Gardening boom extends to city plots

PHOTOGRAPHER: Sara Foss

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Michelle and Kyle Ardolino live in a condominium. They don’t have any land. Last year they grew tomatoes on their deck in pots, but this year they wanted to have a real garden.

So they contacted Capital District Community Gardens, a nonprofit organization that manages 46 neighborhood gardens in Rensselaer, Albany and Schenectady counties. Because of increased demand, the organization could offer them only a half plot. But the Rotterdam couple happily took it.

At the time, the Ardolinos had virtually no gardening experience.

“I didn’t know anything,” said Michelle Ardolino, 30, an attorney.

But with a little bit of research — “we’re big Googlers” — and assistance from Capital District Community Gardens, the Ardolinos have planted a wide array of vegetables, including three different kinds of lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, eggplants and peppers, in their plot in the community garden at Craig and Wyllie streets in Schenectady. At first, the half plot, at 150 square feet, seemed “huge,” Michelle Ardolino said. But “now we could use a bigger plot. We bought too many seeds.” She said she hopes she and her husband will get a full plot next year.

Gardening is on the rise.

Experts say the surge in interest can be attributed to several factors: the burgeoning local foods movement, the downturn in the economy and increased concern about food safety. They say that the trend began last year but has intensified in 2009. According to the South Burlington, Vt.-based National Gardening Association, 7 million more households plan to grow herbs, berries, fruits or vegetables this year, a 19 percent jump. In 2008, the number of households with gardens increased 10 percent.

Urban gardening, in particular, is on the rise.

“It’s skyrocketed,” said Amy Klein, executive director of Capital District Community Gardens. “It’s off the charts.”

300 new gardeners

Typically, the organization sees 100 new gardeners each year; this year, that number tripled, to 300. In order to accommodate the influx of new people, the organization decided to give new gardeners such as the Ardolinos half plots, while returning gardeners — CDCG has an 85 percent retention rate — got whole plots.

Klein said initially she worried that people would be unhappy with the half plots, but it’s worked out well. “Most of the new people we’re seeing are new in every sense of the word,” she said. “A half plot is much more manageable.” She said the organization has also ramped up its education programming.

Last year’s gardening boom caught local garden centers by surprise, and many ran out of vegetable plants in May, said Chris Logue, executive director of Cornell Cooperative Extension of Schenectady County. But this year, garden centers are better prepared. “A lot more vegetable plants were produced,” he said.

“People are looking for inexpensive things they can do close to home,” said Logue. “They think they can save money producing their own vegetables.” He said one of the things he’s learned is that new gardeners “have to be successful the first time around, or they’ll never do it again.”

Cornell Cooperative Extension has started teaching gardening skills in its nutrition courses, which are geared toward low-income residents, Logue said. “Farming, gardening and nutrition go together,” he said.

Ned Chapman, owner of Sunnyside Gardens in Saratoga Springs, said the store’s customer count is up about 10 percent, but people are spending less money than in years past. He said that higher-end items — such as water fountains — are not selling, but sales of “materials that customers can take home and plant themselves” are up. “It makes sense,” he said. “People probably have a little less disposable income to spend.”

Chapman said he’s noticed a number of new vegetable gardeners. Sometimes, he said, they have big expectations. “They want to buy two or three flats of tomato plants,” he said. “I say, ‘Why don’t you start with a six-pack?’ ”

Bruce Butterfield, market research director at the National Gardening Association, said he’s seen similar increases in gardening during past recessions. The one thing that’s different this time around, he said, is the number of young mothers with children who are gardening. In the past, “we have not seen 18- to 34-year-olds step up to the plate,” he said. “I’m surprised and delighted. There is a future.”

Gardening has long been popular with the baby boomers, but not the younger generations, Butterfield said. “It’s almost as if the baby boomers got the message,” he said. “But what happens with the children of the baby boomers? I used to say, ‘If these people don’t start gardening, we’re going to fall off a cliff.’ ”

Warning about lead

Gardeners in urban areas should make sure they test the soil for lead contamination, experts said.

“Lead contamination is a major issue,” said Albany resident Scott Kellogg, who co-authored the “Toolbox for Sustainable City Living.” “It’s so prevalent, and it doesn’t ever go away.” He said people can either test for lead or assume they have dangerously high levels and build raised garden beds on a layer of landscape fabric to create a physical barrier between the ground and the plants, he said. Uncontaminated soil should be used in the raised beds.

Kellogg is waiting for the city of Albany’s Board of Zoning Appeals to approve plans to build a sustainability education center at the corner of Grand and Warren streets, the site of an old gas station. “One of the first things we’ll do is test for lead,” he said. He said it is possible to reduce contamination levels through phytoremediation — the process of using plants to take up heavy metals from oil. “Certain plants have the ability to accumulate lead and pull it out of the soil,” he said.

With lead, one of the main concerns for urban gardeners is dust and the potential for exposure through leafy vegetables, Logue said. “There’s lead paint chipping off buildings,” he said. “We used to put gasoline in our cars that had lead in it. That lead is still out there.” He said gardeners should make sure they wash their vegetables, particularly leafy vegetables and vegetables that are consumed raw, properly. “If the site is near a busy road or an old building that’s been knocked down, you probably want to test,” he said.

Cornell Cooperative Extension is one of the agencies that will test for lead. County health departments and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation can also provide information and assistance.

Lead is a toxin that can impair a child’s development.

Klein said CDCG has been fortunate in that lead contamination has not been a problem. “We test the soils for lead, heavy metals, sometimes asbestos,” she said. “We’ve only had one garden with a lead issue.”

Looking for land

Capital District Community Gardens saw a 20 percent increase in new gardeners in 2008 and built three new gardens to meet the demand. Already, the group is scouting the Capital Region for more locations and contemplating expanding into Montgomery and Saratoga counties. Klein said new garden development occurs in late summer, and it costs between $10,000 and $30,000 to develop a new community garden.

Michelle Ardolino said that an interest in environmentalism and the local food movement — last year she started an environmental blog, Little House on the Great Flats — inspired her to start gardening. At that time, “I didn’t even know we had community gardens,” she recalled. Then she stumbled across the Capital District Community Gardens Web site while surfing the Web.

“They’ve been really helpful,” she said. “They give you free seeds, information on mulching — anything you need.”

Cheryl Spaulding, 45, grew up on a farm in Schoharie County but now lives in Schenectady. This year, for the first time, she is gardening in a community garden plot at Cutler Avenue and Sixth Street. She said her children, Mikayla, 10, and Gabriel, 7, are old enough to help in the garden. “We’ve done gardening in the house and backyard, but we’ve decided to go a little bigger,” she said. They’ve planted beets, radishes, onions, lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes and squash.

Gabriel and Mikayla are home-schooled, and gardening is part of their education, Spaulding said. Some of the food they grow will also be donated to the needy, she said.

Spaulding said urban gardening is different from gardening in a more rural environment. “The biggest thing is trying to figure out how to plant things and make the best use of our small plot,” she said. “We got books out to research what can be planted next to each other.”

Because this is the first year she’s gardened through CDCG, Spaulding received a half plot. “It’s good for this year,” she said. “But we’re hoping that next year we can double that amount of space.”