BACKGROUND

ELLENVILLE GARDEN VILLAGE:

PROJECT BACKGROUND

Autumn in the Valley, Ellenville     © Steve Aaron Photography

About Ellenville, Ulster County, New York

As we see from Steve Aaron's autumnal photograph, Ellenville is a beautifully located village, nestling in the valley between the Shawangunks and the Catskill Mountains of the Hudson Valley, New York. Known as "The Jewish Alps", our picturesque natural surroundings have long made this region a popular vacation destination.

An efficient and effective infrastructure developed here through the twentieth century, supporting a busy and purposeful village life of industry and trading, as Ellenville set up its own local government and a chamber of commerce. Several generations of the Ellenville community prospered and enjoyed life, as the village built up a central school district, a local airport, a hospital, and police and fire departments. Manufacturing industries set up in the village and provided high employment, a full diversity of retail stores thrived right across the village, hotels and restaurants did well in Ellenville, the residents attended a range of some twenty places of worship, and local families enjoyed hiking, golfing, trout fishing, two movie theaters and a first-rate public library.

Former knife manufacturing industry in Ellenville

It was from the 1980s and into the 2000s that Ellenville's manufacturing companies closed down or relocated, with resultant unemployment and economic decline hitting the village and surrounding communities very hard.

A succession of regenerative business initiatives have been proposed and attempted here in recent years, yet, in the absence of significant investor confidence, such efforts have largely proved so unsuccessful that an air of caution and skepticism for new proposals has become locally prevalent. Nevertheless, entrepreneurs continue to come forward with renewed energy and aspiration, as they try to make new business ideas work in Ellenville.

Ellenville Farmers' Market

And so it was in 2001 that a spirited group of locally-based farmers and growers partnered with Ellenville's local government and chamber of commerce in an effort to improve the economic and cultural profiles of the village by establishing a small farmers’ market in Ellenville. The management team succeeded in obtaining a $70,000 start-up grant from Ulster County, and then proceeded to stage four well-attended annual seasons of weekly farmers' market events here. However, as all the initial funding was steadily consumed and as the management team's members took on other commitments, the initiative struggled through its fifth year to retain vendors in viable number. Preparations for Ellenville's 2006 farmers' market season were therefore abandoned.

A new management team re-launched Ellenville Farmers' Market in 2008, and enjoyed another four years of well-supported weekly events. However, when the team's coordinator had to pull out at the close of the 2011 season, the remaining group members held such fundamentally differing views regarding basic operations that the farmers' market deteriorated into chaos during the 2012 season, and the management team disbanded. Again, Ellenville Farmers’ Market closed down, this time for the three years 2013, 2014 and 2015.

Aiyana community garden, Ellenville, 2008-2015

Community gardening in Ellenville

The Shawangunk Garden Club, a mainly retired women's club, has a tradition of "giving to the community by making our surroundings more attractive for everyone". The community-based organization Family of Ellenville set up the Aiyana community garden in 2008. This small plot on Village of Ellenville property was cultivated by Family of Ellenville volunteers according to the Mission to provide health and social education to youth through community service in a sustainable “living food pantry”. When Family of Ellenville could no longer adequately maintain this vegetable garden, use of the plot was revoked in 2015 by the Village of Ellenville.

About the "Ellenville Garden Village" project coordinator

Upon graduation from university in England, John Clark quickly became Director of a Workers’ Cooperative, authoring and publishing co-management, cooperative living, and healthy-living literature (including a dozen whole foods cookery books). Concurrently, John accepted Chairmanship of a nineteen-property Housing Cooperative, mediating resolutions of tenant-landlord disputes, coordinating renovations of accommodation according to local municipality regulations, and supervising volunteer work parties in the organic cultivation of vegetables on a two-acre plot of land belonging to the Cooperative that had fallen into neglect.

Project coordinator, John Clark, Niagara Falls, Canada, 2014

When management of the Housing Cooperative was passed on to an environmental campaigns group, John moved to his home town where he was elected Student Union President of a major north of England building college. In this position, John worked widely with the business community setting up work placements, and liaised between the college's governors, staff and students in matters of student well-being and morale.

