Allan Appel Photo
Make way for greens: Neighbors have begun planning new planting at Grand Acres (pictured).
While the harshest months of winter may be just upon us, spring planting is already on the minds of those optimistic Fair Haveners who gathered for the first Fair Haven Community Management Team (FHCMT) meeting of 2024.
A main item on the agenda concerned a proposal to fund seven new garden beds at the Grand Acres Community Garden at the corner of Grand and Perkins Street.
Twenty-six attended Thursday night’s meeting by Zoom, joining about 20 neighbors who gathered in the community room of the Fair Haven Branch Library.
The proposal was pitched by Mary Ann Moran, who supervises all nine of the Fair Haven community gardens sites overseen by Gather New Haven.
She said she would seeking $250 for the six-by-two-foot wooden boards that secure the above-ground beds; construction can begin as early as next month. That would permit planting of collards, kale, and other hearty greens as soon as the frost clears in early March.
CMT members subsequently voted online to approve the allotment, which comes out of money the city gives to each management team for neighborhood projects.
Gardeners Susan Hackett, Folly Delgado, and Mary Ann Moran.
Why the need?
“We have a vibrant community garden at Grand Acres with 44 gardeners,” Moran explained in prepared remarks, “mostly from immigrant families and people who are in Gather’s diabetes program.”
Many of those older gardeners, she added, use canes. Last season Moran built twelve new beds on Grand Acres’ flat grassy area -– before the long rectangular plot slopes steeply down to Grand Avenue -– in order for those gardeners to do their work more safely.
The proposal will allow her to add seven to that number and accommodate that many more gardeners in that safer flat area of the site near the greenhouse.
“In all of Fair Haven we have about 250 people gardening. And [Grand Acres is] one of the most active gardens in the city. More and more people want to be with us,” she added. “And I have the guy lined up already who can help me build.”
Moran noted that the planned redevelopment of the former Strong School will add dozens of new neighbors — and potential gardeners — immediately across Perkins Street from the site.
Moran’s gardens provided 421 pounds of vegetables to the Fair Haven community this past year. With her colleagues Folly Delgado and Susan Hackett, she also taught kids about agriculture in the process.
This program, now in its third year, involves bringing the freshly harvested vegetables to a table in the Fair Haven Branch Library every Monday morning for free distribution to the community.
Check out a book, the main room of the branch library seems to saying every Monday morning, and take some squash or beans or cucumbers while you’re here.
Most of the bounty on the table is usually gone by mid-afternoon, reported Branch Librarian Kirk Morrison.
Moran’s proposal for funds to expand the beds available received an immediate endorsement from Chatham Square Association founder Lee Cruz, the FHCMT board member who was helming the meeting.
“I want to incentivize people to vote yes, so the Chatham Association will contribute $125,” Cruz said.
The newly elected (and reelected) neighborhood alders at Thursday's meeting: Sarah Miller, Frank Redente, Jr., and Caroline Tanbee Smith.
Of Moran’s current 44 gardeners, three quarters are Latino or African-American. Many are immigrants. More than half are older people. Many participate in the diabetes management program of the Fair Haven Community Health Clinic. That leaves about 15 younger green thumbs who will shift to the English Street garden.
THere is nothing like a garden to bring people together! Elevated beds and other methods will keep elders in the garden. I don't really care that 3/4's of the gardenees are black or latino--- why does that matter??? Stop dividing us up . We are PEOPLE...