By Brenna Wiegand
Pleasant summer evenings, residents show up with their lawn chairs or walkers, sip ice tea and watch the gardeners.
Those days have faded with the leaves falling to create a patchwork blanket of colors and residents thankful for the fresh produce in their kitchens.
Independent living complexes Silvertowne I and Silvertowne II on Mill Street are home to 97 low-income elderly and disabled individuals.
Most of them grew up when half the population lived rural and 30 percent of the jobs had to do with farming. In 1943, theirs were among 20 million Victory Gardens that produced more than 40 percent of the country’s fresh vegetables.
“I started raising a garden when I was about 8,” Bud Jones recalls. He and his wife Bev moved to Silvertowne six years ago. “Every chance I get, where I have a little piece of land, I always put in a garden. I just love tomatoes and green beans and it saves you a lot of money.”
Jones raised cattle and wheat in the Marquam area and always kept an impressive family garden. He now uses a walker to get around, but it doesn’t stop him from getting out and doing what he can.
Rick Graetzer can better care for his wife Leslie at Silvertowne. At 51, he’s a young pup, but growing up on a sustainable dairy farm in the Crooked Finger area has ingrained in him the instinct to coax flowers from the concrete.
“I was born with a shovel in my hand,” Graetzer said. “You could put me back in they 1940s when they knew how to make cheese, bacon, hams and sausage. We had a little smokehouse from the firewood smoke. We canned beans, grew cabbage for sauerkraut…”
No wonder Graetzer had his eye on the strip of ground dividing I and II since he moved in 12 years ago.
Not wanting to rock the boat as a new guy, Graetzer offered his help and kept his mouth shut the first few years as brief stabs at cultivating it were made and abandoned for various reasons, always with the strip reverting to a repository for limbs and other trash.
Eight years ago, he saw his chance and, using his own time and money to haul off trash, rent a tiller, buy seeds and wage war on a mess of unruly grapevines.
With a full time job, it was a struggle and, well, sometimes volunteers can do more harm than good.
“Then Bud Jones came in here and we just clicked; the farm technique just came right out between us,” Graetzer said.
They planned a large vegetable garden with a large number of crops and got down to business.
“We started putting our foot down – no more trash, no more limbs. We were really firm that people cannot come into the garden; we’re not being mean.”
Far from it: All of the vegetables and fruit that Jones, Graetzer and David Stetson – another young pup – grow go right onto their tables.
Graetzer and Jones called on their farm connections, borrowing equipment and gleaning cast-off lumber.
“Everybody wants to help, including Wilco; they were great,” Graetzer said. Those wishing to donate gardening supplies may call Rick at 503-873-4507
Though entrance to the garden is limited to garden workers, there are plenty of good vantage points where residents enjoyed the garden’s unfolding, and many apartments overlook the 150-by-100-foot garden.
“Bud, Rick and David and their helpers have given up their spare time to create a garden of this size – preparing the soil, planting, irrigating, tilling,” said Sheila Sweeton of Silvertowne. “Then they harvest the crops, clean, sort and bag them and distribute them equally between Silvertowne I and Silvertowne II.”
Bud said both Sweeton and Diane Stone have been instrumental in harvesting the vegetables and helping in a number of ways.
Residents take whatever they want from the array of perfectly ripe, clean vegetables laid out in the commons.
Silvertowne managers Kathy and Bill McClaskey love what they’re doing and see to it that shut-ins get their fair share.
“With most of them on Social Security, they simply wouldn’t have it otherwise,” Kathy said. Few anywhere enjoy such an acorn squash-to-zucchini array of painstakingly grown veggies – delivered painlessly to their door.
Graetzer has been a custodian for Silver Falls School District nearly 13 years, the past few at Scotts Mills School. He delights in keeping the place ship shape and especially bringing its grounds back to life.
“I very much enjoy coming home and getting my hands back in the garden,” Graetzer said. “It’s a lot of work but it’s soothing to me.”
“A large percentage of the residents are in walkers, wheelchairs or on oxygen – they really look forward to the fresh tomatoes and corn,” said David Stetson, who cares for his mother at the park. It gives him something to do – and more with Bud at the helm.
“We string the beans, pull the weeds, rotate the sprinklers… we harvest the potatoes, tomatoes, green beans and squash.” Now they have packed the tool shed with winter squash and potatoes.
The residents recently showed their appreciation for their work by throwing a potluck luncheon in their honor.
“It was something that had to happen for me,” Graetzer said. “To us, it’s just food for the people here who don’t have enough income for fresh produce – period – and I just enjoy it. That’s all there is to it; it’s just natural for me.”
“When you got a job to do you just go ahead and do it – all the way,” Jones said. “It won’t get done unless you get out there and do it. Even though I can’t walk very good I take my walker and get out there and do what I can. There’s a saying, ‘A body in motion tends to stay in motion.’ I believe that.”