Taking up tenancy of a working farm for ten years, John managed a large organic plot for fruits and vegetables production. During this period, John also worked as a consultant scientist, holding a University Professorship (Geology), producing field itineraries enabling physically disabled people to study geology and environmental science at university, and providing an environmental reconnaissance service for land redevelopers.

During the four years prior to his December, 2013 relocation to New York, John was also a business developer for a group of non-profits in an economically depressed city of northern England. This position of responsibility required John to identify and design community-benefiting projects, and to prepare grant funding bids for the projects' realization, while he also supervised people in horticulture, work experience and community service.

Making home in Ellenville

From 2006, John had been in online correspondence with Kathy, a school teacher from Saugerties, Ulster County, and the two met in person in New York in the summer of 2013. The couple were soon engaged to be married, and John relocated to start life afresh in New York, buoyed with the energy to create opportunities to achieve great things for he and Kathy, and to be a contributing member of a new community in the USA.

Kathy and John, married in August, 2015 at Praise Dominion, Ellenville

Kathy and John became tenants of a small-holding in the Catskill Mountains of New York State, where John cultivated a 4,500 sq ft organic vegetable garden during the summer and fall of 2014. The plot had long been neglected, and its re-creation necessitated clearance of sumac trees, thorn bushes, poison ivy, thick weeds, boulders, and a 600 sq ft area irresponsibly strewn with broken glass following demolition of a greenhouse in the 1970s. Photographs of the Catskills garden project appear in this blog’s “2014 GARDEN” page (LINK), depicting a remarkable four-month transformation of wildly overgrown mountainside into a productive, tidily managed, 43-bed (15 ft x 3.5 ft) organic vegetable garden, plus a beautifully stone-lined herb garden.

John supporting tomato plants at the Catskills vegetable garden, 2014

Great efforts had been invested in creating the Catskills garden, followed by two months’ work landscaping an adjoining one-acre plot of land in preparation for cultivating the plot as a second organic vegetable garden in the spring of 2015. The intention of this project was to grow a surplus of produce to be sold by Kathy and John at their own stall at Ellenville Farmers' Market. It therefore proved a demoralizing experience that emergency circumstances forced Kathy and John to abandon their homestead in January, 2015, as their private landlord would not replace the irreparable furnace, necessary for survival during the harsh winters high in the Catskills.

And so Kathy and John found themselves in a tiny apartment in Ellenville, every penny consumed in the move, and evaluating how they would consolidate and move forward through this unplanned-for situation. Above all, however, Kathy and John felt grateful simply to be occupying heated premises, as without a working furnace up in the mountains they had endured living conditions so cold that ice had formed on the inside of the windows!

Project conception: "Ellenville Garden Village”

John and his then fiancée, Kathy, had arrived in Ellenville penniless and looking for employment; while living in the mountains their car had broken down irreparably and their savings had to be prioritized for moving, such that the fifty-mile round-trip commute to work became impossible. No funds were available for Kathy and John to set up telephone, internet or television connection at their Ellenville apartment, they had no washer or dryer, and no money to pay for life's most basic of provisions (even food for their pets was running worryingly low).

Desperation dictated that Kathy and John availed themselves of Ellenville's food pantries. Wishing to return this unconditional kindness and compassion, John volunteered with the community work of Praise Dominion Family Worship Center, Ellenville. Having experienced cruelty from their former landlord in the Catskills, it proved a tremendous lift for Kathy and John's spirits that the compassion of Praise Dominion's Pastor, Reyes Torres, Jr., extended to helping them with the bus fares required to attend job interviews and the few dollars necessary for using the local laundromat and for purchasing non-food living essentials.

Praise Dominion Family Worship Center, Ellenville, NY

Having surveyed an unused plot of land adjoining the Praise Dominion church building, in February, 2015 John proposed to Pastor Torres and his aspiring horticulturalist wife, Virginia, that he cultivate that plot by creating and maintaining an organic vegetable garden, with the harvests to be distributed as part of Praise Dominion’s food pantry commitment. The proposal was warmly welcomed, and John set to work with planning the project.

Praise Dominion vegetable garden area, pre-cultivation , 2014

All works would be carried out on a voluntary basis, with members of the church congregation encouraged to assist John according to individual ability. John would endeavor to receive donations of materials and seeds from local businesses, members of the church congregation would donate gardening tools and equipment that they no longer used, and Praise Dominion would provide a small annual budget for other necessary resources, including a supply of water for irrigating the vegetable garden during dry summer spells.

