Bountiful Gardening: Rock Meadow Victory Garden

The sixth in a series about gardens in Belmont.

Despite the brutally high temperatures July brought, Marilyn Decourcey said her garden at Rock Meadow is the best she's had so far.

For the past decade, Decourcey has kept a plot for growing vegetables and flowers at the Victory Gardens located off Mill Street in the southeast corner of Rock Meadow.

"My squash and sunflowers are doing unusually well," said the Watertown resident on Sunday.

"I think the heat is actually helping my plants unlike last year when it was so cool and we had all that rain."

It's wonderful, she said, to have the community garden plot so close to her home where she can come a few hours to tend her plants every other day.

"It's good to be able to eat something organic," Decourcey said. "You really can't get vegetables this good at a grocery store."

Perhaps part of her success in the plot is that she doesn't use pesticides or fertilizer but does sprinkle a layer of compost over the entire garden, Decourcey said. This year, she added a layer of manure to the soil.

In addition to squash and sunflowers, she's growing pumpkins, turnips, Brussels sprouts and tomatoes that are doing quite well.

 "Last year, the tomatoes were very disappointing (due to the blight) but I've already had some this year," she said.

Gardening in her plot is not without challenges for Decourcey, however. The first space she had was home to a groundhog who was "eating everything" before she could pick it.

So Decourcey moved to her current plot which doesn't get as much sunshine as she'd like but she works around that by changing where she places certain plants and giving up on those which don't seem to thrive in the space.

"I aim to plant things that work," she said. "I've tried and tried to grow beets but they don't work here so I haven't planted any for a while."

Creatures roam the area of the approximately 120 plots – sometimes unnoticed but often brazen enough to approach the gardeners and challenge their work.

Recently, Becky Prior was involved in a contest of wills with a field mouse that kept digging in her garden no matter how many times she tried to shoo it away by loudly clapping her hands and spraying it with hose water.

"I think I disturbed her home," Prior said, watching the tiny mouse frantically dig in an area she recently re-chipped to keep water inside her patch of collard greens. "Maybe she had babies and is trying to rescue them," Prior hypothesized.

This is her second year tending a plot at the Victory Gardens and Prior loves the opportunity to come out several times a week to plant, weed and – ultimately – pick her vegetables and herbs.

"I tried gardening on my porch with containers but it just wasn't as good as growing directly in the ground," she said.

The Victory Gardens at Rock Meadow are granted to area residents who apply for a plot. The annual fee of $25 includes an easily accessible water supply.

The individual plots vary in size, but generally provide adequate area for a family to plant a few types of crops, and maintain with relative ease. Some of the plots have been recently gardened; others have been fallow for some period of time. Gardeners agree to actively maintain the plots during the growing season, and it is understood that failure to use the garden will result in the forfeiture of the plot assignment next year.

Improvements, such as fencing or ornamental features, are at the discretion of the gardener, and alumni always have the right to retain use of the same plot from year to year. All plots are suitable for growing vegetables, herbs or flowers.

If you are interested in registering for a plot, or would like more information about the Victory Gardens, contact Conservation Commission Agent Mary Trudeau in the Office of Community Development at 617-993-2667 or mtrudeau@belmont-ma.gov