Jane B. Gardener & John C. Gardener interviewed by Zachary Nowak
30 July 2016 — Fenway Victory Gardens, Boston, Massachusetts
In this interview, Xxxxx Xx & Xxxxx Xxxxx (whom I will call Jane B. Gardener and John C. Gardener) tell about how they started gardening in the Fenway Victory Gardens, their design philosophy for their plot, and what plants they have in their garden. This interview was done on a sunny Saturday in the Victory Gardens, so there is both noise from nearby streets as well as occasional noise from passersby. I used the built-in ‘Voice Recorder’ application on a Samsung Galaxy S6 smartphone, held on my lap about 3’ from the interviewees. The resulting file was in the m4a format, which I converted online to the mp3 format. I transcribed the interview using the online software called Transcribe, made by Wreally Studios Inc.
This transcript is a condensed, somewhat abbreviated version of the original interview. Researchers looking for exact wording should consult the audio files on record with this transcript at the Massachusetts Historical Society. The interviewees sometimes make false starts, or interjections like ‘you know,’ which I have eliminated in this transcript. I have also eliminated, in most cases, the words ‘So’ and ‘And’ if they begin a sentence. An ellipsis (…) marks where one of the interviewee trails off, while two hyphens (–) denote one person interrupting the other person. Note that an em dash (—) in this transcription is simply punctuation, used to indicate a parenthetical statement.
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Zachary Nowak: I’m Zach Nowak and I’m interviewing Jane B. Gardener and John C. Gardener. It’s the 30th of July, 2016, and we’re here in the Fenway Victory Gardens in Boston, Massachusetts. These are plots C19 and C20. How long have you guys had these plots?
Jane B. Gardener: I got mine in September last year.
John C. Gardener: I got mine this year.
ZN: Why did you guys want garden plots?
JCG: I really wanted another project, a hobby on the side. I enjoy getting dirty. This is a great way to do it.
JBG: I came from out of state, I grew up in California. I went to school on the East coast and then I moved up to Boston. Starting out [here], there was a lack of community. This helped to meet people and be part of something. It’s hard to come by that. We used to live right in the Fenway, but now we are closer. We walked through all the time, and we would see people interacting. We were on the waiting list for about 2 years.
ZN: Wow, so it’s been a while since you applied. You see a lot of gardens that appear abandoned, but people must come once in a while, and they haven’t quite kicked them out.
JBG: I think a huge part of it is the age spectrum. The older gardeners sometimes get ill, and the board doesn’t want to throw them out. It’s a good thing though. But they do turn around and open up, and there’s an opportunity. We were debating about how seriously we wanted to be involved.
JCG: We started out with one plot, and I think that was a wise decision. Get the first plot under control, and make sure it was something we could manage before we got two plots.
ZN: What did the first plot look like when you got it? And which one was that?
JBG: This is the first plot. It looked fairly similar, a lot of patchy dirt and grass. I wanted to keep this side more flowers because I’ve never gardened before. I’m not much of a green thumb. I went out and got some bulbs and added flowers. I wanted to add in grass and stuff but he vetoed it, we would have had to mow.
ZN: Since there are two of you, how do you make decisions about it?
JCG: We fight.
JBG: We duke it out. I think it’s the same way we plan our apartment. I get to do the interior design and the layout of it, and he’ll get to do the grunt work.
JCG: She makes the decisions and I execute, I guess.
ZN: Sounds like me and my wife.
JBG: I do want to say that I planted most of this while he was traveling, so I’m very proud of myself. For example, our tomato patch, the really well grown ones. I have to say I was an instrumental part of that.
JCG: We are fully rabbit-proofed, but something is getting in, could be squirrels or voles. Or tiny small baby rabbits, we’re not sure.
JBG: They eat the flowers. My Asiatic lilies are just eaten off at the top. Kale and spinach got munched. I think it’s part of the fun. I love that t-shirt that they [the FGS] made, with the rabbit skull.