Materials required to create and maintain the Praise Dominion vegetable garden, 2015

A design was drawn up to create twenty vegetable beds, each measuring 12 ft long by 4 ft wide, producing a dozen different varieties of vegetables, selected according to greatest likelihood of actually being used by the food pantry recipients. All gardening would be carried out using simple tools, and without the use of chemicals. This plot would be managed as an organic vegetable garden, producing naturally healthy and tasty food.

Design of the 3,000 sq ft Praise Dominion vegetable garden, 2015

Donations of seeds, gardening equipment and other materials were soon provided by kindly local businesses and local people for the Praise Dominion vegetable garden project, volunteers had pledged their support, and all other preparations were nicely in place for works to commence after the last heavy frosts of the season.

It was in early March, 2015, while eagerly awaiting milder springtime weather, that John conceived the vision of reproducing the Praise Dominion template at other places of worship in Ellenville. Numerous unused plots of land in the village could be transformed into beautiful and productive organic vegetable gardens, so improving the village aesthetic, giving nutritional support to needy residents, encouraging people of all ages to learn the skills required to grow their own healthy food, and generating enthusiasm to support a village farmers' market.

John therefore designed and presented to the leaders of several other places of worship in Ellenville a village-wide vegetable gardens project outline. Apostle Raymond Younger of New Testament Church of Jesus Christ, Reverend John Lynch of St. Mary’s and St. Andrew’s Catholic Church, Reverend Julius Collins of Shiloh Baptist Church, Reverend Mary Bruce of St. Paul A.M.E. Zion Church, and Rabbis Shlomie Deren and Moshe Frank of Congregation Ezrath Israel all declared an interest in embracing the initiative as soon as the commencement of works was feasible. Pastor Jay Vogelaar and Pastor Peter Rustico each pledged to consider the participation of Ellenville Reformed Church and Christ Lutheran Church respectively in the project at a later date, on condition that all proceeded well with the Praise Dominion garden. Finally, Canon Jeffrey Golliher of St. John's Memorial Episcopal Church expressed interest in the creation of a more naturalistic space, without vegetable cultivation, designed to attract birds and butterflies, and to be enjoyed as a peaceful place of retreat and contemplation.

Vegetable garden cultivation design, New Testament Church of Jesus Christ, Ellenville

Religious leaders recommended to John that he present this "Ellenville Garden Village" project more widely in the local community, feeling that the simplistic concept could prove attractive across the village's demographic, and so could serve as a unifying focus for all who desire Ellenville's holistic regeneration.

John therefore set out on a six-week mission to meet with a hundred people holding positions of responsibility in Ellenville, listening to specialist knowledge and experience, and noting interesting ideas and advice as to how a horticultural project could be refined and developed to partner with existing and planned local initiatives.

Possibilities of mutual benefit in partnering with the “Ellenville Garden Village” initiative were discussed with: local business people, local farmers, Ellenville-Wawarsing Chamber of Commerce (EWCOC), Rondout Valley Business Association, Ellenville Central School District, Ellenville-Wawarsing Youth Commission, Boards of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES), Cornell Cooperative Extension (Ulster County), Wawarsing Council of Agencies, Ulster County Community Action, Family of Ellenville, Ellenville-Wawarsing July 4th Committee, Hudson Valley Seed Library, Rondout Valley Growers Association, Ulster County Department of Social Services, Ulster County Community Service Program, local media (including Ellenville radio and TV station WELV, and the Shawangunk Journal), the Village of Ellenville, and the Town of Wawarsing.

Ellenville's Ace Hardware donated deer-proof fencing for the Praise Dominion vegetable garden

The experience of personally engaging with so many people representing such a diversity of approaches to improving the well-being of this village in Upstate New York had proved fascinating and enlightening for John. The undertaking had provided for John an excellent foundation of knowledge and insight into the possibilities and the problems that one may encounter in endeavoring to successfully initiate and establish new community-benefiting projects here at the present time. Much more than this forty-day schedule of meetings representing a fact-finding mission, however, John had sought reassurance that sufficient small inputs of active support would be forthcoming to create the synergies necessary to achieve mutual project objectives. Verbal support was certainly promising from all quarters, and time would tell whether this would materialize into something tangible.

