Wet Weather Delays Planting for Community Garden

Rainfall in recent months has caused some Cuyahoga Falls gardeners to delay seasonal, outdoor planting.

The city's community gardens, located at W. Bath Rd. in , behind the Keyser-Swain farmhouse, are unplowed for the season due to wet conditions.

"We typically have the garden plowed by mid-May. We've hit that mark every year I've been involved with the program, except for this year. Everyone's waiting on the weather. It will stop raining, so they tell me," said Jeff Amburn, Cuyahoga Falls building and grounds superintendent.

Nearly one third of the 60-total plots in the community garden are still available for use to residents. The city provides water to gardeners through four spigots, spaced among the 25-ft. by 25-ft. plots. Residents interested in selecting a seasonal gardening plots can go to the Cuyahoga Falls utility billing department at City Hall, located at 2310 2nd St., from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., Mondays through Fridays.

"Usually, they're not all taken, so we do allow people to take more than one plot," Amburn said.

Although, weather permitting, the soil will soon be prepared for planting by a local farmer, it may also require further tilling by gardeners.

"If they don't get to it right away, and we have rain in between the time it is prepared, they'll have to bring out a rototill because it will harden up again," he said.

Residents using the community garden are permitted parking on the nearby driveway and grassy area, up to the restricted area indicated by a Parks and Recreation sign. Dogs are not permitted in the gardens area, although the city's dog park is located elsewhere in Keyser Park. The plots are in use each year through mid-October.

Some residents have regularly come each year to grow produce and vegetables in the community gardens, which the city moved in 1993 to the current location from their prior location on Howe Rd.

"There's people that like it and people that don't like it. The soil is not the greatest loam soil, but we have people that have been coming back for years that continue to be happy with what we're doing. The city did this for people that didn't have an area to garden," Amburn said.

Rainfall also has slowed local garden-related sales.

"We barely have any business now. People don't want to do it in the rain," said Jeremy Lamovsky, manager of Royaldale Nurseries and Garden, located at 4113 Wyoga Lake Rd.

Customers typically buy gardening supplies by early May, he said.

"Usually, a couple of weeks ago is when people would have been coming in to buy their vegetables, but we're only getting them in now," Lamovsky said.

For more information about the city's community gardens, click here.