Charting growth of herb garden

Jessica McCann-Dampman is the new leader of the Nature Connection of West Milford’s culinary herb garden program.

She joined the Organic Community Garden at the Wallisch Homestead because she was looking for space to grow more plants.

In her new role, she will help plant new herbs, organize volunteers to water and harvest them, and ensure that the garden thrives.

Nature Connection’s Organic Community Garden has plots at Wallisch, 65 Lincoln Ave., and at Apple Acres, 1064 Union Valley Road.

Residents pay an annual fee for a plot, where they grow what they like within certain restrictions. Fellow gardeners are happy to offer advice to beginners.

The herbs grown at Wallisch help keep the garden afloat financially because they are sold to local restaurants.

Eventually, Nature Connection may sell them at the West Milford Farmer’s Market.

Another goal is to offer a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program, where local restaurants pay a monthly fee in return for box of items harvested from the garden. The box would include salts, compound butter and some herbs.

“I really love the idea of our shifting view for the culinary garden to go from fresh herbs to the CSA. I think the CSA model is really great, and I have this feeling that it is really going to work,” McCann-Dampman said.

Family of gardeners

Like most gardeners, she got her inspiration from her family.

“My mom and my sister were gardeners and I was inspired by that,“ she said. “We had a garden at our house for years, and later once I had kids, I started a small garden of my own. I have been building my knowledge of plants over the past 20 years in my small plot.”

Her knowledge has helped the Wallisch garden’s success. The goal is to keep the garden healthy, which includes keeping the soil healthy and adding plants that will benefit the garden.

The biggest challenge she faces is bugs. Beatles commonly are found in gardens, but they can be repelled by growing garlic.

Watering sometimes is an issue as well. Wallisch, an old dairy farm, uses a windmill to produce water.

When McCann-Dampman is not in the garden, she works at a small independent school, where she is a part-time instructor and caretaker of the facility.

She has been there for five years and is excited about becoming more involved with teaching.