Project commencement

An encouraging active collaboration came about in April, 2015 when John spoke with the Village of Ellenville. Inspired by the community-building vision of the “Ellenville Garden Village” project, the Mayor of Ellenville, Jeffrey Kaplan, invited John to manage a fresh start for Ellenville Farmers’ Market. The Village of Ellenville’s Board of Trustees added its backing to John, feeling that his collaborative approach would lead the farmers’ market to long-term stability as a useful resource for and of the local community. Although a summer 2015 re-launch of the farmers' market was unfeasible with such minimal preparation time, John was able to commence preparations for a 2016 season of weekly market events, with plans to sustain the initiative for the long term.

And so it was upon the thaw of mid April, 2015 that John set to work at the 3,000 sq ft plot of hitherto unused land belonging to Praise Dominion, raking up leaves and marking out twenty vegetable beds. Tools, equipment and materials had been donated aplenty, and once the pledged volunteers started coming along the "Ellenville Garden Village" project would soon have a new, fully-sown, attractive, organic vegetable garden.

Having worked solo in the garden for three weeks, John renewed his appeal for volunteer commitment. An hour here and there would prove useful from those dozen Praise Dominion congregation members who had verbally welcomed this initiative. Many promised, but nobody actually came forward to assist with the physical work.

Vegetable bed preparation at Praise Dominion, Ellenville, 2015

Certain realities of life in Ellenville therefore became evident to John: repeated disappointment during a twenty-year economic decline had made people skeptical toward new projects, no matter how virtuous. The current Ellenville philosophy appeared to John to be that people would provide verbal support for community-benefiting projects, so encouraging project coordinators to initiate planned works. Paradoxically, verbal supporters would then passively observe project progress from distance, considering any active commitment only with proof that significant phases of project works could be successfully completed without their active support.

Undeterred at this revelation, by mid June, 2015 John had completed a daily dawn-to-dusk mission by creating a fully-sown organic vegetable garden at Praise Dominion. Voluntary help did materialize later in the summer of 2015, when, satisfied that harvests were being distributed to Praise Dominion's food pantry recipients, Ellenville Central School District provided teenagers to earn school Community Service credits under John's supervision. Praise Dominion now has a beautifully-cultivated organic vegetable garden, for several months each and every year providing the church's food pantry with a selection of freshly-harvested vegetables. The harvest was also enjoyed at John and Kathy’s wedding reception, held at Praise Dominion in August, 2015.

Kathy and John at their wedding reception enjoying roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, as well as freshly-harvested, church-grown organic vegetables!

Project development

2016

Preparations for the 2016 re-launching of Ellenville Farmers' Market were undertaken from September, 2015, such that a twenty-week June through October season of Sunday market events proved sufficiently successful that the Village of Ellenville retained John's services as its farmers' market manager going into the future.

John's wife, Kathy, enjoying running a fruits and vegetables stall, Ellenville Farmers' Market, 2016

Several plots of unused land had been made available to John for cultivation as community organic vegetable gardens, and going into 2016 it was necessary to select one site as the focus for the year's efforts. Given the probability that volunteers would not come forward in the numbers that John had initially anticipated, and that the Praise Dominion garden would require maintenance, revitalizing a former vegetable garden in 2016 would be a wiser option than possibly failing, through lack of active support, to create a new vegetable garden.

Three recently-worked sites merited consideration for revitalizing in 2016:

1. When Family of Ellenville could no longer maintain the Aiyana community garden, John presented to the site's owner, the Village of Ellenville, a proposal to manage the plot as part of the "Ellenville Garden Village" project. While noting satisfaction that John could honor this commitment and expressing support for viable projects aimed at improving the aesthetic of public and private spaces in the village, the Village of Ellenville rejected John's proposal, preferring this site to remain vacant for future construction development.

2. Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church had granted for John's cultivation a half-acre plot of land at a residence bequeathed to the church. Deer-proof fencing was partly still in place around this garden, a few raised beds remained here, traces of several former beds were discernible along the edges of the garden, and the soil and drainage were generally good. This site would serve the aims of the project very well.

