Community embraces Kitchen Garden Tour

Flowers are nice and all, but this is a celebration of the kitchen garden.

When the first garden-peepers arrived at Mohawk House in Sparta after a day of touring area kitchen gardens, first things first: they needed a glass of wine. Then we grilled Brenda Melstein and Laura Madison: How many gardens had they seen?

Eight?!
That seemed like a lot for one day. Dirt had recommended that people check out a maximum of seven of the 16 gardens on the tour, for sanity’s sake. The next couple to roll in looked a little sunburnt: they had visited 12. Another woman was frustrated that she hadn’t been able to get to all of them.

Stacey O’Sullivan of Sparta had visited a reasonable four gardens — on her bicycle. She’d also biked to the will-call to pick up her tickets. It seemed in the spirit of Dirt, she said. Next year she’d like to lead a bike contingent.

As folks rolled in, and the band began to play, we sat back and listened. Jennifer Overeem of Goshen had brought a Ziplock full of decorated packets of seeds that she saved from her pumpkins and gourds to give out to anyone who wanted. (There will be a lot of giant Overeem pumpkins growing in this area next year. Maybe next year’s tour can double as a seed exchange.) Marion Wright, 90, of Warwick, had served zucchini muffins and lemonade to all her garden’s visitors. Sparta Mayor Molly Whilesmith, who had offered on short notice to emcee the event, woke up Sunday intending to visit two gardens, so that she could speak from experience instead of just reading a script. The end of the day found her entering one garden address after the next into her GPS so she could figure out which four she could squeeze in before day’s end.

Among the 90 or so party guests, people were already discussing whose gardens they planned to nominate next year (could community garden plots qualify? Yes!). A couple who’d never gardened before, and only found out about the event the day before, had gone home after touring and before the party to draw up a plan for next year’s garden. The community had embraced this fledgling event and made it theirs.

A huge thanks to the local sponsors that made this event a reality: Warwick Tomatoes, the Warwick Valley Farmer’s Market, and Mohawk House.

Now for the winners... Best small garden: Diane Lindsay of Goshen, whose creativity starts with her seed selection – she opts for stuff that’s hard to find at the farmer’s market, like Jerusalem artichokes, rhubarb and striped Chioggi beets – and continues on into her kitchen, where she concocts simple syrups for after-dinner drinks.

Best rookie garden: Dennis and Ann Weaver of Andover, a pair of school teachers who, when they leveled their yard to install a saltwater pool, used the soil to fill 12 deep raised beds. They had so many tomatoes this year that they were giving them away to people who came on the tour.

Best kids’ garden: the Yanoff family of Wantage, whose 15, 13, and 10-year-old each plants and tends his or her own section. Instead of weeds, this garden’s between-veggies invader is a purple wildflower called cleome.

Most beautiful garden: Maria and Jack Kaczynski of Bell’s Mansion in Stanhope, whose old estate garden – which includes an orchard of 77 fruit trees and a vineyard from whose grapes they make wine – looks like the work of a crew of landscapers, but is in fact tended only by the couple.

Most creative garden: Therese Mattil of Wantage demo’d her in-ground pool and had it filled with black dirt. She grows climbing beans up an archway made out of a bent cattle panel (an idea she spotted on Pinterest), and flowers in old boots and a teapot.

Most productive: Bob Burke of Hamburg has expanded his garden to 6,000 square feet, and fertilizes his crops with manure tea, made from the poop of his chickens and a neighbor’s horse. His operation has reached such proportions that he has been encouraging his wife to put up a farm stand – but she’s not sure that’s how she wants to spend her entire summer.

Each garden on the tour took home a certificate, and the six Gardens of the Year won gardening hods (wooden-handled harvesting baskets), which they’ll need to haul in their bounty.

— Dirt Magazine is a publication of Straus News. For more information visit www.Dirt-Mag.com.