Kathleen Titsworth with her sons and their girlfriends. (Photo — Naj Wikoff)

Ten years ago, Tom Both decided that Keene needed a community garden, a place where locals could come together and grow their vegetables, a place with plenty of sunlight as many homes in this mountain town were surrounded by trees and rocky soil.

Further, he had a perfect site in mind, the town-owned Marcy Field, the wide-open bottomland centrally located between the two hamlets. Even better, he had just the person on mind to organize it, Jim Herman.

Approach Jim he did, and you could say the rest is history. Tom’s idea was that the town would provide the land and water, and community members would handle the rest.

After discussions with his partner Dave Mason and others, it was agreed that people could rent a 12×14-foot plot, and if some wanted they could rent more than one initially for a $20 fee per plot. A limitation was the town did not want to have a permanent fence set up around the garden, as Marcy Field is highly popular for photographers; therefore members of the community garden would have to set up deer fencing each spring, and take it down in the fall.

“We were down in Troy, or somewhere, and we saw these community gardens and there were none in the Adirondacks,” said Both. “There was a thought of do we want a community garden or a CSA and have somebody do it and people share in it. I asked Lorrie Davis to come over to a meeting we had at the Nature Conservancy. She gave all the pros and cons. Richard Weber from the APA had some ground rules from a community garden in Michigan, and I collected some from Troy and elsewhere. We got a group together, reviewed the materials, and decided we’d keep it simple. We didn’t want any 20 pages of rules and regs.”

Leslee Ayres helps with her daughter Lucy. (Photo — Naj Wikoff)

The concept was proposed in the local media and enough people agreed to participate resulting initially around 16 plots of varying sizes. A site near the Holt house in Marcy Field was agreed upon, the town mowed out a rectangular site, and Tom borrowed Rob Hastings’ tractor and rototilled the heavy sod to give the first gardeners a head start. Plots were laid out and assigned, walkways established, holes for fencing dug, volunteers hung a light plastic deer fencing, and town Councilman Paul Martin rigged up a water line out from the Holt house and an array of hoses to enable the various plots to have water.

“I drove by yesterday, and I saw all the people there getting it set up for the season and I said, ‘Holy cow!’ This is wonderful,” said Both. “The year after we got ours up and running, Lake Placid had theirs, and now they are all over the place. They even have raised beds over in Essex behind the town hall. It’s great to see the community get together.”

“The garden’s fabulous. It’s the best year,” said Dave Mason. “There’s six new people. We didn’t have to extend it, so everybody has a plot that’s been worked already. It’s fun. Look at all the people here.”

Indeed over two dozen people were actively engaged attaching deer fencing with plastic ties, digging out weeds along the edges of paths, spreading aged cow manure and working their gardens.

“One of our long lost gardeners has returned and looking forward to gardening this year,” said Jim Herman. “We’ve got families with kids, and the kids are participating, kids of all ages.”

Martha Lee Owen and Maura and Bill Long put down wood chips. (Photo — Naj Wikoff)

“This is our longest-running community project,” said Mason. “It was Tom Both’s idea. He called Jim and said, can you organize this, and Jim said sure. It’s interesting that people start with a plot, and then they think it’s not big enough so they want two. If they make it with two they say, I want a third, then the next year they say this is too hard and go back to two or one. You can grow a lot of food in one plot. People don’t often realize how productive one plot can be. Another thing I like about a community garden, if you are not going to be around for a week you can send a message to the group and say I am going to be away, can you water my garden if it needs it, and people do.”

“People often say, while I am away, if you want to pick some lettuce or tomatoes, go right ahead,” I said.

“Especially at the end of the season,” said Mason. “A nice thing about putting up the fencing each year is if we need more plots, it’s easy to expand the size of the garden, or shrink it a bit if needed.”

“To me, this is the best year the garden has had yet,” said Herman. “Each year it is slightly different because there is new people. I think there is a great energy. Because we have a number of people who know what’s needed to get this fence up they did advance planning and advance work so when we all got here we could be more productive. I think it has all come together in a classic example of teamwork.”

“I’ve been gardening since I was a child. My dad gave us each our own special area in our yard,” said Harriet Merile. “My husband Roger’s father was a Dutchman, and he had a phenomenal garden. So Roger had the bug and while we’ve done a lot over the years, we’ve never had this kind of full sun, bottomland soil, environment like this where you don’t have to deal with trees, clay, shale, or rocks. We are thrilled with what we can do here.”

“The word community is very important,” said Bernie Webb, who with his wife Ethel have been involved since the beginning. “The interaction of the people is just wonderful.”

“I can’t grow vegetables at my house because of the deer and other wildlife, so I decided to join the community garden,” said Kathleen Titsworth being assisted by her sons and their girlfriends. “I also think this is a great place and way to meet new people. I also hope that by helping me my sons will get excited about gardening, weeding, watering, and picking the results, plus they’re free labor.”