Gardener Spotlight: Afreen Fahad

The Land Conservancy of New Jersey’s Community Garden at South Branch Preserve would not be successful without all of the talented and generous gardeners who maintain plots there. One gardener in particular has been using her plots to benefit the community and spread awareness about organic gardening practices.

Afreen Fahad, with the help of her family and friend Rohana Chase, has been cultivating four plots at the community garden and plans to donate all of the produce to local food pantries. Afreen and Rohana are both incoming juniors at Mt. Olive High School.

In the plots, they have planted zucchini, tomatoes, three types of bell peppers, beans, oregano, rosemary, basil, rutabaga, cabbage, eggplants, and jalapenos. Recently they have harvested the cabbage and rutabaga. They have been harvesting the other crops weekly. Also, at home Afreen has started a small seedling project with her family growing spinach, leeks, and beets. As soon as they grow a little more, they will transplant them into the plots also.

Afreen’s goal is to start a kitchen garden club at Mt. Olive High School. Right now she and her friends are meeting the costs on their own, but she hopes to set up the club formally through the high school, so they can obtain funding.

Afreen is very passionate about organic gardening and the various positive impacts it can have. She has several objectives in starting the kitchen garden club at Mt. Olive High School. First she wants to donate all of the food grown to local soup kitchens and food pantries. She has already made two donations to the soup kitchen of Dover at Trinity Lutheran Church where she plans to volunteer this year.  This soup kitchen feeds about 70 people a day and also puts out small quantities of produce for people to take home.  Anindita Fahad, Afreen's mother, has graciously offered to pick up produce donations from other gardeners to bring to this soup kitchen.  Please let her know if you have extra produce that you would like to donate.

She would like to help other community members donate food to local pantries as well. Another objective is to involve her schoolmates who have an interest in gardening or environmentalism and put their interest to work. In the future, she would like to contact local nurseries to request donations of seeds and plants to produce food that will later be donated.

Besides the goal of planting and donating food, Afreen also has a broader goal of spreading awareness to her classmates about hunger, childhood obesity, and the environmental impact of importing food long distances. Now more than ever, the cheapest and most readily available foods are processed or canned and not very healthy. “Americans have historically proven resilience and self-reliance through the establishment of Victory gardens. At the time of the Second World War, when the war put a constraint on supply lines and affordability of Americans, people grew vegetables and fruits in gardens in their backyards or public parks,” says Fahad. She wants to empower her classmates by showing them that access to healthy foods doesn’t have to be difficult or expensive. She also wants to spread awareness of the fossil fuels that are wasted on transporting food long distances and the chemicals needed to preserve these foods for long periods of time, not to mention, the nutritional value that is lost during these processes. “Growing one’s own produce ensures access to foods that are organically grown, seasonally available and nutritionally the best, because they do not lose any nutritional content through travel from far away farms,” says Fahad. When you grow your own food, you know exactly what is in it and that you are getting the highest nutritional value.

In setting up the kitchen garden club, Afreen wants to create roles for her classmates to cultivate the garden plots, raise funds, keep track of expenses, collaborate with other community organizations, and spread awareness of broad social issues concerning food.

It’s wonderful to have Afreen, her family, and friends as part of our garden community at South Branch Preserve. Her work is truly inspiring!

Grand Opening of the Community Garden on 7/9/13

On Tuesday July 9 The Land Conservancy of New Jersey held the official grand opening of our Community Garden at South Branch Preserve in Mount Olive.  In attendance at the event were nearly 60 individuals including local gardeners and officials from Mt. Olive Township, the Highlands Council, New Jersey Green Acres, and The Land Conservancy. 

Roy Groething Images, www.roygroething.com

Mt. Olive Township Mayor Robert Greenbaum kicked off the event with a welcome to everyone.  In his welcome, the mayor celebrated the garden as a place for people to interact and build new relationships, “neighbor meeting neighbor.”  David Epstein, President of The Land Conservancy, also gave a warm welcome to all of the attendees and provided some background on the garden as well as The Land Conservancy’s goals for the future of the property.  

Roy Groething Images, www.roygroething.com

Rory Corrigan, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of The Land Conservancy, recognized several individuals who contributed to the garden including Mt. Olive Township, state representatives, and garden volunteers.  Plaques were presented to the Mt. Olive Township Council and Casey & Keller, Inc. for their outstanding work and support for the garden.

After the informal ceremony, attendees were invited to tour the garden and see what the gardeners have been able to create from their plots.  Many of the guests wandered the garden, as the gardeners proudly showed off their produce.  Mayor Rob Greenbaum was even invited by gardener Mary Ellen Alcock to pick a zucchini from her garden plot. 

Roy Groething Images, www.roygroething.com

The gardeners come from many different backgrounds and professions and have different levels of gardening experience as well as purposes for gardening.  Several of the gardeners live in condominiums and apartments, and have limited space for planting.  Other gardeners have large yards and gardens of their own, but want to meet new people in the area.  Some have young children and want to teach them that food not only comes from grocery stores and fast food restaurants but can come from the earth with a little patience and care. 

Roy Groething Images, www.roygroething.com

We didn’t realize that it would be much easier to build a community in the garden than it was to build the garden itself.  Constructing the garden took many hours of planning and physical labor.  In order to keep the disturbance to a minimum, the parking lot was built on the former site of a house that had been there when the property was a farm.  To irrigate the garden, a well was dug, and pump was installed and hooked up to electricity.  The garden area was tilled and fenced in.  The 10’x10’ plots were laid out with mulch paths dividing them.  This involved pushing countless wheelbarrows full of mulch into the garden.  Before the mulching was finished, ditches to accommodate rubber tubing for the irrigation were dug.  The spigots were installed, and the mulch paths were finished.

