Boston Natural Areas Network partnered with Boston Youth Conservation Corps and Youth Opportunity Boston to initiate two Garden Mosaics projects. Participants in Youth Opportunity conducted Garden Mosaics activities at the Clark Cooper Community Garden, Inc. in Mattapan, and youth employed through the BYCC engaged in Garden Mosaics activities at the Joe Ciampa Community Garden in East Boston.

The Clark Cooper Community Garden
The Clark Cooper Community Garden was founded in the 1960's on the grounds of the former Boston State Hospital. Roughly 250 - 280 people garden on the four-acre site that is now owned by the Boston Nature Center/Massachusetts Audubon Society. The Nature Center is a model for environmentally friendly architecture and environmental programs, and provides several nature trails for exploration. In the neighborhood around the garden, you can find stores, homes, office buildings and a large cemetery.

The youth members of Youth Opportunity regularly interviewed and met with a number of gardeners: Bill, Carl, Lonnie, Osborn, Royal, and Sonny. Youth members were Alex, Angela, Carla, Chris, Diardey, Gina, LaDawn, Lorenzo, Philip, Santiago, Socrate, Sydney, TajMarie, and Treva. Their supervisors were Kristin and Sara. The youth helped to maintain several demonstration plots and created their own flower bed at the Clark Cooper garden.

The youth found that the gardeners primarily grow vegetables such as collards, bell peppers, black-eyed peas, broccoli, butter beans, celery, green beans, eggplants, purple hull peas, okra, onions, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, and zucchini. They also grow a few herbs, such as basil and mint.

This past summer was particularly hot and dry. The gardeners use a variety of methods to keep the plants watered. Some use plastic bottles that have small holes cut in them. When the bottle is filled with water and buried into the ground beside the plant, it slowly waters the plants during the day. Gardeners can then refill the buried bottle as needed. Other methods of keeping the soil moist include watering by hand instead of spraying with a hose, and placing newspaper, straw, or other materials on the surface of the soil to act as a mulch that keeps the soil underneath from drying out. The gardeners try to avoid watering in the middle of the day, between 10 am and 3pm, when evaporation would be greatest.

The gardeners use several strategies to control insects and weeds. Some use combinations of household products such as tobacco juice, lime, flour, dish soap, and ammonia on or around their plants. Most gardeners weed by hand and compost the weeds to return nutrients to the soil. Black plastic is one type of mulch used around plants to keep weeds from growing. One gardener noted that by encouraging the growth of his crops with added fertilizers they outgrow the weeds.

The Clark Cooper Community Garden provides a relaxing place for gardeners to relieve stress and enjoy the company of fellow gardeners. Each year the gardeners celebrate the harvest with a cookout in August and a picnic in September.

The Joe Ciampa Community Garden
The Joe Ciampa Community Garden was started in 1975 on an East Boston lot that once housed a condemned building. One of the founders, Joe, has outlived the other founding members and continues to garden on the site. More than twenty-five members tend the twenty beds. The members generally live in the surrounding neighborhood and there is a 2-3 year waiting list to join the garden. Currently, the members are developing a governing board for overseeing the garden. Until now, the garden has been run casually through the collaborative efforts of members.

The youth from the Boston Youth Conservation Corps-East Boston mostly met with gardener Sue. The youth were Brandon, Candy, David, Phil, Tommy and Tony. Their supervisor was Eric. They also spent time with Joe and visited his nearby cactus-filled greenhouse. Joe built the greenhouse over thirty years ago from scrap metal and assorted reused materials. He uses "old junk" for everything from making trellises to water systems. Both his garden and his greenhouse are watered by a system of pumps, hoses, and rainwater barrels. An oil furnace is used to heat the greenhouse in the winter.

The Joe Ciampa Garden is filled with fruit trees and bushes (blackberry, fig, peach, plum, raspberry, and strawberry). The garden is well known for its successful fig trees. Each fall the trees are dug up and buried under mounds of leaves and soil. This allows the figs, which normally grown in a warmer climate, to survive the winter. The garden also boasts an array of herbs, flowers, and vegetables. Sue's plot includes flowers (lilies, roses, zinnias, coneflowers), vegetables (tomatoes, pumpkins, salad greens, beets, and carrots), and herbs (oregano, sage, basil, chives, lavender and mint). She enjoys making sauce out of her tomatoes and canning it for winter.

Sue, like other gardeners the youth interviewed in Boston, only waters when the soil is dry and avoids watering during the middle of the day. As an organic gardener, she does not use synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. Instead, to keep her soil and plants healthy she adds chicken and cow manure as well as compost. Each year the City of Boston and Boston Natural Areas Network distribute free compost to community gardens.

The Joe Ciampa Garden experiences problems with wildlife. Skunks sometimes root around for grubs, and squirrels enjoy the peaches and sunflowers. The gardeners keep nets on the peas to keep the birds away and they have a scarecrow on one of the garden benches. Sue also puts netting on her cucumbers.

Sue sprays a non-toxic soap on her greens to keep the aphids away. Because she "eats this stuff" she avoids using any toxic sprays. She also tries to encourage beneficial insects, such as ladybugs, in her garden.

The gardeners gather informally throughout the season—mostly in the evenings—and enjoy the use of a shaded common area that has a picnic table and chairs. Each spring there is a formal garden meeting and last July they had a large barbecue for families and friends of the garden. They are hopeful that the barbecue will become another annual tradition. Last fall they had a pumpkin painting and scarecrow-making day. Over the winter, gardeners enjoy planning their next garden. As Sue notes, "next year's garden is the best."