Aaron Carmack -----Italian Village Community Garden

Frank Elmer and Ruth Glass have the property for sale for a price of about $130,000.
Carmack, one of the people gardening here said “everybody knows that the day that this lot sells, the days are numbered then for the garden.”

But for the past 3 years neighbors here have been growing flowers and vegetables. There are 16 raised beds, each about 4 ft x 16ft.

The garden gets plenty of sun all day. And this year Carmack and neighbor Jason Slaygle installed an irrigation system that operates automatically, watering the garden between 3 and 5 am each day. This cuts down on the amount of time they have to spend on watering, and according to some of the gardeners here, also cuts down on the amount of water used.

The water is drawn from Carmack’s home a couple hundred feet away. The cost is split among the gardeners.

And there is some involuntary sharing going on as well.
“Some people come by and steal stuff from us. The first year we were kind of ticked off but then we were like ‘Well, it’s ok. That’s just what happens.’ I actually have one guy that comes to visit me--he’ll come next month (as the tomatoes get ripe)--and he’ll ask to take some of the tomatoes. So, I’ll say ‘well, yeah, sure; take what you want.’”

Three years ago when they started the garden, Carmack and other residents chose to do raised beds instead of tilling the soil.
“Well, underneath this, it’s just good ole Central Ohio clay. So, to have tilled this lot and then make amendments to it we thought was going to be too difficult. Plus, none of us have any tools that could do that.”

So, they opted to have cinder blocks and topsoil delivered. They try to make the garden as organic as possible, but have resorted to using a pesticide in at least one case.

“We were getting the Mexican Bean Beetle that was kind of tough to battle. We were having a hard time growing beans last year and again this year.”

Carmack said people who want to start a community garden might want to try approaching the private owners of unimproved lots. In some cases, for financial or other reasons, the owners may be willing to allow people to garden on the property until it’s sold.

This approach might not be acceptable to some community gardeners who’d prefer to have access to the site of their garden in perpetuity, so as to build the soil and establish a long-standing tie to the surrounding community.

But many of the community garden sites are rented from the city, and subject to being sold sooner or later, it would seem. So what Carmack and his neighbors have done might work for some of us.

As to whether his gardening is worth it, Carmack said “ Is it a cost-effective thing for us----whatever I put into my garden versus going to the North Market or Giant Eagle , or Kroger to buy the same yield of vegetables, or to get a CSA ? It’s probably 50/50....But there’s the learning (to grow food) side of it and the social side of it. It’s fun. Actually, really for us (he and his wife Gwyn) the best part of it is the neighbors that we’ve come to really get to know.”

Carmac pointed out a few surrounding lots that are for sale in his neighborhood near 2nd and Summit.
‘It’s not my call, but if we could, we’d fill all of these with gardens. I have a waiting list of people that would like a plot here. ”