ZN: I hear that the rabbits are bad. They–
JCG: –They add to the challenge. I took a walk down to community gardens in the South End, and they’re not fenced at all, but they don’t seem to have a problem.
ZN: Can you describe your garden for me? If you know the variety names, that’s great. If there’s any particular meaning—“This my mother gave me…”—that would be awesome.
JCG: Do you want to start with the grape trellis?
JBG: Let’s end with the grape trellis, that has the most story behind it.
JCG: I guess we can start down there. That section, the C19 section, is our vegetable garden. It’s our most productive garden. We have six raised beds over there with a mixture of tomatoes and peppers. Got them from Home Depot—
JBG: They’re heirloom plants!
[laughter]
JBG: They have names, there’s a Mr. Stripey or something. Because I purchased these tomato plants, they’re beefsteak, there’s a San Joachin. What’s most interesting is a self-watering system. There is an active group on Facebook who helped with that. We aren’t here all the time, so we have a bucket in the center, with manure on bottom. We fill it with water and it drips out.
JCG: It’s sunken. There’s a lip up above the soil.
JBG: We tried lids, but we didn’t put on the lids properly. They got “swimming lessons.”
ZN: Sacrificed to the garden.
JCG: There are lemon boy tomatoes. Ugly tomatoes. Moving to the end of the garden, the last plot are lemon cucumbers.
JBG: A friend gave us seedlings for them and beans. I think the squirrels have eaten all of it.
JCG: That tree was there when we were here. It’s a cherry tree.
JBG: We can plant-net it to be sure. The app helps you identify it.
JCG: We have a couple rose bushes by the front of our garden. That sad-looking plot has two eggplants. We have a tiny eggplant.
JBG: We were planting carrots that didn’t make it. The eggplant was shaded by them
JCG: We’re going to get this one eggplant. This cluster is zucchini and squash. That’s been doing well. Fifty percent of the zucchini and squash get eaten by the squirrels. It’s very productive.
JBG: More tomatoes and pimento peppers, and I tried to grow a Thai pepper plant. There is a little weed, I think they call them ground cherries. We’ve had this persistent problem with squirrels. John sprays plants with hot sauce which works.
JCG: It works!
JBG: I think it works too, but it’s pretty time intensive, because the second it rains, it washes off.
ZN: There’s another guy over in the gardens who soaks hot peppers with rotten eggs, and puts in castor oil and soap, and the soap makes it stick longer.
JBG: We should get that recipe. We have self-watering systems in five raised beds, but three don’t have it. I’ll let John describe the engineering process, because he’s very proud of it.
JCG: There’s a reservoir beneath these raised beds. There’s a sediment fill layer. You start by digging out the ground, then putting in pond lining, then lay this pipe down beneath and fill with gravel. On top then gardening tarp or a bedsheet to separate the layers, and on top of that dirt. The idea is that the water will wick from the reservoir layer up into the soil. You don’t lost any water to evaporation. If you fill the reservoir, the water will last a week.
JBG: Theoretically!
JBG: Right, theoretically. The system is working well with strawberries, then herbs: sage, thyme, parsley.
JBG: We grow some things from seeds. For strawberries, I got tricked with white ones which tastes like pineapple. Doesn’t work well, but no berries. The okra looks good, but no fruit. The peas are sad.
ZN: Are those onions?
JCG: Yes, and we had potatoes. The garlic we transplanted. Spring onions grow in water in the fridge.
JBG: I buried potatoes in the soil and they came up really well. They don’t taste better than the store, but we did get about 5 pounds.
ZN: Some people grew potatoes in tires with soil.
JCG: Each potato has many eyes which each produces a potato.
JBG: I got mixed color flower bulbs. Dahlias are pink, yellow and white. Gladioluses are coming up yellow. They came in really nice. In the middle are more glads. Peonies didn’t do well. I love the bush peonies.
ZN: I pressed Annie Wu’s peonies and one came out perfect.
JBG: She got one from a friend. John doesn’t know the difference between certain plants and weeds. I planted fava beans and he pulled them all out.
