It’s been a year since Chantal ripped through our community, bringing devastation and destroying the small but productive Hillsborough Community Garden (HCG). That Garden, on land owned by local attorney Cyrus Hogue III, had been producing food for Hillsborough PORCH over the previous two years.
After Chantal, Hillsborough Community Garden (hilcomgarden.org)was not expected to come back to that original site on the banks of the Eno River. Flood waters cresting as high as 25 feet had taken every structure, fence and trace of the garden. The compost sifting table was found over a half-mile away in the trees at the Ayr Mount property. Boards used to build the garden sheds along with fencing were recovered high in trees, hundreds of yards downstream.
Throughout the past year, those recovered materials were used by HGC and its volunteers to painstakingly rebuild the garden. Now back in production it’s pumping out early summer squash, basil and the year’s first tomatoes. Up until this recent heat wave the remnants of spring’s earlier production of greens and a variety lettuces were evident. Peas and potatoes had also been harvested earlier. and Broad collard leaves were kept in place to shade the sprouting summer crops…