“I’ve got flea beetles on my eggplants,” said Alice Timmons, scanning her plot at Greenfield’s Pleasant Street Community Garden. “I’ll spray them with neem,” she said, referring to the oil which for hundreds of years has been used as a naturally occurring pesticide made from neem tree seeds.
Neem oil, careful seed selection, and planting aromatic flowers are among the natural approaches Timmons uses to discourage pests from infesting her crops.
Timmons spent 30 years in Boston, maintaining and repairing trains for the metropolitan transportation system and living the city life. Yet she always found ways to connect with nature, particularly in the landscape project known as the Emerald Necklace, a 1,100-acre chain of parks linked by paths and waterways. Designed by the famed landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, the area gets its name from the way it seems to hang from the “neck” of the Boston peninsula.
“My son and I spent hours at the Frog Pond,” said Timmons. “We had window boxes in our third-floor apartment. I have to have my hands in the dirt, no matter where I live.”
Her love of gardening found a satisfying outlet when Timmons moved to Greenfield 10 years ago. One of her first actions upon relocating was to join the Pleasant Street Community Garden, at the time located on a spot currently occupied by the John Zon Community Center, where it thrived since 1999.
Due to the construction of the new building, the community garden had to move. Today, the project continues —albeit smaller in scale — north of its original spot, behind the new building.
Although Timmons is a Boston transplant, she’s very familiar with Western Massachusetts. She attended Northfield Mount Hermon School, as did her mom and several other relatives, and her family lived in Cummington for several years.
“We moved around a lot when I was a kid,” said Timmons. “I was born in the Midwest, and lived in Puerto Rico, New Jersey, New York, and other places.”
The practice of gardening figured significantly in her childhood after several catastrophic illnesses occurred in her family within one year, challenges that required them to grow their own food. “Gardening wasn’t a hobby for us,” she added. “It was a way to eat.”
There were many mouths to feed, Timmons explained. “My mom gave birth to a girl, then another, and then twin girls, boom-boom-boom, all in a row. But my father told my mom that they had to keep going until they got a boy and, guess what? Almost right away, she had another set of twins, boys this time, one of whom had significant disabilities.”
Timmons noted that the reproductive pressures that affected many mid-20th century women — pressures that affect the lives of women worldwide to this day — meant her mom birthed four babies in 16 months while also having to care for two toddlers.
“It was tough,” said Timmons, “and it got tougher when I was in fourth grade. My father and my grandfather both had strokes that year, and my grandmother went blind. We had to be resourceful.”
Resourceful is a word that describes Alice Timmons, who pivoted from fixing trains to applying her skills to gardening during her retirement years.
“I have an experiment going at the community garden,” she said. “Something you need to know about me is that I hate bean beetles. I mean, I truly detest them. They’ve devastated my bean crops more times than I care to count.”
With this in mind, Timmons decided to plant Kabouli Black Garbanzo beans, an heirloom variety meant for drying, originally collected in Kabul, Afghanistan. “I figured the foliage is so different from the beans we typically grow around here, it might confuse the beetles,” said Timmons. “It was a gamble, but it seems to have worked.”
Indeed, the intricate foliage of Timmons’ bean plant remains untouched by pests. She anticipates a harvest of dark purple beans, a color deriving from a pigment called anthocyanine, which enables seeds to sprout in cool soil. This makes it a perfect variety for short season areas, and Timmons appreciates that the bean plants, being legumes, add nitrogen to the soil.
“Win-win,” she said. “I think I pulled one over on the bugs. As you can see, the foliage doesn’t look like bean leaves one bit. To increase my chances of success, though, I planted a row of petunias and alyssum, since those flowers are known to discourage bugs.”
Timmons breathed in deeply and said, “I love that the back edge of my garden plot is so fragrant.”
The intrepid gardener learned, however, that edging her plot in flowers doesn’t keep flea beetles from her eggplants; hence her plan to step up her defense strategy with neem. “Gardening always involves some heartbreak,” said Timmons. “So you get creative.”
Timmons packs a lot of plants into her 10-by-20-foot plot. Asian coriander came up again this year after she seeded plants last year; self-seeding leads some annuals to act like perennials. She also grows Chinese asters, white sage (“for smudging”), calendula, dahlias, and rose hyssop.
Tomato and onion plants hint at meals to come. “I take these Egyptian walking onions, slice them up, and dehydrate them. They’re kind of like toasted onions — great for cooking,” she said. Timmons grows Chinese celery, “some pink, some white.” She gravitates toward unusual varieties and likes to experiment.
“How a person gardens mirrors how they feel about life,” Timmons said. “I love nothing more than to play in the dirt. Maybe it’s because, growing up, I noticed that of the many old ladies in my family, the ones who gardened were happiest.”
Her membership in the community garden bolsters her theory that gardening can build bonds between people and groups of people. “We’ve got to come together to take care of the land,” Timmons said. “We have this project right in downtown Greenfield, available not only for people to join as members, but also for non-members to come and visit. We’re meant to be connected.”
Timmons believes that community gardening “contributes to mental health. During COVID lockdown, at least we could come out here and see each other, work the land, and feel those bonds. That was so important during a really scary time.”
She especially enjoyed Wednesday Tea events, which she hosted along with fellow community gardener Elyse Moore. “There was something magical about it. Elyse boiled the water in a kettle and made tea for visitors, all brewed from plants we grow right here.”
Timmons takes pride in her family’s Western Massachusetts roots. “My mom grew up in Northampton. My grandfather, Sterling Whitbeck, was the president of Nonotuck Savings Bank, and I love knowing that he devoted a lot of his time to helping farmers keep their land during the Depression.” She’s met a few people whose families were able to hold onto their land due to her grandfather’s efforts. “I find that very moving.”
Shifting her attention from the past to the future, Timmons would love to see a teaching facility established locally to educate people in skills and issues related to growing food and building community. “So much can happen when we work together,” she said.
On a smaller scale, she says the community garden would benefit from a bench or two. “People come here to work or visit, and there’s no place to sit except on the ground,” she said. “So if anyone has a bench they’d like to donate, that would be terrific. Visiting the community garden is an act of hope.”
Eveline MacDougall is the author of “Fiery Hope” and an avid gardener. Readers may contact her at eveline@amandlachorus.org to request Alice Timmons’ contact information, or to suggest topics for this column.