While the “garden” part was not easy, the “community” part came naturally.  The Land Conservancy is delighted to have a group of gardeners who are willing to help manage the garden.  A strong volunteer committee is already in place to take over a great deal of the management responsibilities relating to the garden.  Many garden members have put in a special effort to make sure the garden is successful.  One volunteer, Kimberly Blais, went to Lowe’s and Home Depot and was able to get 10 hoses donated to the garden.  Another gardener, Linda Amatucci, is donating a wooden picnic table to go in the garden seating area.  Shelly Morningstar has offered to weed the plots that haven’t been sold this year and organize a crew to help her. 

Additionally, Two leaders from the volunteer committee, Alicia Louie and Perri O’Flynn have stepped forward to organize the first potluck dinner, an opportunity for the gardeners to get to know each other and share the food they have grown.  The dinner will be on August 8 from 6-9 pm.  These are just a few of many examples of the generous efforts the gardeners are making to ensure that this garden is beautiful and successful.

Roy Groething Images, www.roygroething.com

Other garden events have included a seedling sale and an educational meeting on organic gardening hosted by two master gardeners.  We are in the process of planning more events such as yoga in the garden, and we would like to set up a food donation program for gardeners to give their extra produce to local food pantries.

Click on the link to watch Mayor Greenbaum's address at the grand opening. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0X4GvAUGQE

Evolution of the Community Garden at South Branch Preserve

Along with our restoration work at South Branch Preserve, The Land Conservancy of New Jersey has constructed a community garden North Section of the Preserve located along Wolfe Road near Route 46 East.  The garden is laid out in a grid with wood chip paths separating the garden plots.  Gardeners have purchased plots and planting crops of their choice.  The Land Conservancy has been working hard for several months to have the garden up and running in time for the spring growing season.  Of the 140 plots, 78 have been purchased and cultivated, and 62 are still available for purchase.  Here is a behind the scenes look at each phase of the garden construction until its current appearance.

The first step in the process was to obtain approval from the Mt. Olive Township Planning Board.  This involved creating a detailed site plan showing the location of the parking lot, garden, and well.  In order to keep the disturbance of the area to a minimum, the parking lot was constructed on the former site of the farmhouse and barn previously located on the property.  The parking area was covered with gravel and lined with logs rather than being paved to provide a more permeable surface. 

The garden’s location was determined by the power lines that run across the property.  Originally the garden was planned to be adjacent to the parking lot but was moved further away, to avoid disturbance to the power lines. 

Once the location of the garden was laid out, a shed was purchased to store the tools for the gardeners and The Land Conservancy staff. 

Once the shed was placed on the site, the soil was tilled and plowed to prepare the plots for planting.

After the soil was tilled a metal fence was erected around the perimeter of the garden, with rabbit fencing placed on the lower parts of the fence.  The rabbit fencing has a tighter weave than the metal fence in order to keep small rodents from making their way into the garden. 

While work was being done on the inside of the fence, a 422 foot well was dug outside the fence that pumps 25 gallons of water per minute.  Once the well was dug, electrical lines were installed to provide power to the pump. Water was now onsite for the gardeners!

Ten foot square plots were measured and laid out in the garden, the paths vary from 2 to 3 feet between the garden plots.  With the plots measured and laid out, irrigation ditches were dug to install pipes and spigots throughout the garden. 

The paths and the area around the shed were mulched and a 325 foot walking path connecting the parking lot to the garden was laid out and covered with wood chips.

All of this work was completed by May 25  for the opening of the garden.  Work on the garden continues throughout the growing season to ensure the pathways and garden plots remain free of weeds for gardeners and visitors.    

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Aerial Photographs: Credited to the Musconetcong Watershed Association

Repairs Completed After Hurricane Sandy Downs 100 Trees within the South Branch Restoration Site

After moving along most of the Atlantic Coast as a Category 1 storm, Hurricane Sandy made landfall in New Jersey on October 29, 2012. It was the second costliest hurricane in the United States, following the infamous Hurricane Katrina that devastated New Orleans. Coastal towns of New Jersey were subjected to quickly rising tides and severe waves generated by the storm, and the interior of the state dealt with the strong and violent winds of the storm. Across many towns, downed trees resulted in serious and dangerous damage to both property and the power grid.

Upon inspection of the South Branch Preserve Restoration Site in Mt. Olive, we discovered over 100 trees fell, many landing one on top of another, with over a third of these trees crushing portions of the deer exclosure fencing surrounding the Restoration Site. Fallen trees can be beneficial to the property by promoting new growth and habit for many species. But, loss of the fence’s integrity placed the new plantings and sensitive native flora at great risk of loss by deer over-browsing. The exclosure fence protects the native plantings and allows the understory a chance to thrive and create a healthy forest.

Removing the trees and repairing the extensive damage to the exclosure fence was going to be an arduous task that would take time. Time we did not have, only a few days after the storm, deer tracks could already be found inside preserve. The Budd Lake Hilltop Rod & Gun Club quickly agreed to help and by mid-December had cut and removed the trees so the fence could be repaired. Staff carefully re-hung the damaged fencing and the Dodge Foundation generously provided financial support to purchase replacement fencing and materials. The exclosure fence repairs have been completed and deer are once again restricted from the site. The absence of deer as well as the increase in microhabitats from the downed trees will improve the health and diversity of the flora and fauna of the area.