattered throughout the city over the last couple of weeks.
“This is just the beginning,” Fleming stressed about the clean-up. Fleming said he also had some 5,000 seedlings to distribute. The Land Trust has also added a number of new raised beds and other improvements (new fences, sheds) to the lots it owns or leases.
Kale flourishes in the hoophouse.
Ziesk showed a reporter around a hoop house (or small greenhouse) built on the grounds last year. Now, leafy bunches of kale and spinach shot up from the soil, while onion shoots rose in an adjacent bed.
Cleaning up at MLK Peace.
Meanwhile, the MLK Peace Garden at 24 Adeline St. was seeing growth from last year. The garden, a joint program between IRIS (Integrated Refugee & Immigrant Services) and the Land Trust, began last year, spearheaded by IRIS’s Amanda Bisset.
Bisset, who runs health and wellness programs at the agency, said demand for the 20-some beds in the garden is high: she expects up to 25 families to express interest this season.
Harvesting chives that made it through the cold.
For IRIS clients, who come from countries like Iraq, Syria and Sudan, the beds provide tomatoes, cucumbers, onions and squash. There are some other popular options too, like okra.
Gul Nawab, who lives with his family next door, said the garden provides some degree of sanctuary. Nawab, who moved from Afghanistan to New Haven eight months ago (he once worked with U.S. Special Forces), said he plans to plant a lot of mint in his garden bed.
“We can walk in the garden for a couple of minutes, and feel like we’re at home,” he said.
Kids rake leaves at Truman Community Garden.
At the Truman Street Community Garden, the average gardener’s age was probably a few decades lower than you might expect. Garden coordinator Leslie Radcliffe had recruited children from the neighborhood.
“Kids look forward to it,” Radcliffe said, adding that the garden provides productive activity for the kids to stay out of trouble with.
As for herself? “Playing in the dirt — it’s good for my body, good for my soul.”
She said she’d done little advertising to attract the dozen or so who’d come out to work, mostly just word of mouth. Radcliffe pointed to the perennials on the perimeter of the garden (as well as the colorful flags she’d draped across the fence), and said she looked forward to planting greens, beans and tomatoes. Most of the garden beds are communal, she said, but this year she’s focusing on getting more people to be stakeholders of individual beds.
Fleming, biting into an apple as he surveyed the work done at the Truman Garden, said Saturday’s event also acts as a gateway for potential gardeners to get their foot in the door — if anyone’s looking for a plot, he said, reach out to him.
