Second Annual Callicoon Creek Park Plant Swap: Veggies, Herbs, Ornamentals and Friends!

May 21, 2011 dawned without rain (which is almost worth saying twice!) and by 9:30 am, local gardeners were stocking the Callicoon Creek Park Plant Swap tent with pots and flats of brussels sprouts, oregano, lilies, garlic for eating and planting, geraniums, chives, broccoli, hot peppers, salad peppers, baking peppers, hostas, hundreds of heirloom tomatoes, and much, much more.

Besides welcoming our community to The Callicoon Creek Park and encouraging the growth of kitchen gardens, this year's Swap was designed to raise awareness of The IOU Thrift Store on Main Street in Callicoon and the many supports it offers Callicoon-area families struggling to buy nutritious food and pay their fuel bills. If you want to learn more about IOU's Blessings Food Pantry, their holiday baskets and toy exchange, the counseling services they help subsidize and their fuel bank, please stop by The Thrift Store on Lower Main in Callicoon. They're friendly, helpful and offer a wonderful assortment of clothes, appliances and furniture for everyone!

At 10 am, our first official swapper was Linda Bastian who rattled off--three times fast--"Callicoon Creek Park Plant Swap" and was rewarded with an embossed ceramic pot planted with a hearty batch of oregano. (Thanks to Ginny Boyle!) In fact, Linda returned several times and even dug up flowers donated by Mother Joan LaLiberte and brought those along with her own flowering geraniums.

Three Times Fast!

The camaraderie of Swap Day itself is a joy but I think my favorite thing is knowing that as each winter turns to spring, Linda’s geraniums, Marcie’s mint, Joan’s Episcopal lilies, and Ginny’s oregano will be poking through the soil in untold gardens for as long as someone tends them.

In that light, The Callicoon Creek Park Association offers especial thanks to:

• The Delaware Valley Farm & Garden store (Agway) for its generous donation of pepper, tomato, brussels sprouts and broccoli seedlings which left the tent like hotcakes; 
• Sondra Patton for transporting a huge variety and hundreds of heirloom tomatoes and squashes from her greenhouse in Long Island;
• Will Conway, Master Gardener and subject of a recent Our Country Home article, who spent the entire day with us answering questions and providing recommendations for plant selection, siting, soil and pest management, complementary sowing and weed controls. We were extremely grateful for his knowledge and ability to de-mystify the horticultural tangle of Latin and soil types.

And to the many swappers who made the day a success with the gifts they brought and took away we say, "Be sure to visit next year! Thanks to your generosity, several new plantings will be seen in the Park this summer--ask about them when you come down for our Under The Moon in Callicoon concert series in July!--and we were even able to split $130 with The IOU whose programs are so necessary in these difficult economic times."

Tea, anyone?

Lastly, as I sip the iced tea I made this morning from sprigs of Marcie's Mint and Dottie's Lemon Balm, I tip my glass to the Swaps to come and thank Alex Siroc for photos that captured the day! --Liz Bucar