It was harvest season, and Michelle Fanning-Hursh had so many cucumbers that she offered her extras to neighbors as she walked back from the Houserville Community Garden.
Fanning-Hursh is the chairwoman of the Houserville Community Garden, and for her, the chance to share vegetables is representative of the collaborative, neighborhood spirit that the garden embodies.
Even with snow still falling in April, Houserville Community Garden is not unlike others in Centre County, which are bonding people of all ages, educating them on planting techniques and helping them unwind from daily stresses.
'Victory garden' roots
Sally McCabe is the associate director of community education at the Pennsylvania Horticulture Society and runs the program that helps people establish community gardens.
In Pennsylvania, particularly in Philadelphia, McCabe said, community gardens go back “as far as the first World War,” when they were established as war gardens, or victory gardens.
Victory gardens “were everywhere, even on the White House lawn,” McCabe said, because most farms had turned to grain production, and people had to grow their own vegetables.
After the first World War was over, McCabe said, most of those gardens disappeared, only to reappear in schools, churches and public parks during World War II.
Gardening within the community, McCabe said, really became big in the 1970s, when federal funding became available to land grant universities such as Penn State.
The interest in community gardens “ebbs and flows,” but McCabe estimated that there are about 500 in Pennsylvania.
Team effort, open to all
The idea for the Houserville Community Garden was suggested on a neighborhood forum. It eventually came to be with help from residents who plowed the ground, created the garden’s website, and in the case of the Houserville United Methodist Church, even gave land for the project.
The program will double its plot space this year, during its upcoming spring workday on April 28, and will continue to donate at least 10 percent of the produce haul to charitable organizations.
Bill Sharp, a member, was also involved in the “team effort” of creating the garden.
Now, Sharp is also sowing other benefits, this time in the form of rhubarb, strawberries, corn and onions.
“I like working in the dirt, but the other thing is the vegetables that you produce are very tasty, very healthy and there’s an awful lot of satisfaction in producing your own food,” Sharp said.
Karry Carr, another member, also enjoys the benefits of gardening.
“I heard someone describe it as 'meditative,' to sit and plant and weed. It’s quiet time, it’s working in the dirt, it’s just calming,” Carr said. She added that she has learned a lot more about gardening, from what soil testing and cover crops are to how to treat pests.
Carr also incorporates the garden into her work with individuals with disabilities who are participating in Skills of Central Pennsylvania, working together to plant pumpkins and produce.
Members of the Houserville Community Garden have access to a 10-by-15-foot plot. The yearly fee is $50 for new members and $35 for returning members.
There are also monthly potluck dinner meetings which include educational gardening presentations.
Fanning-Hursh stressed that the organization is not just open to Houserville residents, but “to anybody who would want to garden.”
A place to learn
Penn State also offers opportunities for those who are interested in gardening, from a community garden as well as a farm for students. Emily Sandall, a graduate student studying entomology, is the president of the Penn State Community Garden, which offers plots to students and community members.
Sandall, who was raised on a farm in Peoria, Illinois, and has “always been gardening,” has been involved in the program since she was an undergraduate.
“As a whole, it’s a great space for people that have different backgrounds to get together,” Sandall said.
The group has a requirement that members participate in two workdays during the growing season, and members will often do group projects such as weed the pollinator gardens, mulch the perennial borders or work on the herb garden. The gardens also offer workshops on topics like how to start your own garden or how to make kimchi, a fermented dish composed of vegetables. Joining the Penn State Community Garden requires completing an online application and paying a $30 membership fee.
The Snetsinger Butterfly Garden, along with the Penn State Extension and Master Gardener program, aims to establish gardens for pollinators like bees and butterflies and provide educational outreach resources for the community.
The main garden is headed in Ferguson Township, at Tom Tudek Memorial Park, giving the public the opportunity to see demonstration gardens and learn about pollination practices, as well as participate in a discovery day. Community Outreach Coordinator Douglas Ford’s favorite garden is the Serenity Garden, which aims to help grieving community members cope with loss and help people relax and be present in their environment.
Making connections
The Snetsinger garden also gave rise to various types of satellite gardens at elementary, middle and high schools, as well as at Trinity Lutheran Church, Centre Hall Library, Mount Nittany Medical Center and elswhere. One of the satellite gardens, the Mazza community garden, helped to grow Taproot Kitchen, a State College program that encourages adults who have disabilities to expand their gardening and culinary skills.
Sharon Schafer is one of the co-founders of Taproot Kitchen.
After growing produce, Taproot members use their harvests to cook and serve a meal to the community. Schafer has seen the positive benefits of the program both in the community, where the group works with organizations like LifeLink PSU, a collaborative program with Penn State to support community members with disabilities, and the Delta Program at State College Area High School. She also sees other benefits in the confidence of the Taproot members who tend the garden, then plan and serve meals.
“It’s been pretty exciting for them to start from a seed, plant the tomato seed, watch it come up, take the seedling, put it in the ground (and) take care of it all summer” — and then cook with it, Schafer said. For example, she said, if the Taproot members grow tomatoes, they can serve their harvested tomatoes with a bread dish. Throughout the process, she said, it gives them confidence in their abilities to produce something and offer it to the community.
“Their faces are beaming when they make those connections,” Schafer said. “This is a chance for them to not only do interesting and creative things, but to do it out in the community, meeting people, actually being seen and demonstrating what they’re capable of.”
McCabe agreed, adding that community gardeners could potentially go out and use the skills they learned to help the community in other ways, from building little free libraries to encouraging people to vote.
“The thing that’s cool about community gardens is, when people learn how to garden communally, they acquire a skill set that is useful to them in ways that have nothing to do with gardening,” McCabe said. “There’s a lot of skills that you acquire: not just the food-growing part, but the talking to each other part and working as a group part. That’s where community gardens really shine.”
For more information
Houserville Community Garden: houservillegarden.org
Penn State Community Garden: www.psugarden.org
Snetsinger Butterfly Garden: www.snetsingerbutterflygarden.org
Taproot Kitchen: www.taprootkitchen.org