Allan Appel Photo
Corn is growing alongside sunflowers big enough for King Kong to wear in his lapel in Katy MacRae’s Goatville garden. A quiet campaign has begun growing there, too — for the joys and importance of urban gardening.
In this curbside garden on Lawrence Street the corn supports the soybeans. The tomatoes lean on the impressive stalks of sunflowers. And all around them the carpeting vines and leaves of sweet potato and pumpkin keep weeds at bay.
Result: no stakes required. And one incredibly efficient garden in the midst of a dense city neighborhood.
MacRae started working her one curbside raised bed and two sidewalk-level plots four years ago when she and her husband bought their modest house between Nicoll and Foster in the Goatville section of the East Rock neighborhood, between upper State Street and Orange Street.
Since then peas, soybeans, carnations, dahlias, hollyhock, double tuberose, tomatoes, and this year for the first time corn have sprouted in tidy profusion.
Along with that has grown an increasing interest of neighbors and passersby in the very visible garden, which uses all available space for flowers and plants.
When they pass by on the quiet block, they see an efficiency in use of space that is not chaotic but charming and orderly, like a horticultural family with lots of kids who all know their chores.
MacRae, who for her day job does research in psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine, responded to the interest in her handiwork by creating a Facebook page and an evolving website.
She uses them to share both seeds and ideas, but most of all to help Elm City friends and urbanites overcome lack of space, light, and other city-dweller impediments to what has become known as yard-scaping or “squarefoot” gardening.
That is, raising flowers and vegetables in small spaces. MacRae said that the book by that title, Squarefoot Gardening, by Mel Bartholomew, has been one of her inspirations.
Another inspiration has been the prototypical Indian garden, where with a little human help, one plant aids another. This year, for example, the tomatoes used the more than sturdy sunflowers as support, and the soybeans used the 20 stalks of first-time corn.
The largest plot, where the sunflowers and corn have grown this year, is about four by 12 feet in a raised bed, and on the day of a reporter’s visit, nicely brushing a Toyota.
The corn was not that successful — six ears from 20 stalks — because it lacked the one foot of space necessary between stalks. MacRae’s going to try again next year.
But oh, those helianthus annuus!
Neighbors have asked her for seeds for the helianthus annus, which indeed are not only as tall as two Toyotas but are the “Kong” brand of sunflower. Their promise is to grow up to 14 feet; MacRae’s have grown even higher.
Many people who go to the church on the corner come from the South, and admire her sweet potatoes, MacRae said. They remember growing them back home.
“One of the reasons I like it [the garden’s location] is there’s so much foot traffic. I like to teach. I try to encourage people who don’t think they can garden to try,” she said.
MacRae used to be the manager of the Goatville community garden just down the block. She’s also the organizer of an annual badminton party on the block.
MacRae earned her green thumb in Orange, Conn., learning beside her dad, also an avid gardener.
“He’s so jealous of my sunflowers,” she said.
On a Thursday morning, with the sun peeking through before a storm, the single Swiss chard plant growing on the side of the house showed its healthy red venation and was of no interest to MacRae’s well-trained cat Thor.
The hanging tomatoes (they save space and escape slugs) are another urban gardener’s strategy. In MaRae’s garden they also look like Asian lanterns welcoming people up onto her porch.
One of the secrets to her garden’s success, she said, was composting. Her site has a lot of info about that.
“I love composting,” she said. She demonstrated her tumbling composter that augments the pile of fall leaves being digested by the trusty worms.
“New Haven soil is clay and lead,” she said. Her tumbling composter has a rotation that, with a half of a cantaloupe rind and other kitchen scraps tossed in, helps break down the leaves.
“Composting is like digesting. This is a kind of stomach. What comes out is great for your garden.”
Is there a relationship between her research in psychiatry – she specializes in disorders where people hear voices – and gardening?
“Lots of us who work in mental health like to work with our hands in down time,” MacRae said. It restores “a kind of balance.”
There was nothing either therapeutic or mysterious about the beginnings of the garden,. MacRae said that four years ago there was little except this weeping larch. (A neighbor identified it for MacRae). She said it reminds her of “Cousin It” from the Addams Family film.
“For me [deciding to do an urban garden] was very pragmatic. I wanted something to eat. Over time I experimented with flowers” and plants.
Looking at the sunflowers, however, she conceded it was amazing that a plant that grew large from a tiny seed, “That’s crazy. Everyone wants a connection with nature. It is kind of magical.”
Neighbors passing by have commented to her that it reminds them of a forest or Jack in the Beanstalk. “People are amazed, and I didn’t do anything,” she said modestly.
She added that the urban garden has advantages over the suburban one: far fewer deer, moles, and other flower and vegetable predators to play defense against. A less appreciated advantage is comments from passers-by. “They remind me of my sense of wonder,” MacRae said.
The evening’s dinner menu featured edamame — from the curbside soybeans, of course.
Previous Gardener Of The Week:
Full disclosure: As a token of the visit, MacRae gave a reporter a jalapeno pepper. Although it was far smaller than his computer mouse and grown in a pot, she warned it might pack a punch.
Katy has the coolest garden in town!