For more than a decade, Jeanette and Bernard Pearson of Park Forest have spent every summer tending their vegetable garden. They grow all kinds of peppers-from extremely spicy varieties (“Bernard likes the hot ones,” according to Jeanette) to sweet bell peppers-beans, squash, tomatoes and other garden favorites. Then, at the end of the season, the couple pack their freezer full of luscious fresh vegetables that last until the next growing season begins.
But as much as they love gardening, the Pearsons don’t actually own their garden plots. They “borrow” the space for the season from the Park Forest Park District.
Like other area residents, the Pearsons are digging in and harvesting the fruits, and vegetables, of public gardening. Theirs is one of a handful of park districts and other area agencies that offer a solution for frustrated gardeners who have poor growing conditions at home, who are unwilling to give up limited yard space or who have none to begin with.
Every year, avid gardeners descend on these public plots like ants to a picnic. Is it the fast-paced suburban life of the ’90s that makes us cry out for some private communing with Mother Nature? Is it fear of chemically treated vegetables from the grocery? Is it simply a lack of garden space?
The answers are yes to all those questions and others. And thanks to the availability of community plots, gardening is a pastime that need not be denied for lack of space. No room for a garden? No problem. Just rent one.
Such programs require minimal effort on the part of public bodies, generally tilling the land in spring and turning it under in the fall, marking the individual plots and providing access to water. The rest of the effort is in the hands, and garden gloves, of those who work the soil. In most cases, the land is not appropriate for other park district purposes.
Toiling in the park district’s soil was just the answer Jeanette Pearson was seeking when she had a taste for garden-fresh tomatoes 10 years ago.
“My parents had a garden when I was in grade school in Georgia, but after that I never did,” she said. “When (the park district) offered these plots, I thought I would like some home-grown tomatoes, so I just started.”
The yard surrounding the Pearsons’ Park Forest townhouse just wasn’t large enough for Jeanette’s plans. “We do have quite a bit of yard at home. That’s where I have my flower garden-my pride and joy,” she said. “But I don’t want to take up that space for vegetables.”
Besides the fresh produce and blooming flowers, community gardening brings another bonus that gardeners don’t find at home-a social aspect. In fact, Pearson noted, “the best part is the people who you’ve seen out there for years.”
Which doesn’t surprise Elizabeth Tyler, who supervises Green Chicago, an urban gardening program in Chicago. “We’ve kind of lost that sense of community. Community gardening makes it easy for people who can’t or don’t communicate with each other to do it,” Tyler explained. “It’s a common place. It’s a common endeavor.”
And it’s a common passion that is taken up in gardens scattered around the southwest suburban area. Olympia Fields Park District rents 80 garden plots; Joliet Junior College’s Green Thumb program offers another 80 for rent; St. Joseph Medical Center provides 24 garden plots at no charge to willing gardeners. Most of these locations are filled this year.
And the Oak Lawn Park District is developing plans for a community gardening area to open next spring, according to park district officials there.
Where fees are involved, the charges average about $15 per plot for the duration of the growing season. Some communities charge more for non-residents or less for senior citizens. Plot sizes are about 20 by 30 feet.
In Lockport, the park district runs a free Adopt-a-Spot volunteer program for gardeners to tend the district’s public flower gardens. A similar opportunity exists in Morgan Park, where volunteers help tend the one-acre Edna White Century Garden on Saturday mornings and “Weeding Wednesday” evenings.
The success of community gardens varies. At one time in the late 1970s, the Park Forest Park District had nearly 400 plots. However, interest has dwindled since, according to John Joyce, director of recreation and parks.
“We were doing 150-200 lots and we had only 35-50 renters,” Joyce explained.
The nearly 20-year-old garden site, across the street from Governors State University, remains open, but the park district is neither charging for the service nor providing much support in the way of tilling or staking the parcels. However, water is still available.
Park Forest’s situation sounds familar to Ted Flickinger, executive director of the Illinois Association of Park Districts in Springfield.
“It’s a cyclical thing. Ten to 15 years ago, garden plots started to become very popular,” Flickinger said. “Then it faded out a little bit, but some still hung on.”
Flickinger called such programs very successful overall but noted some drawbacks. “Park districts face problems with people maintaining their plots. Some (gardeners) do a super job, and some let them go until they became eyesores.”
There are problems with theft, animal intrusion and vandalism as well. But community gardens still thrive in many locations.
“I’d say they are more popular in suburban areas, but certainly there are Downstate park districts that have them too,” Flickinger noted, citing Champaign, Decatur and Peoria as examples. “I think now it’s generating some new interest. There’s more experimentation using natural nutrients rather than chemicals, and people like that idea.”
There are lessons to be learned through public gardening as well, and Joliet’s Mary Costello is sharing those lessons with her children. Costello has enlisted the help of two of her eight children-11-year-old Meghan and 8-year-old Josh-to help beautify neighboring Lockport.
The family has volunteered, through Lockport Park District’s Adopt-a-Spot program, to care for several flower beds in Dellwood Park.
“I thought it would be a good experience for the kids to learn about plants and to find out how communities take care of these beautiful spots,” Costello explained.
The Costello family is one of about 12 groups who have offered their services to the Lockport Park District this year. While the park district purchases all plants and tools, it relies on Adopt-a-Spot volunteers to plant and care for the flower beds.
Meghan and Josh help their mother rake, plant, water and weed their assigned spots near the park band shell and around the park’s flagpole. The younger Costello children-Bridget, 20 months, and Stephen,6-enjoy it too.
“They love it because they romp and play while I pull weeds,” Costello said. “I love it because I have a very small yard so don’t get a chance to do much gardening.”
Green Chicago’s Tyler agrees that gardening can provide an emotional anchor for people, particularly considering current fast-paced lifestyles. “We have very few things in our lives that have a beginning and an end. We seem to be on a continuous rat race,”
It’s a hobby that has rewards greater than tasty tomatoes, according to Joliet’s Frank Satterthwait, who has maintained a community plot for three years adjacent to St. Joseph Medical Center. Retired, Satterthwait and his wife, Joan, visit their plot almost daily.
“I like to see nature at work,” Satterthwait said. “A lot of us just take (nature) for granted and are not as grateful as we should be for what the Lord has provided.”
After all, the call of nature is pretty basic, community gardeners agree.
“I think everyone should get outside,” Pearson said. “It’s the best therapy in the world.”
