Drew Park Community Garden

Fairfield’s Drew Park Community Garden is a one-of-kind garden in many ways. Before the garden was formally established in 1995, there were small randomly scattered gardens in Drew Park along Warde Terrace Road started by some of the tenants from Parish Court, an elderly housing project across the street from the park. Some of the neighbors asked the town to consolidate the scattered gardens and that’s when the original 24 plots were established. If it were not for these original senior “garden guerillas” we might not have a community garden here today.

The original plots were bordered by a four-foot split wood rail fence of which portions remain today. Because of the increasing deer population many of the gardeners placed fencing around their own gardens and when the community garden was expanded in 2010, many of the new plots were not really useable because of the lack of deer fencing. Funds were donated for the materials for the deer fencing and the community gardeners provided the labor for installation. At this time, 5 plots were designated for Drew Park’s Demonstration Garden for the purposes of garden education and production of sustainable vegetables for local food pantries.

The Demonstration garden is maintained by individual volunteers as well as volunteers from Greenfield Hill Grange #133, UConn Master Gardeners, and Boy and Girl Scout groups. Additional sustainable fresh vegetables are donated to local food pantries from individual gardeners and garden plots assigned to Our Saviours Lutheran Church and Build-On. In 2012 over 2,000 servings of fresh vegetables were supplied to local food pantries from the Drew Park Community Garden.

In 2012, a compost area was built as an Eagle Scout project and through an ACT grant, nine raised gardening beds were built by volunteers and Girl Scouts for seniors and special needs gardeners. Soil to fill these raised beds was donated by Green Cycle of Fairfield. Some of these raised beds are currently being gardened by special needs gardeners from the Explore Group at Abilities Beyond Disabilities and Project Triumph at the Kennedy Center. Six additional raised beds were built in late summer for seniors from Parish Court. The plot for these raised beds was cleared by volunteers from Build On and then the beds constructed by volunteers from AmeriCorps were filled with soil by community gardeners.

This year, Fairfield’s Drew Park Demonstration Garden partnered with Fairfield Woods Branch Library to grow heirloom seed for the Seed to Seed Library and to provide the “Seed to Plate” vegetable garden education program to the community. Also this year, Fairfield’s Drew Park Demonstration Garden was selected an All-America Selections Display Garden. All-America Selections was founded in 1932 and continues as the oldest independent plant testing organization in North America. Drew Park Demonstration & Display Garden joins a group of 183 All-America Selections Display Gardens in North America and is the first in Connecticut. At the Open Garden Day on July 27^th, First Selectman Mike Tetreau unveiled the sign designating Fairfield’s Drew Park Demonstration Garden as an All-American Selections Display Garden. Also attending the ceremony were Ken Placko, Town of Fairfield Tree Warden, and Mary Coe, Fairfield Woods Branch Reference Librarian.

At the Open Garden Day, a large scarecrow, plant markers and decorations around the garden created by the Explore Group from Abilities Beyond Disabilities.

The uniqueness of Fairfield’s Drew Park Community Garden comes from: