Master Gardeners Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

The first of Tom Toliver’s gardens is in what looks like an unlikely place—there’s a lumber mill across the street, a busy road without sidewalks, and the garden itself is nudged in between a pawn shop and a DeWalt tool center. Along 6^th street, a mom and her two kids walk by carrying groceries from the nearby Family Dollar. Toliver also lives down the street. He believes that putting gardens in urban areas, like Charleston’s West Side, helps reduce crime and revitalize the neighborhood.

“When you bring in the good, the bad will eventually creep out because they cannot survive together. That’s another advantage of a community garden,” says Toliver.

For about twenty years, Toliver has been a mentor for children whose parents are in prison. Five years ago, he had one of the children over for dinner, and they were serving green beans as one of their sides.

“So my wife said, ‘you know where this food comes from?’ And they said, ‘Kroger.’ They had no idea or concept how food grew.”

Das Menon and Tom Toliver. Green-beans are growing on the trestle.

That’s what planted the seed in Tom’s mind to create gardens throughout his neighborhood in Charleston’s West Side. Toliver doesn’t sell any of the food he grows— in fact, he gives most of it to neighbors or to nearby shelters. So when Sarah Halstead, with the West Virginia State University Economic Development Center, heard about Toliver’s project, she connected him with volunteers from around Charleston who began helping him this season.

One of those volunteers is Stephanie Hysmith. Hysmith is a Master Gardener, which means participated in a series of workshops offered by West Virginia University Extension Service.

And Das Menon, an industrial designer, was also excited to help Toliver with his gardens when he found out about the project earlier this year.

“I grew up in India. I’m at the later part of my life, and I want to do something good for people. You want to feel like you have done something that will help people, and that will carry on for the next generation,” says Menon.

This year, Menon is putting design skills to work and is helping the group create a gazebo for Toliver’s second garden, just down the street on 6^th and Orchard. This garden is a partnership between the West Side Community Gardens and Sustainable Agriculture Entrepreneurs, also known as SAGE. Here, vegetables are not separated by rectangular beds. This is an organically imagined garden with plots arranged in a kind of swirling, starburst design—with sunflowers and other bee-enticing flowers at the center.

One of the neighbors, Sharon Bills enters the garden, walking her dog up the grassy hill. “We walk the dog up here and come check it out. And we all say that it was so neatly done, the way that it waters itself and everything,” Bills explains, pointing to the sunflowers which are in full bloom.

Toliver says their project would like to eventually allow neighbors like Sharon to have their own garden plots so they will be invested in helping raise food for themselves and for people in need. “My philosophy is: begin to help people to grow their own food, eat healthy, it will cause a healthy community,” Toliver explains.

“Nothing hurts me any more than to go into countries, even in America, and see kids eating out of garbage cans, when it’s so simple to grow food. It’s so simple.”

A follow up story about Tom Toliver’s gardens and a group of 22 YMCA children who recently volunteered to help him bring vegetables to a local shelter, can be found here.

This story from West Virginia Public Radio is featured in The Charleston Gazette. Click here to view the article.

While Honeybee Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) is relatively uncommon in West Virginia, bees and pollinators are still threatened in the region and all across the country. About a third of all of our foods (and beverages) come from crops pollinated by these insects. There’s growing concern that pesticides and certain farming practices are at the heart of the crisis, so more and more gardeners are stepping up to support pollinators in their own yards and fields.

Emilie and Bill Johnson of Morgantown are Master Gardeners, meaning they’ve been trained and either volunteer or teach horticulture through a national Master Gardener program. They have become passionate, quite accidentally, about supporting pollinators. Here are five tips to help you do the same:

1. Pollinators come in many shapes and sizes.

What started as a desire to encourage more butterfly visits became an interest in encouraging visits from all sorts of pollinators including honey bees and native bees, dragonflies, mayflies, and even humming birds and bats.

“We love the beautiful garden, too,” Bill said, “so it’s not just about gardening for insects. It’s about gardening for people as well!”

Bill also points out that a butterfly is only an adult butterfly for a small portion of its total lifespan, and many early incarnations of butterflies require very specific plants.

The Johnsons grow milkweed for Monarch Butterfly larvae, for example. Monarchs are the big black, orange, and white migratory butterflies in grave danger of disappearing because of loss of habitat and other factors.

2. Keep it wild—or as wild as you can handle.

In fact, the Johnsons grow a variety of milkweeds as well as other native and wild plants because, apparently, bugs love the native stuff.

“Find a part of your garden that you can let go wild, or as wild as you can stand it and put native plants in or plants that people might think of as weeds,” Bill said. He cautions others about introducing plants that might be (or become) invasive.

3. Don’t keep a lawn, keep a “clipped meadow.”

While the Johnsons won’t claim coining the phrase, “clipped meadow,” it gets to the point. From about 20 feet away, you might be able to discern some clover or a dandy lion in the yard, maybe. Johnson shrugs when he says he’s given up a monoculture-grass lawn.

“Clover is a legume and legumes are the only plant family that I know of that actually fixes nitrogen out of the air and puts the nitrogen into the soil. So there’s a synergy between the clover and the grass. Why put chemical nitrogen on your lawn when you can have clover do the job,” Bill said.

The Johnsons admit that they aren’t organic gardeners. But they, like many, are worried about pesticide use. According to a recent study by Harvard’s School of Public Health, pesticides are at the heart of colony collapse disorder (CCD). And the Environmental Protection Agency indicates that there is data to implicate one of the most commonly used pesticides, called neonicotinoids. The agency reports that residues from the pesticide, “can accumulate in pollen and nectar of treated plants and may represent a potential exposure to pollinators.”

4. Pollinate your own food.

Thirty percent of our food effusively depends on honeybees alone. The value of their pollination services is often measured by farmers and economists in billions of dollars. And the Johnson’s have come to learn that they, too, can take advantage of this free service to grow their own apples, blueberries, raspberries, and lots of herbs, too. The Johnsons report that pollinators love herbs like thyme, lavender and basil.

5. Anyone can do it.

Emilie said, as more and more information is being circulated on the subject of pollinators and gardening, Farmers Markets are a good place to get educated. And you don’t need a green thumb to grow some pollinator-friendly foods and plants.

“Anybody can help,” she said. “Anybody can plant a few things. Everyone can get in on this. It’s a fun thing, especially for kids! Kids love bugs!”

From a community garden, to a box of herbs on your deck or in a window box, Emilie said, the pollinators will find you.

Tag: Master Gardeners

Something New is Sprouting on Charleston's West Side

Want to Help West Virginia Honeybees? Here Are Five Gardening Tips