A growing tradition

By LAURE CIOFFI
VINDICATOR NEW CASTLE BUREAU
VILLA MARIA, Pa. -- On a recent sunny day, volunteers and workers at Villa Maria nimbly dropped seeds into the freshly turned ground, while a tractor covered other beds with dark plastic where holes will be poked and already started plants will be planted.
The plastic -- a tool used to keep away weeds -- is important because these vegetables will see no commercial pesticides as they grow, said Frank Romeo, director of land management at the Villa Maria Community Center off U.S. Route 422 in Pulaski Township, Lawrence County.
The gardens have been natural -- or organic -- since the Sisters of Humility of Mary arrived from France in 1864.
The Catholic order of nuns continued the tradition through the years and pride themselves on producing pesticide-free vegetables and fruits.
"We live in a world where we have to work with nature. You will probably have a better-tasting product [than food grown with commercial pesticides.] There are no heavy metals that are found in commercial products and the vegetables probably have more nutrients," Romeo said.
Romeo, 68, learned about organic gardening from nuns. As a young boy, he would accompany his mother to her job in the center's kitchen and the nuns would give him tasks in the gardens to keep him busy.
He fondly recalls dragging the lake on the property for plant used to fertilize the gardens and making "tobacco tea" -- a mixture of ground-up tobacco leaves soaked in water -- that would be sprayed on the roses to keep away bugs.
Using practicality
While those methods aren't used anymore, Romeo still uses some of the practical things he learned from the sisters to care for the soil, he said.
"Everything is about the harvest. It's the soil that turns the seed to harvest. We have to keep the soil healthy," he said.
To keep the soil healthy, Romeo said he's careful to rotate the gardens because each vegetable takes different nutrients from the soil. They also plant cover crops, such as winter rye, in the fall to keep the soil from eroding.
And while these traditional methods have been used for decades, Romeo, with the help of Sister Barbara O'Donnell HM, has started using some new organic gardening methods, too.
They compost all of the discarded food from the community's kitchen. The end result of composting, called humus, is used as fertilizer and it naturally combines with the clay to allow nutrients to reach the plants, Romeo said.
Sister Barbara also introduced raised garden beds -- basically mounds of soil a foot off the ground -- which create a "biointensive" space that allows them to grow large amounts of food in a small space and makes it easier to get rid of bugs and weeds.
Importance of heritage
Ensuring the gardens keep their natural or organic heritage is important to Romeo because the vegetables feed the congregation and the needy in the area.
Villa Maria's kitchen feeds the nuns who live in the community , employees, visitors and senior citizen who live in special housing on the grounds.
And since 1983, the congregation has been giving their extra vegetables to food banks in New Castle and Youngstown to help feed the needy.
In 2000, the congregation estimated that more than $30,000 worth of organically grown vegetables such as beans, carrots, potatoes, beets, peppers and zucchini, as well as 2,000 dozen ears of sweet corn were donated given to area food banks.
Any extra is sold to the public out of a building near the gardens that was once used to cure meat on the community's farm.
When it begins
This massive operation starts early in the year with some of the vegetables getting a head start in the congregation's newly built greenhouse, which is overseen by horticulturist Bob Fischer, a retired Youngstown City Schools teacher.
The congregation relies heavily on volunteers to help the four farm employees. College interns also help out from time to time.
Those helping in the recently plantings say it's a satisfying job.
"It's such a good feeling to know I'm helping feed people," said Amber Briggle, an Americorps volunteer from Milwaukee who, along with her husband, Adam, is working on the farm this spring and summer.
The land, while being used practically to feed people, has also become a source of spiritual nourishment.
Sister Barbara directs the congregation's EverGreen Ministry, which opens the property up to the public through programs. The ministry also allows people to use of the nature trails, which were instituted by Sister Therese Tavalonis HM. The goal is to combine nature and spirituality with a focus on ecology, Sister Barbara said.
"We try to stress that our planet is one among a whole solar system. Get people to think about what they can do to make it better and not continue damaging it," she said.
They also welcome elementary school groups to learn about gardening.
"We feel the farm has a lot to offer in the way of education. Most young people think everything comes from the store," Romeo said.
"It's the whole sense of being connected and that the children know the whole source of food is life," Sister Barbara added.