Serving Boone, Blowing Rock, Banner Elk, and other towns of the North Carolina High Country | Founded 05-05-05

Local Gardens: Small Community Garden Plot Yields Big Harvest

Story by Amy Cooke At the Leola Street Community Garden, Terri Jaroszewski grows sugar snap peas on a fence to save space. Photo by Amy Cooke

“Since I’m a new gardener, it’s really nice to be able to do it with other people,” said Terri Jaroszewski. “I am able to talk with them and ask questions. They have been such a big help and I also get to see how plants look in different stages in the different gardens.”

The Leola Street Community Garden in Boone is a patchwork of flower and vegetable plots where cosmos bloom next to green tomatoes and new dwarf apple trees provide a pretty new edge.

This is Jaroszewski’s first year growing there after her “very, very first garden ever” last summer. “This is great for me because I live near the gardens and can come and work without a lot of trouble,” she explained. “We have some chickpeas and a sunflower wall growing and have a cold frame at home, but it is mostly a steep wooded hill.”

The community garden is flooded with sunshine that makes growing the flowers, herbs and vegetables much easier and more likely to bring success. Mulch and water are available, along with all of that good advice.

“I read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle [by Barbara Kingsolver] last year and was ready to begin trying to grow more of my own,” said Jaroszewski. “Then, I went to the library and found other books that had a lot of information about growing food and then went further. They talked about foraging and making your own wine and doing more.”

Terri Jaroszewski harvests first crookneck squash of the summer from her community garden plot. Photo by Amy Cooke Jaroszewski went to college in North Carolina and was teaching English in Japan when her siblings here asked her to move to the area and help watch their children. Now working at the Gamekeeper Restaurant, she is enthusiastic about her new home. “I absolutely positively love it here,” she said. “I volunteered on a ship where we went to twenty different countries. I got to see some of the most beautiful places in the world, like Tahiti, and now I know we live in one of the most beautiful places anywhere.”

Jaroszewski keeps her small garden space filled and plans to continue planting throughout the growing season. She has already harvested strawberries, lettuce, sugar snap and other peas and has just finished her crisp white icicle radishes. As the summer progresses, she will reseed harvested areas with broccoli, carrots, garlic and Swiss and rhubarb chard.

She is enjoying the volunteer plants that sprouted from last year’s garden in her patch, including onions, mint, potatoes and tomatoes. The volunteer tomato plants have grown rapidly, as have the ones she direct seeded in the bed. Green beans have their own row, and a few okra plants are adding their beautiful bright green leaves.

The small garden is pretty as well as productive with a bright orange marigold edging and a small herb corner. A fragrant rosemary grows there, along with basils adding green and purple shades.

Her interest in heirloom vegetables shows in the selection of moon and stars watermelon, and the plant is growing rapidly. Pickling and slicing cucumbers grow near the watermelon, and a nice zucchini plant anchors one corner. The first yellow crookneck squash is just ready for harvest.

“I am dying to get to eat the squash blossoms and try other new things,” said Jaroszewski. “I have plants and seeds that people gave me including the dandelion greens and the arugula. It is so nice to come here, but you can’t just step outside and get a squash for dinner. You do have to drive.”

The small inconveniences are outweighed by the joy of gardening with the community. “It is fun to come and see what other people have growing and get to learn so much. Every visit is interesting here and I often get whooping and hollering from the street. You never know what will happen at the garden.”