Photo by Joanne Beck
Wednesday was more than a typical hump day for about 15 volunteers measuring, cutting and assembling new galvanized steel beds, filling them with fresh soil, lifting out the old wood-framed beds, spreading mulch and installing new artwork at Batavia Community Garden.
It was more like getting over the hump of the past while moving onto more efficient and long-lasting solutions as resident gardeners prepare to get their own hands dirty this weekend.
“We’re doing a lot of weeding. We have to have the garden ready to plant this Saturday,” Cooperative Extension Executive Director Jocelyn Sikorski said at the garden property on MacArthur Drive. “We sold out at the end of March. We always sell out, but this is the first time it’s so early. It was phenomenal.”
What used to be a city-owned community garden operation transitioned to Cornell Cooperative Extension three years ago. Many dots connected since the nonprofit has a master gardeners program, enthusiastic volunteers, and a strong focus on agriculture.
RaeAnn Engler helped put together steel garden beds while other volunteers pulled weeds, raked soil, moved materials in a wheelbarrow and kept busy during the sunny day.
“We had these feed trough beds for ADA compliance, but they're really not that good because they dry out. So this year, we've gotten a three-foot deep, two-foot-by-eight-foot galvanized steel. I think that's going to work out really well,” Engler said. “It's a garden for everybody. We have flowers, vegetables, and fruit. People do melons, beans, tomatoes, eggplants.”
She has been chair of the garden committee since the idea took root in 2011 with help from Leadership Genesee. This is another dot connecting this effort to Cooperative Extension.
“They organized it, and the city was overseeing it at that point. And Jocelyn was working for the county and commissioned with the city at the Youth Bureau, so she’s been involved also from the start,” Engler said. “(Some members of the Class of 2011) started it, and then three years ago, I believe the city handed it over to Cooperative Extension to be the head agency. And that worked out well because Leadership Genesee is with Cooperative Extension, and master gardeners are with Cooperative Extension.
“Now that it is under that umbrella of Cooperative Extension, we accept membership from the county, any resident; it used to be limited to city residents, but no longer.”
Although membership has expanded to the county, people with a plot get first dibs on renting it the following year, she said, so “it does kind of limit it.”
“We have room for expansion. We’ve talked about that area,” she said, pointing to a parcel of grass nearby. “It’s a matter of having more people involved in helping to organize to be able to expand that much. We have some space available here, and we also have the additional panels, four-by-fours to make more beds if we get that option.
"Whether we change that, I’m not sure, but this is the first year that we sold out before the garden opened," she said. "Something to really think more about going forward.”
Photo by Joanne Beck
Photo by Joanne Beck
