History of the NIST Community Garden

By Neil Zimmerman, mostly.

Brief Version

In about 2010, Neil tried to get information about the legality of starting a community garden from lawyers at NIST and DOC, and failed. In 2012 and 2013, a young enthusiastic postdoc (Miki Tanase) succeeded in getting a legal opinion, in large part by enlisting the help of Associate Director Mary Saunders. After getting the opinion, they set up a Memorandum of Understanding with NIST. As part of this, the group organized as the “SEBA Garden Committee” (SGC), under the sponsorship of SEBA, the Standards Employees Benefits Association. In 2014 and 2015, they raised about $ 15,000, in a combination of i) “Green Grant” from DOC, ii) matching grant from the SEBA board, and iii) private donations. In 2015 and early 2016, the SGC concentrated on infrastructure, including i) choosing a site, ii) testing soil, iii) using volunteers to spread mulch which killed the grass, iv) contracting to build a fence and spade the ground, v) set up a pump/tank irrigation system. In 2015, we also put in a 10 ft × 10 ft “demo plot”, to garner more interest and start learning how to grow foodstuffs at NIST (including peanuts!). In 2016, we opened the Garden to Members.

Long Version

Legal Opinion

In about 2010, Neil had this idea of a Community Garden at NIST. He contacted John Bollinger, at the time the head of Plant Division, who thought it was a good idea. John pointed out that the first thing to do was to get a formal legal opinion that such a Garden on US government land was legal. Neil contacted various lawyers at NIST and DOC, and a sustainability office at DOC, about the idea, but never succeeded in getting any action.

In 2012, Neil met a young enthusiastic postdoc (Miki Tanase). Over time, they talked about various items of mutual interest, none of them related to Gardens. One day, Miki called Neil, and in an excited way, told him that she had had the idea of a Community Garden at NIST. He told her that he thought it was a good idea, and apprised her of his previous failed attempt.

Miki started by interviewing people who had started Gardens at many national labs, and at the National Park Service. Unfortunately, none of them had had to provide a legal opinion. The NIST administration insisted on a formal opinion, but after many travails Miki hadn’t been able to get any traction with obtaining such an opinion until … Miki happened to read an article in the NIST Connections about Mary Saunders, Associate Director for Management Resources. Somewhere in the article it was mentioned that “she grew up on a farm”. Miki and Neil set up a meeting with Mary and she was favorable to the garden. From there things started rolling. With Mary’s help, we obtained the legal opinion from DOC Counsel, and the idea of the garden was approved.

MOU

After obtaining the Opinion, the next necessary step was to set in place a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between NIST and some organized group. It became clear that the best route was to organize as the SGC, with sponsorship from SEBA (SEBA is an umbrella NIST organization). Our main supporter at SEBA was/is Rod Ibacache, who has been SEBA Board Chair for several years. After setting up as a sponsored activity (requiring a SGC charter/bylaws), we started working on setting up a Committee and fundraising.

Initial SGC and Fundraising

About this time (2013), Miki’s tenure as postdoc ended and she moved on from NIST. The initial members of the SGC included Neil, Tim Thomay, Emily Townsend, Marty Green, and Clare Saunders. Tim served as the first President, and Neil as the Treasurer.

The SGC came up with some initial plans for the Garden, including a budget, which was dominated by i) deer fence, ii) preparation of the ground (i.e., tilling/spading), and iii) water source. With the help of Bruce Connelly (spelling?) of the Grounds Crew, we also chose a 100’ X 100’ site above the pond.

The fundraising was, after the Legal Opinion, the most difficult task. At some point in late 2014, it appeared that we would fail and have to give up. However, various people including Neil succeeded in winning a matching “Green Grant” from the DOC. In addition, Rod ushered a matching “seed grant” from the SEBA board. Finally, two very generous NIST employees including Marty Green (have to check with him to see if he wishes to be anonymous) gave very substantial donations. These private donations enabled us to accept the matching SEBA Board grant, and that in turn enabled the matching DOC Green Grant.

Tim oversaw i) setting up a website, ii) generating the SGC Garden Rules for Members, and chaired the SGC meetings for about a year. After his postdoc tenure ended, Neil took over as President.

Gathering Community Support

In March of 2014, we held a very successful initial public meeting, with about 55 attenders. As a result of this, the NIST Communications newsletter ran an initial story about the effort. Also as a result of this, and because setting up the full deer fence and irrigation took a long time, we decided to form a small 10’ X 10’ demonstration plot in 2015. This effort was led by Tim (water source), Emily Bittle (coordinator) and Neil (fence put up by volunteers).

Opening of the Full Garden

By the middle of 2015, it was clear that the Garden was succeeding. The soil tests looked fine, the budget and Grants were set, and the SGC had a stable set of official members including Emily Bittle (Plots). Przemek Klosowski (Infrastructure), Dan Ott (Treasurer), Amanda Pertzborn (Publicity/Volunteers), Kerry Siebein (At-Large), Emily Townsend (Soil), and Neil Zimmerman (President). In addition, we started getting enthusiastic encouragement from a growing number of volunteers/interested growers.

We contracted out i) building a 8’ deer fence and ii) spading the ground. Volunteers preceded the spading by the massive job of spreading tons of leaf mulch over the entire 100’ X 100’ plot, both to kill the grass and to enrich the soil. Dan planned and oversaw the effort to put up a shed. Przemek oversaw (and did much of the hands-on work) of building a platform and setting up the pump/irrigation. During this time and later, Emily Townsend planned (and hand-broadcast!) the cover crop seeds.

We also held several parties/information days, doing things like making salsa from produce in the demo plot. And we had fun reaping peanuts! We also started accepting five-year and lifetime memberships.

Finally, in the Spring of 2016, we opened the Garden with an initial subscription of about 25 members (Emily Bittle or other, maybe you have a better number), with each plot being 10 ft × 10 ft.

It has grown since then.