By Greg Ellison

(Sept. 3, 2020) After kicking off the spring with more than more than five dozen 10-by-20 foot plots, the Windmill Creek Victory Gardens has provided a wealth of farm-to-table produce for an array of participants.

Windmill Creek Vineyard & Winery proprietors Barry and Jeannie Mariner began the project to provide free community garden plots earlier this year in reaction to the covid-19 pandemic.

In short order, the concept evolved into the Windmill Creek Victory Gardens with an associated Facebook page that currently has 165 members.

Harkening back to World War I, the “Victory Garden” movement took root in March 1917, when Charles Lathrop Pack established the National War Garden Commission just weeks before U.S. involvement.

Mariner said although harvest season is upon us, garden foot traffic has persisted.

“There’s still a lot of people that come out,” he said. “There are probably 20-30 people that come regularly and attend their plots.”

The Mariner family is the latest generation to till the 12.5-acre farm that, until 2010, was a 164-acre agricultural parcel along Worcester Highway in Berlin originally purchased by Edwin and Susan Mariner in 1924.

OPA Board member Steve Tuttle is among the gardeners still reaping rewards as the growing season winds down.

“Today I picked a good bunch of green beans, chard, cucumbers, jalapeno peppers, bell peppers and banana peppers,” he said. “I picked all that today and this is the end of the season.”

Tuttle acknowledged a learning curve exists after the initial year of plantings.

“We’ve gotten I don’t know how many pounds of tomatoes,” he said. “We overdid it as we planted eight tomato plants, and that was about four too many.

“We’ve made tomato paste and frozen it,” he said. “We’ve given away tomatoes.”

Tuttle said his family’s garden yielded a bumper crop of produce with the overabundance shared with the Mariner’s daughter, Brittany.

“I brought home about 10 carrots that I pulled out of the garden today,” he said. “I just had some of those for lunch.”

Tuttle said the time spent working the land provided a family bonding experience.

“There’s a lot of benefits to gardening that I think people don’t realize,” he said. “It was a very positive experience and my wife, and I did it together.”

Gardening also proved appealing to Tuttle’s extended family.

“I had my grandkids over there a couple times when they were in town,” he said. “My grandson loves tomatoes, so he was so delighted to be able to pick tomatoes.”

Tuttle said the labor-intensive undertaking was made easier with the assistance of a 55-gallon drum placed in his pickup truck bed.

“I put a tap and hose on it and would just fill it up at home and then run up and down the rows and water away,” he said. “It’s a fair bit of work because in the summertime you have to water everything.”

Mariner said at this point plot holders are clearing out their spaces with fall on the horizon.

“They used up what they had and it’s just kind of grown up now,” he said. “Basically it’s over with and everything’s pretty much used up.”

Tuttle said the Mariners did a stellar job of assisting community gardeners, many of whom were novices.

“They had the soil all tilled [and] provided plastic to put down to help keep the weeds down,” he said.

“They made it easy for people to come in,” he said. “There were definitely people there who hadn’t gardened before, so it was a learning experience for some folks.”

For more information, search Windmill Creek Victory Gardens on Facebook or call 410-251-6122.