Farmer D at work. Farmer D and his circle introduced 60 raised beds. On a sunny Friday afternoon, Farmer D and Nadine Horton gathered at Big Starr Garden in Newhallville to weed around elderberry, blueberry, and other potted perennials. They also demonstrated their sustained commitment to kee ping New Haven green — even amid Gather New Haven’s recent rupture with many of its community gardens. Dishaun Harris, aka Farmer D, and Horton respectively manage the Big Starr Garden on Starr Street between Shelton and Newhall in Newhallville, and the Goffe Street Armory Garden on County Street in the Beaver Hills neighborhood, among other sites. Those used to be under the umbrella of the local environmental nonprofit Gather New Haven. Thanks to ongoing financial woes, Gather — which emerged from the organizational marriage six years ago of New Haven Farms and the New Haven Land Trust — has newly handed over to city government 19 of its local gardens and micro-farms. According to its interim leadership, Gather will continue to care for just three gardens on properties it owns outright and will continue to run the Schooner sailing camp this summer. On Friday, Farmer D and Horton expressed decidedly self-resilient views about Gather’s giving up of a vast majority of its gardens. Some of those views: Just give us permission to continue to use the land as we have been for decades. Please continue to pay for water to grow the plants, because without H2O, and a lot of it, there’s nothing; and maybe offer us tech support but only if we ask. Yet as to the gardening itself — what and how to plant, obtaining the seedlings, the soil, the fertilizers, the wood chips, the boards for the raised beds, and all that — no thanks. Elm City gardeners across all the neighborhoods have been doing that and much more on their own and out of their own pockets, their ingenuity, and their entrepreneurship for years. “I anticipate systems failing, and Gather is not the biggest,” said Farmer D. “We saw this coming a while ago,” and gardeners always are looking to be self-sustaining. He and Horton were at the Big Starr micro-farm Friday, readying the site for new planting. They said they believed their views more or less reflect those of the gardeners from all the plots previously leased from the city under the Gather umbrella. As officials at the community services department and Livable City Initiative (LCI) contemplate next steps, Horton shared these thoughts: “We don’t want the city to manage the gardens. They have other priorities to deal with. We’ve done that over the years and we’ll continue to do so.” Surveying the impressive size of Big Starr Garden — 60 raised beds on a deep triple lot, and with a width of at least three house facades — this reporter asked if there’s concern the city might view the site as an opportunity to construct deeply needed affordable housing, and bye bye garden? “We realize there’s a need for housing,” Horton replied. She then called attention to the broad and deep ways a garden addresses other basic community needs: the health — physical, economic, and spiritual — of the surrounding neighborhood. “And we’re always building bridges,” she added, from one community to another. For example, she pointed to programs at her main garden, the long rectangular plot on County Street adjacent to the jail and the Armory, which immense pile of bricks is on the verge of a community-led come-back. There Horton has overseen some of her gardeners, who are Yale medical students, writing grants on the relationship between gardening and mental health, among other related topics. Not only is that bringing together two communities — the local Dixwell gardeners and the Yale students — but some of the proceeds of those grants over the years have paid for tools, greenhouses, and many other “extras” that Gather, increasingly, had no budget for. Farmer D said that over the three years he’s been managing Big Starr, about $20,000 of inputs — either direct funding from him, or through his followers and supporters in the form of in-kind contribution and grants — have come to the garden. (Farmer also has an extensive following on Instagram, at atroot.life.) Each garden, Horton explained, reflects the community. Hers, for example, has the Yale connection, and a book club has evolved as well over the last few years. A running club also uses the garden as a kind of home base. One of the Armory gardeners is an accomplished obsessive with houseplants. Horton said she brought them to the garden, organized a sale, and all the proceeds went to the common good of the garden. Likewise, another of the Armory gardeners, Blake Eason, is an accomplished painter associated with NXTHVN. He painted a series of scenes with the Armory garden as subject, and sold them to benefit the garden. “When something like this [the rupture from Gather] comes along, we’ve cultivated relationships, we can weather it. “All we ask,” said Horton, “is a commitment from the city to let us continue in the community-owned spaces.” Farmer D said Big Starr is also doing well. Last season it can boast, for example, having produced 900 pounds of tomatoes, collards, peppers, and kale, among other crops. In addition to the local community, the food goes to area food banks and churches, and the site — always in need of physical labor — is visited often in the spring and summer by local high school kids, ranging from Wilbur Cross to Choate, who weed whack, till, plant, and learn, and in the process fulfill student community service requirements. With a view of the farm and the growing garden as a cultural as well as agricultural site, Farmer D said that this year they are going to experiment with growing cotton, flax, and other crops out of which fabric can be made. And the indigo plant as well, which is used in dyeing clothes. Health, he said, is not only about what we eat but what we wear. “And learning where things come from.” Horton expressed no bitterness or anger about the pending divorce from Gather. In fact, she acknowledged gratitude. “If not for Gather, the Armory garden,” she said, “would not exist.” For a period of years Horton was one of Gather’s coordinators responsible for a whole group of farms in the immediate area of Big Starr. All that meant, she added, was that she was able to orchestrate seedlings and tools and a number of such basic items to be provided by Gather. “That was when things were flush, and all the gardens got those items.” Then, however, over the years, flush disappeared and fewer sites were able to be beneficiaries, and then there was a lottery. “At the Armory there were times when we said, ‘Go and give it to the others because we had Farmer D, who will grow his seedlings.'” Click here for an article about Horton’s forming of the Goffe Street Armory Garden in 2017 and its connection to the Armory restoration campaigns If there’s a silver lining to the rupture, Horton added, it’s that more and more connections are being made among the gardeners, and, frankly, they will need to do so if they are going to survive, particularly the newer gardens. “We’ll do it and in the process we’ll build a true community garden network, such that will benefit the growers, the community, and also affect food policy.” Another cap Horton wears is that she helms the New Haven Food Policy Council. “If Gather returns,” she concluded, “there may be lane for them perhaps to offer financial, entrepreneurial, or tech support, but not to step into the gardens operationally.” Maybe there’s a new concept in the offing, she speculated, like a “Friends of …” organization. This past week Horton said she has been working the phones and a good conversation has been engaged. This coming week a meeting is scheduled between the gardeners, LCI Executive Director Liam Brennan, Deputy Community Services Administrator Carlos Sosa Lombardo, and Gather’s Board Co-Chair Kyle Pederson. The subject: Next steps. Stay tuned, and keep the soil moist. Credit: Allan Appel Photo The post After Gather, 2 Gardeners Keep Their Hands In The Dirt appeared first on New Haven Independent. ...read more read less