Woolwich Community Garden welcomes gardeners to the 2017 season

Volunteer Garden Coordinator Jordan Schlump hopes for increased involvement, children programs this season at the community garden

Woolwich resident Jordan Schlump was born into a farm family. Involved in the 4-H clubs at 10 years old, Schlump said he was used to helping his two grandfathers around the land. It was something he’d always done; it was in his blood. When Schlump moved into the Four Seasons at Weatherby community, located on Center Square Road, and found out personal gardens were not permitted, he was eager to participate in the development and growth of the Woolwich Community Garden.

With the initiative and imagination of Jane DiBella, Woolwich Township’s clerk, in 2008, the gardens were a reality with 10 plots available to grow vegetables, herbs, fruits and flowers. Nine years later, adjacent to the Woolwich Township Municipal Building on Village Green Drive, 40 gardening plots sized 20’x30’ and 16 half-plots at 15’x20’ are available for the 2017 season.

“My dream is 100 plots,” Schlump, the volunteer garden coordinator, said. “We don’t know how far we’ll go. We’ll just keep going. As long as there is a proven need, we’re not going to stop growing until we’re told to.”

According to Schlump, many local communities are on a third of an acre for land, or like himself, are unable to grow their own garden where they live. Therefore, many people look to the community garden to grow fresh food of their own.

“As we build out more and more homes, more people are asking, ‘where can I go to have a garden?’” Schlump said.

Schlump said although it is called a community garden, it is not designed specifically to feed those in need; rather it is up to the individual gardener what they choose to do with their extra vegetables or fruit.

“This is not a community garden to feed the needy. This is a community garden of individual gardeners for gardening, and when they find they have 15 too many peppers, they can donate those to a pantry, a lot of people do that,” Schlump said. “Just as many people go home and pass them along to their neighbors as well.”

New this year is five additional plots, as well as an added area for strawberry patches. Schlump is also hoping to coordinate a kids’ garden for 10- to 12-year-old children where he and other experienced gardeners will teach and mentor the kids as they learn to grow their own food and crops.

“When the kids say they’re going to be here, there will be someone to assist them and help them learn,” Schlump said. “The 4-H fair will take submissions from the public now, and that’s what I’d like to get the kids to do. Their generation is, everybody wants a trophy. Their trophy will be their produce.”

Schlump looks forward to seeing more children get involved with the garden, and hopes this will plant a seed for an interest they otherwise would not have had.

“They’re going to be interesting to watch because at the age of 4 or 5, you can’t take your eye off of them; they’ll pull out the plant you just planted. At the age of 9 to 12, they are great, they want to do everything. When they turn 13, you get, ‘I have to go to the garden, I don’t want to be there,’” Schlump said.

Vegetables that are typically grown in the Woolwich Community Garden include corn, cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, zucchini and string beans. There have even been exotic vegetables that have made appearances throughout the years, according to Schlump.

“What’s nice about being in a community like this, with the diversity we have in the community, we have people of different ethnicities growing different types of beans from their culture. It’s nice to see,” Schlump said. “We have one lady who grows a long bean, and people like it. Another lady is growing a type of bean that is more like a lentil.”

According to the garden’s monthly newsletter, “The Watering Can,” other exotic vegetables include habanero peppers, Jerusalem artichoke, okra, tomatillo, white eggplant, ornamental peppers and kale.

Woolwich-Swedesboro returning gardeners are able to apply for their same plot by March 25. New gardeners are then able to apply for a spot between March 25 and April 1. The cost is $30 for a full-plot and $15 for a half-plot. Money raised from the community garden goes back into the township, causing the garden to be fully operational through donations and maintained by the gardeners.

Local farmer Joe Maugeri of Maugeri Farms volunteers his time and equipment every year to till and plow the lands, preparing the soil for each season.

Schlump said the garden’s motto, “Community gardens are spaces where individuals come together to grow food, build relationships and celebrate their communities,” is visible more and more as the seasons pass.

“The one thing that’s happened is the growth and the camaraderie of people communicating across the garden plot. It’s really something to look at now,” Schlump said. “There are more and more people hanging out and just talking. It’s a community of gardeners.”

For more information on the Woolwich Community Garden and how to sign-up, call (856) 467–2666, ext. 3101.