In early spring of 2010, Joan Gussow's garden flooded twice. During the first flood,the boards of her raised beds floated up into the water and then churned around and around, destroying everything they smashed into. Her boardwalk was also devastated. There was large and small debris all over the garden. She realized it was time to rebuild and raise the garden two feet. Joan and some helpers started taking the garden paths apart, brick by brick, paver by paber. Perennials - and Joan has...
more »In early spring of 2010, Joan Gussow's garden flooded twice. During the first flood,the boards of her raised beds floated up into the water and then churned around and around, destroying everything they smashed into. Her boardwalk was also devastated. There was large and small debris all over the garden. She realized it was time to rebuild and raise the garden two feet. Joan and some helpers started taking the garden paths apart, brick by brick, paver by paber. Perennials - and Joan has lots of perrenials - were dug up and temporarily moved to other places. In the midst of this the garden flooded again, with two mallards taking up residence for a few days. Finally the water from the second flood subsided and the rebuild began. To start, perennials like trees, a crop of winter wheat, and shrubs, which hadn't yet been moved to safety, were moved to their temporary places. Then the boardwalk was rebuilt, A new base layer for the garden was brought in raising it two feet. Then new top soil was brought in. Trees and shrubs were put back in their places in the rondelle. When the framework was in place a group of folks from Blue Hill at Stone Barns came to help lay the pavers. A new stone wall was built and the winter wheat and perennials were replanted. Finally the years annuals went in. The rest of 2010 was a prolific year in the garden, though the lack of soil insects and worms was noticeable. In August of 2011, Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee rushed about 3.5 feet of water through Joans newly rebuilt, two feet higher garden. A part of the south fence near the boardwalk was knocked down and large and small debis once again littered the garden. Vegetables were washed into the river. There were no raised beds to churn in the water since Joan had left them out when she rebuilt in 2010. The clean up and rebuilding of the boardwalk and fence were all quicker then the previous year since the entire garden didn't need to be rebuilt. 2012 was the first flood free gardening year since 2010 until yesterday when Hurricane Sandy came barrelling through. Piermont was hit by many, many feet of tidal surge. The water was so high that boats floated into the street and smashed into homes. The damage was extensive but fortunately there were no human casualties. Many people's homes and apartments have flooded. Some will loose their homes, some have lost all their posessions. The very good news is that everyone made it through. Of course Joan's garden was wrecked again. Here are a few photos. When it's rebuilt I'll post those also.I think Joan will rebuild quickly, especially since she gardens year round and among other things, it is almost time to plant next years garlic. I hope there are more wonderful gardening years to come.
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