Gardeners show off at Upper St. Clair community gardens
Brigid O’Malley, 7, of Upper St. Clair picks cherry tomatoes at Boyce Gardens.
Ribbon-winning vegetables at the Boyce Road Gardeners fair
Jerry Kender, president of Boyce Road Gardeners
Ribbon-winning tomatoes at the Boyce Road Gardeners fair
Table full of produce at the Boyce Road Gardeners fair.
Sometimes guests make their way into the gardens.
Young gardeners Even Proud, 9, and Morgan Proud, 6
Jerry Kender takes a look at what the gardeners have grown this season.
Natalia Disora, 7, shows off a ripe tomato.
Natalia Disora, 7, takes a look around the garden.
Maya Zambrano, 5, checks out the ribbon she won.
Maya Zambrano, 5, with a ripe tomato
Sandy Feather of the Penn State Extension takes a look at what the gardeners have grown.
Ribbon-winning vegetables
Shari Zambrano with daughter Julia, 8 months
Ribbon-winning tomatoes
Ribbon-winning peppers
While surveying her plot at Upper St. Clair’s Boyce Gardens, Barbara Rozen made what very well could be a standard annual observation.
“Some things are good, some things are bad this year,” she said, taking a look at what might be good to put on display.
From the looks of what she and other green thumbers showed off Aug. 22 during the annual gardeners’ fair at Boyce, the good seems to have outweighed the bad when it comes to growing vegetables in 2015.
“This year, I have a nice variety of hot peppers,” said Todd Anderson, who, with wife Nancy, has been working a plot at the community gardens for the past seven years. “It depends on the weather, how everything comes out.”
The Boyce Road Gardeners, as they’ve called themselves since the ’70s, navigated their way through too much rain through mid-July, and not quite enough since, to come up with an impressive variety of produce for Saturday’s fair.
Sandy Feather, Penn State Extension educator and horticulturist, was on hand to judge the entries and provide plenty of information for people looking to make their thumbs even greener.
“There are people who have been doing this pretty much forever,” said Phyllis Kender. She is one of them, starting way back when the community garden area was formed from what once served as part of the farm serving nearby Mayview State Hospital.
Her husband, Jerry, is president of the Boyce Road Gardeners, which is set up as a nonprofit corporation to administer the gardening area.
Each year, area residents pay a $5 membership fee and tend to 40-by-40-foot plots near the corner of Boyce and Morton roads, at the southeast edge of Boyce Mayview Park.
“It’s a lot of fun, and the people who enjoy gardening, they come back every year,” said Kender, who also has been returning annually since the late ’70s. “You have to enjoy it, because sometimes the weeds get ahead of you.”
A walk around the community garden shows that most of the gardeners have been diligent in ensuring that the weeds don’t win. Many of the plots boast healthy crops to whet the appetites of those who appreciate a tasty vegetable.
Speaking of which, a grill was going during the gardeners’ fair, producing a variety of epicurean delights.
Also benefiting from the garden is the food pantry at St. Winifred Roman Catholic Church in Mt. Lebanon, which twice a week receives produce to help replenish the kitchens of area families in need.
During gardening season – everything must be cleared out by the end of October – Kender is working at his avocation practically every day.
“I’ll tell my wife, ‘I’m going over to the garden for about an hour,'” he said. “And two hours later, she’s calling and asking, ‘Is something wrong? I’m just enjoying myself.”