Local garden clubs make Baltimore County-owned plots blossom each center

Sawyer is one of 16 gardeners who work 20-by-20-foot plots in the small parcel of county-owned land — about a tenth of an acre — from April to November, raising mainly vegetables with a sprinkling of herbs and flowers. Their connection to the land, and the process of growing and tending plants, can go well beyond the daily tasks of watering and weeding, reaching into the realms of the emotional and even the spiritual, some say.

Still, Sawyer and her fellow gardeners have to accept the fact that sometimes, no matter how well they tend their crops, Mother Nature can be a cruel mistress.

"To put as much effort into it as I do, it's hard when things don't grow," she added. "But as frustrating as it is, there's something about working in the garden. There's a spiritual connection — it's truly the work of a higher power. It can bring me to tears sometimes."

More and more people seem to be attracted to the practice, if the waiting list to get a plot in the garden is any indication.

The list is so extensive that the club is adding no new names to it for the foreseeable future, said Skip Falatko, the garden club administrator, who hails from Rodgers Forge.

"We only had two people from last year not return, so it will take a long while to work through the list," added Falatko, who's day job is chief financial officer of the Maryland Association of CPAs. "There has been a surge of interest in gardening the past five years."

Falatko said that he does not know exactly how old the club is, but that he has been involved with it since the 1990s.

"We started gardening about 20 years ago, when our kids were little," he said. "The woman who organized it then [Frances Taylor] was looking for someone to take it over, so my wife, Flo, volunteered. I took it over from her several years later."

The recreation council is a nonprofit run mostly by volunteers who administer various activities. Operated in a cooperative arrangement with Baltimore County, it mainly offers a variety of youth sports, but also boasts other programs for all age groups, including the garden.

Paid county staffers help to coordinate the use of county fields by the council and handle maintenance issues.

The arrangement suits garden club member Jodie Stine, who is pleased with how well her 36 started-from-seed San Marzano tomato plants appear to be faring this summer.

She and her husband, Curt Baer, moved the baby plants from their home, in nearby Pinehurst, when the San Marazanos grew to about 6 inches in height. They are now in her plot at the park, staked for stability and lined in neat rows and surrounded by red, green and jalepeno peppers, basil, two kinds of eggplants and cucumbers.

"Weeding is the worst part," said Stine, a retired communications manager at Northrop Grumman who is a Towson High School graduate, as is Baer. "If you don't put down landscape fabric or straw, you get a ton of weeds."

Because the summer has been relatively wet, Stine had watered her plot only twice by late July, although the gardeners have access to water via a pipe on the western edge of the site.

"I'm surprised things have done so well," she said.

Nearby, Sne Shah, of Rodgers Forge, has erected a 2-foot-by-8-foot fence to keep the critters from gobbling her French green bean crop. Shah had a two-year wait to join the popular club.

"I walked by the garden and saw [Falatko] and he put me on the waiting list," said the nurse practitioner, who enjoys bringing her children, Sylar, 7, and Samara, 9, to the garden with her.

Other green thumbs

Farther north, the Cockeysville Recreation Council's garden club plot, in County Home Park, still has room to grow on a much larger site.

The club boasts 60 plots that are 30-feet by 20-feet, 55 of which are taken this season, said the club's chairperson, Roslyn Heggens. Members are allowed to have two plots.

Heggens, who lives in Woodlawn, discovered the club when she worked for the recreation council. She is growing corn, melons, Swiss chard, kale, carrots, cabbage, beets, tomatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, string beans and collard greens on her two plots, despite not having a water source.

Members have to lug their own water to the site or, as Heggens does, use a rain barrel or a large rubber tote to collect water.

Although she is harvesting plenty of produce, Heggens said her carrots are not in peak form so far this year.

"But I'm going to try again," she said. "This will be the third time, but I'm not giving up."

A large garden also exists behind the Oregon Grille Restaurant, in Cockeysville, where as many as 100 10-by-10-foot deer-fenced plots are available for $20 per season for Oregon Ridge Nature Center club members and $25 for non-members.

This summer, 86 of the plots are spoken for at the site, which includes a compost bin and fully-stocked tool shed.

"It's amazing how much they can grow," said Betsy Kadow, Oregon Ridge community garden manager. "Our gardeners usually are people who grow things that need full sun or who don't have enough room where they live."

Kadow added that Oregon Ridge has not had to advertise to attract gardeners, who find out about the program through word of mouth.

"There's usually about a six-month wait on the waiting list," she said. "But we expect to have open plots for next year."

Back at Forge Park, John Campbell's bok choy, Swiss chard, eggplant, kale, tomatillos, cucumbers and nine varieties of heirloom tomatoes are prospering with his trial-and-error method.

"You learn by making mistakes," the healthcare specialist from Towson Green said. "Last year I had one tomatillo plant — very tall and no fruit. I didn't know they had to be cross-fertilized. You start to learn what works and what doesn't."

According to Wade Gibson, forays to Forge Park from his home in Pinehurst, to cut the grass or tend to his crops, are relaxing and calming, especially early and late in the day.

"Running deep among many of us urban farmers is the joy of being in touch with nature and the outdoors, digging and messing around in the dirt," said Gibson, professor emeritus at Johns Hopkins Medicine, who also cultivates crops on a raised bed in his back yard and on a plot in Clifton Park as part of the City Farms system. "I like discovering strange, interesting and often beautiful little bugs, birds and other critters there and enjoying the satisfaction of having [the plants] grow successfully to maturity and fruition."