3. A friend of John's in the nearby hamlet of Kerhonkson had offered for the project a completely deer-proofed, 1,000 sq ft vegetable garden that had been organically cultivated until 2011. Although the clayey soil would require amendment (not least for improved drainage of the site), this garden received maximum daily sunlight, irrigation hoses were already in place, as were compost containers, and, in the event that no extra volunteer help was forthcoming in 2016, this garden was of an easily manageable size for John to revitalize alone.

Well-established asparagus at the Kerhonkson vegetable garden

And so in 2016, with the help of two volunteers, the Praise Dominion vegetable garden was maintained and a formerly-worked plot in Kerhonkson was rejuvenated. A selection of freshly-harvested, organic vegetables from each garden added nicely to Praise Dominion's food pantry packages through the end of November.

2017

Inter-season work focused upon establishing the re-launched farmers' market as a truly community-benefiting resource, as John successfully petitioned New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets for discretion in authorizing Ellenville Farmers' Market as a 2017 Farmers Market Nutrition Program (FMNP) participant. With FMNP-authorized status we were able to help low-income Seniors and Young Families to pick up fresh produce in Ellenville throughout the 22-week farmers' market season. In 2017 we also partnered with Rondout Valley Food Pantry, who collected the surplus of unsold fruits and vegetables at the close of market days.

It had been John's intention to advance the "Ellenville Garden Village" project in 2017 by revitalizing the half-acre garden belonging to Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church. However, the proprietor of residential premises at Warren Street, Ellenville, contacted John with a proposal for this site's 3,500 sq ft of land to be cultivated as a community vegetable garden. Given that this proposal included two volunteer gardeners and that the proprietor would provide the materials and equipment necessary to create and maintain a vegetable garden, John visited the site and assessed its cultivation potential as good. John therefore designed a 34-bed cultivation plan for the Warren Street garden, and the work of three people produced useful harvests in late summer and into the fall.

Warren Street: Cultivation Plan, 2017

Now with the help of four volunteers, in 2017 the Praise Dominion and the Kerhonkson vegetable gardens were maintained and a new plot at residential premises in Ellenville was cultivated. A small proportion of the freshly-harvested vegetables from each garden was made available at Ellenville Farmers' Market (sales would help to offset John's responsibility to pay for general liability insurance cover at the farmers' market site), while the bulk of the harvests of a dozen different vegetable varieties was distributed among food pantries.

2018

Given that the farmers' market is such a great source of healthy foods, we are working during this inter-season to expand access to such food in 2018 at Ellenville Farmers' Market for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) participants. Ellenville Farmers’ Market will continue to participate in the FMNP for 2018, and this is great news for Seniors and Young Families. Cornell Cooperative Extension (Ulster County) will provide nutrition education here in 2018, and several of our community-based organizations are already adding our weekly market events to their 2018 schedules. We're close to securing the sponsorships necessary for firmly establishing a farmers' market in the community, and, of course, we're looking for new vendors (crafts, food to go, dairy, meats, baked goods, body products, clothing) for our June 3 to October 28, 2018 season.

We're hopeful of adding to our group of four volunteer gardeners for works in 2018, as the project's existing vegetable gardens at Praise Dominion, Kerhonkson and Warren Street will require maintenance, and a former vegetable garden in Ellenville will be revitalized. This half-acre garden at Broadhead Street, belonging to Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church, will be cultivated with fifty vegetable beds, each measuring 12 ft long by 4 ft wide. Completion of this ambitious task in 2019 will be dependent upon new volunteer commitment to the project.

Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church, Broadhead Street: Cultivation Plan, 2019

Partnering in 2019 with Ellenville's Green Certified restaurant, Aroma Thyme Bistro, the "Ellenville Garden Village" project is running a new program for adults who would like to learn more about Organic Vegetable Gardening. The 8-week program, hosted by Aroma Thyme Bistro on Monday evenings (March, April, May) and including meals at the restaurant, will provide students with confidence to design and cultivate a home organic vegetable garden, choosing appropriate varieties and planning for harvest. For details of this program and how to reserve a place on the 2019 course (limited to 12 students) see this blog’s “TEACHING” page (LINK).