Garden Spotlight- Calahan Park

By Colin Reid, VCGN Communications Intern

Calahan Park, located on Locust St. in Burlington, is home to one of the city’s fourteen community gardens managed by Burlington Parks, Recreation & Waterfront.  The plots, built in to the side of a lightly sloping hill, overlook Lake Champlain and the Adirondacks.  This garden, which is a colorful blend of flowers and vegetables, has all the necessities; a hose and running water, compost, a tool-shed, and a spectacular view.  Anyone gardening there in the cool evening hours of summer will most likely get to enjoy one of the brilliant red, orange, purple, and blue sunsets that we are lucky to have so often.

June 27^th was one of those days that define summer.  The sun was bright, clouds were few, and a soft breeze was coming in off the lake.  Erin and her two young boys were giving their vegetable garden a drink and removing the small, scattered weeds from between the neat rows.  Erin and her parents have had adjacent plots at Calahan Park for three years.  This year her and her two sons have planted kale, lettuce, carrots, cucumbers, spinach, beets, and pie pumpkins.  She explained that her kids’ interest in gardening has grown over the past year and they are more excited to eat vegetables they have planted, grown, and harvested themselves than eat vegetables brought home from a store.  Although the Calahan Park garden plots are all spoken for, and each plot appears to be regularly tended to, Erin says that she can come to the garden at 8pm and have it all to herself.  It is a peaceful place to be as the sun goes down.

Erin’s garden plot looking down to the lake.