Normandy’s Wayside Community Garden opens this Sunday

Located on a historic property in Normandy, the Wayside Community Garden provides plots for more than 30 "garden families." Credit: Jennifer Hope

If you’ve ever driven on Florissant Road near Bermuda, no doubt you’ve seen “Wayside.” The sprawling Victorian house, built in the 1890s by John Mullanphy Cates, was for many years home to wealthy salt baron Thomas Hardy.

Upon his death in 1960, his wife donated the property to the Normandy School District, stipulating that it could only be used for educational purposes, and since then it has served as a reading clinic, an early childhood center and a food prep facility. But in 2006, citing the prohibitive cost of maintenance and repairs (and following what some would call “remuddling” of the home’s original design), the Normandy School District essentially abandoned Wayside and started talking demolition.

Concerned residents quickly mobilized, forming Citizens for the Advancement of Normandy (CAN), and for several years the group explored ways to raise funds for renovation. But alas, the money never materialized and Wayside continued to sit vacant…until finally, the idea for a community garden came up.

“We realized that we didn’t have the funds to rehab the house, but we still wanted to do something positive for the community,” says CAN’s Jane Reise.

Gardeners of all ages lend a hand at Wayside Community Garden. Credit: Stephen Engelmeyer

So in March 2009, she and a handful of other volunteers broke ground on the three-acre Wayside Community Garden, eventually winning a grant from Gateway Greening to install rain barrels and a water pump and drawing an eclectic mix of “garden families.” During its first growing season, the garden boasted an incredible 30 plots, each maintained (using organic practices) by an individual or organization.

UMSL students and professors, low-income Normandy families, retirees, Operation Food Search volunteers – those were just some of the gardeners who helped Wayside yield more than 2,000 pounds of produce in 2009. And Reise is hoping for even more this year.

“The neat thing about the people who garden here is that it’s such a diverse group,” she says. “We’ll even have neighborhood kids wander by and ask if they can help.”

Technically, first dibs go to anyone who lives or works in the Normandy School District, but so far nobody has been turned away. “The more the merrier,” says Reise. “It’s just great learning who the people are in our community.”

During the 2010 season, Wayside gardeners can expect more educational workshops, field trips and fun events. Reise also anticipates a boost in garden funds, now that CAN has gained 501c3 non-profit status and all donations to the group are tax-deductible.

“We had no idea the garden would as successful as it was last year, but now that we have a good thing going, we hope to take it even further,” she says. “We’re not just growing vegetables, we’re also building community here. And that is such a great benefit!”

If you’d like to find out more about the Wayside Community Garden, attend opening day this Sunday, March 14, at 1pm, 415 Bermuda, 63121.

In January, UMSL's Students of Service volunteered at Wayside Community Garden, filling an entire dumpster with debris from the old Hardy house.

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