The Making of a Community Garden

Philip Kane is on to something. He’s not sure what exactly it is yet, but it’s something to do with community gardening, sustainable living and education – and it all started to move from an idea to reality a few weeks ago with the ground breaking at Funny Farm, a community garden in West Tisbury.

The Funny Farm is located off Old County Road on Land Bank land that has been in the Child family for years. For quite some time Morgan Child and others, including Kane, have worked to get a garden going and have succeeded in getting a good crop of winter rye grown for two years in a row.

With the soil ready to go, Kane decided this was the year to move forward with making the community garden a reality. Mitchel Posin and his son Ned helped out with advice and materials, a fence was put in and the Funny Farm was born.

“The idea for me is that I don’t really have space in downtown Vineyard Haven where I live to grow my own food, but I want to do it and I want my daughter to get involved in it, so I’m hoping there’ll be enough people in the same boat,” said Kane.

In just a few weeks, he’s been able to begin assembling a team to begin getting the soil tilled and get the plants in the ground. The garden will not be the kind where individuals get their own plot; the group is working together and will enjoy the harvest together.

And the Funny Farm is not just a vegetable farm; it is also a meat rabbit farm.

“I’m a meat eater,” said Kane, “and I want to eat that meat responsibly.”

Currently, the plot is divided in half between growing vegetables and growing rabbits.

“Because we’re off to late start and don’t have numbers of people we need to have a really big garden yet, we decided to ahead to plant veggies on one half, and on other half plant alfalfa.”

The rabbits will eat the alfalfa all the while fertilizing their half for next summer.

“I’m kind of a big dreamer,” said Kane. “I’m hoping this will become as multifaceted as possible.”

Much of what Kane dreams of doing came as a result of applying for the Tea Lane Farmhouse slot.

“I put bid into Tea Lane and really found what I wanted to do with myself because of that.” Kane’s vision includes alternative education for kids like himself who grow up here on the Island and who are interested in learning more about sustainability and farming.

“Before, people knew how to do a lot more practical hands-on stuff, and now we know less and less. I think there’s a lot of kids out there who want to know more about how to do things for themselves.”

The small group involved to this point has contributed what they can financially, but Kane said it’s less about money and more about bodies.

“At this point it’s definitely rag-tag, we don’t have anything set up from an administrative stand point, but right now we’ve got a great core group of people and 6400 square feet of land. So even if it’s not perfect this year, I think it is just one of those things where you just have to do it. Hopefully more people will become interested because I know it could turn into a really great thing.”

To learn more about, or become involved in, the Funny Farm, check out the Funny Farm Facebook Page, or contact Phil Kane at 541 941 8764 or philzkane@gmail.com