Sun and Smiles Shine on Community Garden

Gardeners arrived an hour or so after the sun had risen on Saturday, carrying garden tools, seed packets, and seedlings. Some had their dogs. Some brought toddlers who played in the dirt. Some brought teens to help who, like teens everywhere, got whiny after an hour or two. 

The smart ones wore hats and gloves. The newbies didn’t, but would for their second visit to Crows Woods, Haddonfield’s expanded community garden off Upland Way, near the playhouse of . 

In existence for 30 years, the garden plots provide a bounty of produce, flowers and neighborly interchange. An expansion project this year erased the waiting list for tenants for the plots, some full-sized at 20 by 20 feet, others half that sized. 

Paul Schmeck, membership director for five seasons, almost as long as he’s held a plot, moved to a new location this year, while his 13-year-old twins took over a half-plot and were working to clear it of the winter’s weeds and brambles.

The twins, Kyla and Gavin, both eighth-graders at , will start their garden with raspberries. It’s a bit of an unplanned family tradition, Schmeck said. When he first rented a plot someone left a raspberry plant for him. “To this day, I don’t know who left it,” he said.

The extension – four new full plots and nine or ten half-plots – has stretched the community garden to the border of the soccer fields.

On Saturday the new gardens were rich with topsoil and boundaries were marked with sticks and twine. Schmeck said the garden had hired a landscaper to grade the area. 

The borough provides water to the area, with pipes and spigots throughout. Most gardeners on Saturday were working with rakes and spades to clear away winter growth. A rototiller, owned by the garden community,  was pushed through several plots. 

Some of the plots are spotted with architectural trash-picked finds. By the end of the season, most include a chair or two or a least a tree stump to rest on. 

John Reisner, an attorney and former borough commissioner, said he’s “particularly eager for tomatoes,” and said that, as in past seasons, he’s visit his plot several times each week to weed. “If you let it go for a week, the weeds are out of control.” He also emphasized the importance of harvesting at the right time, especially with zucchini. “If it gets too large, it sends a message to the plant to stop producing. 

“I love this place,” said Reisner. 

Stan Praiss, who will mix amaryllis and other flowers with his crop of tomatoes, zucchini and herbs, has planned ahead for the weeds. He’s laid soaker hoses under his top layer of soil, and topped that with plastic. He’s also growing much of his crop in raised beds to cut down on the constant invasion of weeds.

Wearing knee pads, gloves, a long-sleeved shirt, large hat and sunglasses, Praiss was fighting off the sun. “We’re totally organic, no herbicides,” he said.  Praiss had worked, with a helper, on his plot for two days before Saturday’s official opening.

Praiss, who moved to Haddonfield Mews from Cherry Hill, said his home doesn’t have enough sun to keep a garden.

An abundance of shade also prompted Mike Stebinsky to turn to the community garden. He’s hoping for tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, eggplant and “maybe some sunflowers” for this first year in the garden.

His plot neighbors, Suzanne Harrison and Grace Gallagher, tenants at the garden for three years, want to add spinach to their vegetable harvest. Harrison said caring for the plot alone by herself last year “was just too much work” so she accepted Gallagher’s offer to share with the work and the harvest.

Emily Dudek worked a plot for three years with her dad and this year included two classmates at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.

Robin Rabb has a plot that will provide enough herbs for a block of neighbors. Some, like a rosemary bush and lavender, over-wintered and Rabb snapped off twigs to scent the air.  “It’s work. It’s really, really work,” she said, adding she’s never noticed that visitors to the garden help themselves to her crops. “When everything is ready to harvest, we all share,” she said.

In a plot at the edge of the garden, Maggie Oswald pointed out a row of asparagus that were at the end of their growing season. She’s adding shallots this year.

Newcomers Stacy and Stewart Joslin came with 3-year-old Daniel to clear their space of weeds that were smothering some left-over strawberry plants. Stacy said she had 40 tomato seedlings at home waiting to be transplanted, but Daniel still held out for carrots as his favorite vegetable.

The gardens are on a site that had been the borough’s dump and a swampy area until Walter Saladik had the idea of turning it into a community recreation site. His plans, in 1978, were to turn a liability into an asset that would include ball fields and a picnic area.

Today the 22-acre area includes soccer and baseball fields as well as the garden and hiking trails.