Masked gardeners share their bounty

By Susan Bailey

CFP Correspondent

While the COVID-19 pandemic has brought change to virtually all aspects of life, a 13-year tradition continues at St. Rose of Lima Parish in Northborough: the planting of their Community Garden. Volunteers gathered on Saturday, May 30, to plant rows of tomatoes, cucumbers, summer and winter squashes, eggplant, lettuce and green beans. The garden was then blessed by St. Rose pastor, Father James A. Houston.

When the bounty comes in, it is donated to the Northborough Food Pantry and Northborough Senior Housing. According to committee chairperson Joan Scott, the garden began producing early.

“We actually started harvesting by the third week in June,” Mrs. Scott said. “We were getting zucchini and now we’re getting tons and tons of cucumbers. And somebody picked the first tomato the other day.”

The members of the garden committee are:  Mary Ellen Klusacek, Colleen Lupien, Susan Nichols, Joan Scott (chair), Susan Seppa, and Susan Waddell.  The garden committee oversees the planning and coordination of the garden and coordinates the volunteers who plant, weed, harvest, and deliver the vegetables to the food pantry. 

The origin of the garden dates back to 2007 with a high school student by the name of Will Deadly. He was part of YNIA (Young Neighbors in Action), a national Catholic youth organization that sends kids on mission trips; St. Rose of Lima was participating in that program. The idea for the community garden came up that summer.

“A lot of the kids had worked at the Community Harvest Project in Grafton,” said Mrs. Scott. “Will decided to take it on as his Eagle Scout project.”

Mr. Deadly prepared a proposal which stated in part, “I went to Father Houston and said that he needed to make a garden over in the unused lot next to the church. He responded by saying, ‘I need to make a garden? No, you need to make a garden [ jokingly].’ His other response was, ‘Hmm… Boy Scouts … they work hard so how about you beautify the area and clear out the front so that people can see the wonderful garden from the street.’”

An official sign was recently installed at the garden so that the public can know of the good work coming from it.

The harvesting began on June 26 and will continue through September 11. The committee turns to the parish community looking for volunteers to be “farmers of the week.”

“We ask people in the parish to sign up, trying to get either three individuals or three families a week over the course of the summer,” Mrs. Scott said. “We usually have 30 to 35 families who take a week. This year we ended up doing all of our sign-ups online because people aren’t coming to Mass, and it worked really well. All of our slots are full!” 

Mrs. Scott contacts the volunteers by email, providing specific instructions on how and what to harvest and getting the vegetables to the food pantry on time. “Farmers” are also responsible for weeding the garden.

Many of the volunteers are families. “A lot of people like to sign up and bring their kids and have them involved with it,” she said. “There are a lot of returning farmers too — people say that they look forward to this every year and they bring their kids. It is definitely a parish community effort; it could not happen without everyone involved.”

Because vegetables are perishable, a system had to be developed to make sure everything was fresh when delivered.

“Generally we would try to get the produce to the pantry as close to the time that they are open,” said Mrs. Scott, adding that “Northborough is open Wednesday mornings and Thursday evenings. They have refrigerators so some of the produce can get stored in the refrigerator. We asked people to try and store it themselves before they take it to the food pantry.”

Anyone with a vegetable garden knows that there are certain times when the bounty is overflowing. When the community garden is producing more than the food pantry can handle, St. Rose gives the produce to Northborough Senior Housing.

“We put it out in the kitchen,” said Mrs. Scott. “They love the fresh produce and they are more than happy to take it when it comes to them.”

Another crucial aspect to farming is access to water. Thanks to the generosity of a business next door to the church, the garden can be watered daily, sometimes up to 3 1/2 to 4 hours.

“We have watering set up with an automatic timer and drip hoses,’’ said Mrs. Scott. “We are really grateful to a business next door, European Car Service Inc. Chris Carroll who owns the business allows us to hook up and get water. Without Chris, there would not be a garden; it is a huge contribution.”

Mr. Carroll is connected to St. Rose through his family, “They went to the church when I was a kid,” he said. After exploring options with the town of Northborough and the garden committee, he decided to contribute the water himself. “This is probably one of the things I feel best about donating because it’s part of a very good cause. The people that work there put so much time into it and so many hundreds and thousands of pounds of vegetables go into the food pantry … I just think it’s a no-brainer for me — it’s the easiest check I write.”