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Teach a man to fish, er, garden, and he’ll eat for life
By Jody Grismore Vance
It is the last week in April and tree branches that looked liked sticks in the air a couple of days before are turning green with leaves. Soon, quite soon, a very large rectangle of earth behind the Brimfield United Methodist church–plowed, but not yet disked–will be spouting a year’s worth of food. Already the trees to the north are gearing up to produce fruit.
This is the first year of a program to make garden plots available to people who need a lower cost alternative to grocery store food. And it is not only the dirt the church is providing, it is seeds and direction in how to garden, and it is the nitty-gritty facts of how to freeze and how to can what they grow.
It is another instance of helping people help themselves. Jerry Burghduff says, “The whole idea of this thing started with Omer Nisley, our minister; he gave a sermon one week about helping others help themselves. We wanted to come up with ways to do that so we decided on a community garden.
“David Schermerhorn volunteered to buy all the seeds so that is all taken care of. The canning jars–we’re going to collect over the course of the summer so that they won’t have to worry about canning jars and stuff.”
And they have proven land for the garden. Herman Smith, who lives behind the church, has been gardening in this exact place where the garden plots are located for decades–since 1964, to be precise. The Brimfield church purchased the land from Howard with the provision that he would have life lease.
It was Howard who planted the fruit and nut trees that are to the north and he will have a garden spot down there as well.
Nancy Adair says when they told him of the plans, he responded, “This is great.” Adair comments, “He can’t do it all any more anyway, so this way he can still have a garden.”
Jerry Burghduff laughs and remarks that radio station WAWK in Kendallville refers to Howard as the Mayor of Brimfield. Howard says, “Well, we’ve got a plan dreamed up that sounds pretty good,” and he looks at Adair and adds, “You just find somebody that wants to work.”
Burghduff has lined up six or seven families and says on a late April day, “We will mark out plots that measure 10’ by 10’ or 10’ by 20’…however much the family wants and if they’ll get that plot. Plus we’re going to plant a community garden: potatoes and green beans and corn and all that stuff to keep a family going for a whole year. People will have what they grow on their plots and at the end of the year the crops grown as a community will be split up.”
Burghduff, a retired Army Master Sergeant whose last assignment was at Ft. Hood hospital and is now a nurse a Shepherd of the Hill and sits on the State Board of Nursing, has gardened for years. With a grin, he refers to himself as a pretty good canner, too. He says he has a small garden at his home and he and his wife eat all year from what they grow in the summer. “Just tonight we had home grown asparagus.”
And Unofficial Mayor Howard Smith talks of his late wife having around 800 fruit jars and says, “The basement would be full of food that she’d canned out of that garden; we didn’t have to go to the store and hope we got a good price on something.”
So, just looking at the money-saving side of it, how much can this effort be worth? This growing of your own food–the way the folks here did pretty routinely just a couple of generations ago. Well, look at your grocery recipes and add up what you pay a year for foods other than dairy products and meat.
As crops are harvested, that which is not eaten fresh will be prepared for storage, so supervised canning/freezing will be ongoing through the summer and the last tomatoes of the fall.
Burghduff says, “Green beans you’ll start picking in June; black raspberries in June, and blackberries go through July. For every month you’ve got something and as to the carrots, you just let them go until the fall. The church is busy now gathering up plenty of jars and lids for the canning process. Burghduff chuckles and says, “We just ask that the people save them for the next year.”
The church put up posters to help get the word out and this first year, Burghduff says, “We have people we know who are having a rough time and could use a helping hand here. We have a set of rules: if you do this, you have to come out and work it.”
They have started that work and he says, “We’ve been out here since very early spring and we did all the pruning, did all the spraying and did a lot of cleanup and it’s ready to go now.”
But it will not be all work. He looks ahead at the summer’s potential and says, “We’re going to have campfires out here and Herman plays the fiddle. I’m a guitar player and I happen to know a couple of other guitar players–so during the course of the summer we’ll have some good times.”
All in all, it is a church community effort and Burghduff points out, “The whole church is sort of wrapped around this idea and they have all been down there working. And the church is aware if a family drops out, the food is still here and someone is going to get it. Nothing we grow will go to waste, because there are food pantries all over the place.”
Member Janet Cook thinks it will take at least three years for the program to really take hold, as people learn that it is a neighbor helping neighbor policy and that the people at the church are providing organization and instruction for people who want to work and help themselves.
One thing of which to take note is that these are the folks of the Apple Festival’s famous beef and noodles; these are the workers from the United Methodist Brimfield church. They have a track record for good food and getting things done.
Committee members are: Jerry Burghduff, Security/Safety/Rules; Nancy Adair, Operations; Marsha Ramer, Administration; Janet Cook, Public Relations; Ernie Cook, Logistics.
The Kendallville Mall will be posting pictures on our website as the season progresses.
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