by Allan Appel The New Haven independent
Harris (center) with students, and (at right) Adam Rawlings of Neighborhood Housing Services.
Kim Harris grew up as a little girl playing basketball and everything else in the community center building of her church in Newhallville at the corner of Ivy Street and Shelton Avenue.
That old brick building was razed two years ago. The Mount Zion Seventh Day Adventist Church has now moved to Hamden. Harris — a long time educator, local well-being activist, and all-around Newhallville angel — is now a board member of the church.
She is also spearheading the utilization of the empty quarter-acre site as, arguably, the city’s first garden utilizing hügelkultur.
That’s the let-nature-do-the-work-for-you European method of creating practically self-mulching raised garden beds or mounds (hugels, in German) on a base of logs, wood chips, twigs, and branches.
Click here for a story about the debut of the Newhallville Street Garden last year, and Harris’s vision, along with that of the chief gardener, UConn Professor Stacy Maddern.
It’s debuting its second season in Newhallville this spring, a re-debut because with an impressive effort, all the hugels — some 15 rows of them — have been arduously turned from east-west to a north-south direction to maximize production.
On Wednesday afternoon, Harris came by to thank students in Derek Faulkner’s leadership class at Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU) as they hauled wheelbarrows, added logs, and cleared out the trenches.
On a sunny if cold day they all were there along with staffers from Neighborhood Housing Services of New Haven (NHS), a major partner in the enterprise, among rotating crews of other students, neighbors, school kids, local volunteers, all helping ready the site for spring planting.
At the top of the mounds you could see what was left of the winter crop of kale; Harris said she and a group of neighbors harvested five bags just the other day.
Last year and in quantity, tomatoes, kale, broccoli, bok choy, collards and callaloo among other crops were distributed to local churches, food pantries, a senior center, to neighbors, to the school crossing guards — and to anyone who wanted to come by and pick their own, said Harris.
And the food was grown by volunteers spending hours among the hugels starting with little ones from Harris’s daycare Harris-Tucker School, the K-8th graders from nearby Lincoln Bassett school, and from neighbors who tend the long-standing Ivy Street Community Garden across the avenue.
That garden is on city-owned property, part of the Gather New Haven network — and where Harris initially met Maddern and hatched the new idea — whereas the Newhallville Street Garden sits on church property
And because of that, what’s its future?
“The church loves what we are doing,’ Harris said. “We’re feeding people, with food, and spiritually.”
The land, of course, is primo property for much needed affordable housing in the area, and certainly NHS — whom Harris recruited to help her with the garden — would be a prime candidate to build it.
NHS has over the decades built or renovated 43 houses in Newhallville, said Stephen Cremin-Endes, the group’s director of community building and organizing, who was offering an orientation to the students.
“But housing is only part of revitalization,” he added, which is the larger role of NHS.
A thriving community garden — which is also a space for events, multi-generational communication, festivals, fun, and learning — can also play a huge role in revitalization.
Far more than a garden, it’s a community space, said Harris, and a learning space.
“You can never make a mistake in the garden,” Harris said, quoting Maddern, who one afternoon was working with little kids in the garden. “You can never make a mistake in the garden,” he told the kids, “because this garden is yours.”
Harris also put “revitalization” in very candid, physical terms when she added, pointing west up the hill toward Prospect Street, “The people at the top of the hill live seven to 11 years longer. So how do we combine the neighborhoods and learn from each other?”
Her answer apropos of the garden: “The premise of the garden is how do we teach people to be self-sustaining?”
After a year, the interest is there, she added, for the garden to grow in every way as evidenced by all the students from the area schools and colleges, as far away as Choate Rosemary Hall in Wallingford, who come to the garden for community service and to learn.
This spring’s major challenge is water!
“The community center had water,” Harris said as we toured among the hugels. “But not the garden.”
NHS’ Stephen Cremin-Endes and Harris.
Last year the water had to be hauled from neighbors’ homes until Cremin-Endes, with NHS’s long association with the neighborhood, knocked on the door of the neighbor adjacent.
He allowed the gardeners to hook up hoses to the household spigot, and the gardeners raised money through a grant to pay the neighbor back for the increased water bill when the growing season ended.
Harris said the church is excited bout the ongoing partnership with the garden/farm, especially about the potential for serious production hügelkultur will be enabling, so that distribution to local food banks can continue and grow.
“The hope is,” Harris added, “that they’ll let us have the farm for the next seven to ten years. As to whether they have other plans for the property, that’s down the road.
“In the meantime, this service to the community is unique and has enormous benefit economically and spiritually, as only a garden can.”
Future plans include erecting a greenhouse, developing programs for people with sensory challenges, for those in wheelchairs to garden, and for classes in cooking with fresh vegetables.
But first the water, the water!
Anyone interested in getting involved, donating, or helping, can contact Harris at inspiredcommunitiesinc@gmail.com