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04/18/2018 09:00 AMOn a recent wet and chilly day, the kind of day that makes it seem that winter has no end, a reliable sign of spring was, nonetheless, very evident: not a robin pulling up a worm, not a daffodil poking up from the ground, not a perceptible lengthening of daylight hours. It was a meeting to talk about the Essex Garden Club May Market.
For 65 years, the Essex Garden Club’ May Market has been an annual reminder the season has indeed changed. The event, this year on Saturday, May 12 at the Town Park on Essex Main Street, is traditionally held the day before Mother’s Day, a not-so-subtle hint that flowers are a customary gift for the occasion.
This year there will be a new addition to the annuals, perennials, cut flowers, herbs, and other merchandise from garden gifts to tag sale items. Local painters Pam Carlson and Claudia Van Nes will set up their easels at the sale to capture the action on canvas. Interested purchasers can take business cards from the artists to contact them later about purchasing the paintings.
According to Barbara Burgess, the president of the garden club and one of the chair people of the event, among the most popular items are the tomatoes that a number of garden club members grow from seed.
“We call them the seedy ladies, or maybe that’s a name they gave themselves,” she said.
Burgess added that people line up to buy the tomatoes well before the 9 a.m. opening of the market.
“This year there are some 600 tomato plants for sale, and I guarantee you every one of them will be sold,” Burgess predicted. “There’s a stampede to get them when the market opens.”
Not only are there individual herb plants for sale, there are also herb mixtures planted together with vegetables in what the garden club calls “edible boxes.” The boxes started when a number of long trays, like the ones that used to hold cards when libraries used card catalogs not computers, were donated to the market’s tag sale. Garden club members planted them with combinations that could be used in different kinds of cooking.
For Italian food, a box might have parsley and oregano along with other herbs and vegetables. For Spanish dishes, the herbs might include cilantro.
“They are beautiful and they are really popular,” Liz Fowler, another of the co-chairs, said.
One of the hallmarks of the Essex May Market doesn’t involve flowers at all; it is the garlic salt mixture created by garden club members every April.
“We can’t tell you the recipe, but it’s the world’s best,” Fowler said.
Orders have come in for garlic salt to be shipped to purchasers as far away as the West Coast and even from Great Britain. Members wear hats and gloves as they prepared the mixture, but, after all, garlic is still garlic.
“We have to go home, put our clothes in the washer, take a shower, and you can still smell it,” Burgess said.
The May Market is the Essex Garden Club’s only yearly fundraiser and the money goes to support a number of garden club projects, including camperships for local youngsters at Camp Hazen YMCA, Bushy Hill Nature Center, and the Essex Park & Recreation summer program, as well as scholarships for high school seniors. Students receiving camperships are usually recommended by school social workers or Essex Park & Recreation Department head Mary Ellen Barnes. Information on applying for scholarships can be found on the garden club’s website, www.essexgardenclubct.org.
The garden club helps maintain and enhance town parks, as well as three traffic islands, and decorates window boxes and sidewalk planters in Essex, Ivoryton, and Centerbrook during the holiday season. The club’s civic committee also donates plantings around Town Hall, the fire houses, the Post Office, and even the town transfer station and recycling center.
“There is such a lot of volunteer spirit in the club and in the community,” said Suzanne Tweed, the third chair of the upcoming event.
All three of the chairpersons for the May Market addressed the perception that garden clubs were stuffy organizations where ladies with gloves and hats held sedate meetings.
“That’s old-fashioned. I see garden clubs as places of innovation and organization for women,” Burgess said, then pointing out the Essex Garden Club also has two male members.
“I think of it as a vibrant and cohesive group that provides opportunity and challenge, and gives people lots of responsibility. People are full of new ideas, creating things, not stuffy,” Tweed commented.
Fowler, now retired, worked at Hartford Hospital as the director of respiratory therapy.
“I commuted for 30 years. Working with the garden club gives me a chance to connect with community, and look at nature, which I never had much of a chance to do,” she said. “The women in the club are full of knowledge, accomplished; this is our time.”
May Market takes place rain or shine. Last year it rained.
“It didn’t make any difference. People put on their slickers and came,” Burgess said.
Tweed’s favorite memory from last year is not the drizzle, but a young boy sitting in a wagon surrounded by colorful plants.
“For me it meant that spring was finally here,” she said.
Essex Garden Club May Market
Essex Garden Club May Market returns on Saturday, May 12 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., rain or shine, at the Town Park on Essex Main Street. For more information on the garden club, visit www.essexgardenclubct.org.