JCG: They looked like weeds. When they sprout they look like weeds.
JBG: There are four rows of dahlias and Asiatic lilies. There are pink glads.
ZN: What are these?
JBG: They are gladioluses. This plot has calla lilies. They are very small, but pretty. In the back more glads. I like bulbs because they come up every year. Bonnie says they may not survive. They are temperature dependent.
ZN: I see you have a mint in a pot, wisely.
JBG: The grapes were here when we came. They are Chardonnay grapes. There were grapes when we took over here. The former gardener built the trellis. I had neighbor envy, but now I’m proud of my garden.
JCG: We’ll continue next year. It’s nice after a day in the office to come here.
JBG: We want to have a garden party.
ZN: Is it fair to say that older gardeners do flower gardening and younger demographics have vegetables?
JBG: No, it depends on the ethnicity. There is an old folks home that has a large Asian population, and they have intensely good vegetable gardens. I think it depends on their likes.
ZN: Tell me about the reeds.
JBG: It was scary to walk the gardens at night. On occasion there are needles or condoms. My impression was not good. There is a history of the reeds. On a run, I cut through the reeds. It is a meeting place for homosexuals because society frowns on them. Then it transitions now where they are more accepted, so it is more a meeting place for drug dealing. You so see things being exchanged. Constantly people drive up and go to the same guy. It’s pretty sketchy.
JCG: I think it is part of being here. City gardening. I don’t enjoy the reeds, but it is part of gardening here.
ZN: At the historical society I see in the FGS’ records that they have been trying to get rid of the reeds since the sixties.
JCG: They burn them down periodically, but they always grow back.
JBG: We suspect that this is not accidental.
ZN: It’s interesting that many believe that the reeds are a monoculture, but if you go back the paths, collecting, there are all kinds of plants.
JBG: You’ve gone back there?
ZN: Yes, in the daytime. There are rooms back there, chairs, people’s belongings. I wouldn’t go there at night. I don’t make eye contact. But they’re not a monoculture at all.
JBG: The reeds have created neighborhoods in the gardens. Don’t pick a garden near the reeds. It may have traffic there of sketchy people.
ZN: One of the other women said that here is like Back Bay, and another area is Jamaica Plain, and another made that distinction also.
JCG: Yes, people guided us to garden in this area. This is Bayside here.
ZN: I hope that they will let me have a garden here next year, so that I can talk to people and ask them about the reeds.
JBG: A lot of those people don’t appear to be all Caucasian, but Hispanics. The story of who goes there would be fascinating.
ZN: There is a letter from the homophile society asking them to “call off the dogs”. They replied that one should not go back in the reeds because it was “a dangerous place.” A veiled threat. Nighttime is apparently the cruising time.
JBG: I thought this would die out because of acceptance. The Sheraton bathrooms is a favored place so I have heard.
ZN: In Boston it was the public library. It was Stonewall-esque. So what are your plans for next year?
JBG: I think we are going to do less vegetables because of the wildlife.
JCG: I want a different flow. She wants to have a pond. A man has bamboo plants which they made him take down.
JBG: I think the annual meetings are funny: the reeds, the bees, they are so angry…
JCG: Someone was keeping bees. It was an insurance issue. Lots of back and forth because bees are beneficial.
ZN: Long ago there was a rule: no sunflowers!
JBG: It’s interesting if the demographic may change. Chinese gardeners, Russian gardeners.
ZN: They are working on getting interpreters for them.
JCG: One of our members spoke in Russian at the meeting, then the interpreters would speak.
ZN: Yes, that wouldn’t have happened thirty-five years ago.
JBG: Here is another gruesome animal story: we were walking to the other side of the garden. They leave out traps to catch them. A squirrel jumped up and the man stomped them.
JCG: I have definitely seen traps even though they are forbidden. Rat traps too.
JBG: It’s very tempting! They eat everything. They eat tomatoes, they ate about five pounds of tomatoes. Just a little bite. I love the critter stories that come out of here.
ZN: Well thank you guys a ton.
