Interview by Carolyn Zelikow
“My name is John Clark. In the 90s, my father was sick, so I helped him with his garden. I just fell in love with it. I don’t have room on my property to garden. So in 2000, the year following my dad’s death, I rented a 30’x30′ plot of land at Fairgrounds garden, behind the Olde English Inn on Emmet Street. The community gardens look really pretty in the spring. There’s a multitude of ways in which people plant. I’ve learned a lot from other gardeners. I was working on my tomatoes, once, and I asked a Fairgrounds veteran how often I should water them. Not often, she said: ‘Tomatoes got to learn to go deep.’ She’s right, and her advice has saved me from hauling over a lot of water in my milk cartons.
“My only complaint about Fairgrounds is all the morning glories—they’re three-quarters of my weeding. I cover the ground with maple leaves, and that helps, but doesn’t quite do the trick. By summertime, some people have abandoned their gardens—gone on vacations or what have you—so the area looks a bit messy. It’s sad sometimes, because you see people get too old to tend their plots. This guy next to me, he had been at Fairgrounds for over 20 years, loved his garden. One day I saw him closing things up. He looked at me, and I could see it on his face that he was leaving for good. At a certain point, people realize that they can’t do it anymore, physically. They enjoy it while they can.
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“I love getting out in the sun. I go out just wearing my shorts, no shoes even. May 8th is the key planting date for me. Some people plant earlier, but my father told me ‘May 8th.’ There’s a lot of work for the first week or two. First I till, then I plan out all my plants, put stakes up for tomatoes, then I plant everything. After that, it’s a matter of weeding, harvesting and replanting: two to two and a half hours per week. I just get a lot of pleasure watching my plants grow—vegetables mostly—just thinking you put this little seed down and then you’ve got good food to eat. You can just pluck it off the vine. And it is just so good! It’s just delicious to eat.”