Shasta daisies fan out to the tree line, except where a break in the trees reveals a baseball diamond and a fog-shrouded Lake Michigan in the distance.
There is no rainbow, but the south end of Rainbow Park near 79th Street and South Shore Drive is alive with plantings, whether the self-seeding daisies that seemed a part of almost every plot or those planned rows of everything from cilantro to roses.
A light rain is keeping away the gardeners who ply their talents in this community garden, but Rainbow Park Gardens president Roberta Ray takes no notice as she worries about how quickly the hostas will take hold along the main pathway or if the one untended plot belongs to the lady who had had a baby.
The 75 plots arrayed across 2 1/2 acres of park district land have been a community garden since World War II, when they were called Victory Gardens, part of the national emergence of vegetable gardens used to promote the war effort. The gardens were laid out and underground water pipes laid in 1944. An old newspaper clipping relates how the sandy soil near the lake was amended with loads of organic matter to create the rich black earth that continues the tradition.
According to Becky Severson, president of the American Community Gardening Association, it is one of only two original Victory Gardens left in the city. Others have been abandoned as neighborhoods have changed or older gardeners retired. The Rainbow Park Gardens have seen a turnover of gardeners but there still is a waiting list for one of the 25-by-35-foot plots that rent for a nominal $5 a year, ”but $8 for new members, I never figured out why,” Ray says.
Where many community gardens are torn out each fall and the entire plot of ground plowed before the next staking the following spring, the Rainbow Park plots are worked by each tenant gardener, leaving the rich turf pathways and allowing more than annuals to be planted.
Peonies, iris and coreopsis, just starting to bloom, shows the variety of flowers. Ray has a mulberry bush pruned to near bonsai status planted next to her water hook-up to partially hide it. On this day, she discovers her prized trowel resting in the top of the shrub. Other shrubs can be found in hers and other gardens, as can an occasional tree, but almost a third of the plots have thick stands of raspberry canes.
The community nature of the garden promotes the plant sharing, one reason the raspberries have spread widely. That fellowship carries over to an annual pot luck dinner, a newsletter in winter and a sharing of chores in common areas. The paths must be mowed, the plumbing fixed and the common flower beds planted and maintained.
Much of that work used to fall on president Alfred Kosmal, who, he says, ”knew a little about plumbing and was retired, so I didn`t mind doing it.” He figures he`s been gardening in Rainbow Park longer than any other member, since 1964, but he and Ray can`t decide if he, at 84, is indeed the oldest member. ”Some people just left who had been here longer than I had, at least 10 years longer,” he says.
”Rather than beg people to help, my wife and I just sort of pitched in and worked our tails off,” for many years to keep the gardens looking sharp, Kosmal says. When Ray took over, the first thing she did was delegate as much as she could.
”When we had a meeting last winter, we had 35 people in my apartment, all willing to work,” she says.
The gardeners at Rainbow Park come from the multiracial neighborhood and span the ages from Kosmal to those in their 20s. Hispanics make up ”20 to 30 percent” of the tenants and Ray said finding a Spanish teacher in her building and having her help translate at meetings has made the Hispanic members feel welcome.
”You can always tell the Hispanic plots,” she says. ”There`s always some cilantro and lots of peppers growing there. It`s interesting to watch them garden; they`ll bring in their whole family, but only the men will work on the garden. The women bring lawn chairs and watch but they`re not allowed to work. Later in the season, you`ll see the women do some of the picking, but that`s all.”
Ray nurtures three plots in one corner of the garden, and does it strictly organically. Her cucumbers and squash plants are completely hidden by Reemay, a synthetic covering that lets light in. She is trying to thwart cucumber beetles and squash vine borers but may not have too much of a crop if the bees can`t get in to pollinate the blooms.
Shredded newspaper mulches plants within her raised bed rows and discarded cardboard boxes are flattened in the aisles. ”I use anything I can get for free,” for mulch, she says. A large compost pile is contained in fencing in the back of the plot. Another is started in her third plot in a plastic bag set in a tomato cage with a cylinder of wire mesh in the bottom to provide more air in the center of the pile to speed up decay.
One of her lessons in organic methodology came when she had her soil tested and learned that one plot contained many times the safe level of heavy metals. A previous tenant had hauled in truckloads of sewer sludge to improve the soil, leaving the soil contaminated for vegetable crops. Ray grows her flowers in that plot now.
Any garden in a public area is prey to more than the wildlife in the neighborhood. The two-legged variety can do a lot of damage, whether just vandalism or stealing an edible crop.
”You just have to be philosophical about the gardening,” Ray says.
”You just have to say that you enjoy growing things and getting out in the fresh air. You can`t get too upset about missing things.
”I try to plants things that people aren`t likely to steal, like leeks, which are so expensive in the store,” she says. One gardener has a novel approach to bringing in the crop. Raspberries provide a thorny hedge all around the plot but tucked in along one edge is an entry, sort of, between two thorny rose plants. The garden is a series of miniature rooms where the raspberries have been cut back to provide growing space. Other vegetables are stuck in randomly, whether in the middle of annual flowers or anywhere they won`t appear conspicuous.
Ray doesn`t disapprove of the method but notes that an entire colony of rabbits finds a home in the dense maze. The four-legged varmints fed heavily on her pea seedlings but undaunted, the vines grew on, and are now in full flower. It`s that kind of faith that keeps the community gardeners seeking their rainbow on the South Side.
