Garden-Variety Politics Kills Veggies

Harry Reddish committed an act of guerrilla gardening — planting okra and kale seeds in a once-verdant Newhallville lot that has lain fallow amid a dispute over land and water rights.

The garden lot is on 4,700 square feet at the corner of Bassett and Newhall Streets.

Until the past year, the lot was one of a host of thriving community gardens in the neighborhood.

What changed?

The answer begins with the actions of a neighbor named Levon Quattlebaum.

Quattlebaum, who’s 83 years old, had tended the garden for more than two decades.

Last August, the New Haven Land Trust — a local conservation group that leased the lot from the city to convert it into a community garden — cut off the water supply to the plot after discovering that Quattlebaum had used a hose to channel water from the garden to his own front lawn.

In May, the NHLT canceled its lease, transferring control of the site to the New Haven government’s neighborhood anti-blight agency, the Livable City Initiative (LCI).

Another not-for-profit group active in the neighborhood, Neighborhood Housing Services (NHS), had sought to take over the lot to launch a new neighborhood garden project. It failed to win permission from the city.

NHS Executive Director James Paley, whose agency has refurbished dozens of houses in Newhallville, said the neighborhood’s many community gardens have put vacant land to productive use, allowing residents to participate in a collaborative activity that yields fresh produce at a low cost.

“It’s giving residents something they can be proud of,” Paley said. ​“And it’s a lot less likely for [the lots] to be a dumping ground for people to throw trash if people are actively involved in gardening.”

Newhallville Alder Delphine Clyburn has embarked on a fresh attempt to work with neighbors like Reddish to restore the garden. But the water remains shut off, even as residents begin planting new patches of vegetables.

The story of the garden’s uncertain future — who controls the land, who plants the vegetables, who uses the water — offers a glimpse into the internal machinations of Newhallville politics.

Big Bill

Quattlebaum, a South Carolina native who used to drive lawnmowers for a landscaping company, lives on Bassett Street, two houses down from the site of the garden. He has a small, well-cultivated front lawn — three grassy rectangles surrounding the porch.

For several months last year, Quattlebaum said, he used an underground tap built for the community garden to tend those green patches, channeling the water onto his lawn through a hose that snaked across his property.

Land Trust Director Justin Elicker said he became aware of the issue last summer, when a water bill for the Bassett Street site came in significantly higher than expected.

“Because of the higher water bill, we looked into the problem, and found this evidence that the water was being taken off our site and used on some neighborhood property,” Elicker said.

In an interview with the Independent, Quattlebaum admitted to using water from the garden to tend his own lawn.

“I pay enough goddamn property taxes for me to use the water from there,” he said.

Elicker said NHLT staff members visited the Bassett Street plot ​“multiple times” to inform Quattlebaum that he was stealing water from the garden. But the hose stayed in place.

“We ended up shutting off the water at the site,” Elicker said. ​“We had to make sure that we were being responsible with our resources.”

Quattlebaum said he does not regret taking water from the garden. And he denied that the NHLT visited him more than once.

“They didn’t keep sending no staff members,” he said. ​“They lying. If they came, they sure didn’t see me.”

Taking Control

The NHLT gave up its lease in May. The garden, which had fallen into disuse after the water stopped running the previous summer, was covered in weeds.

“We were not confident that this garden was accomplishing our mission,” Elicker said.

According to Elicker, the NHLT planned to hand the land over to NHS, which hoped to recruit residents to help turn the plot back into a community garden, until the city stepped in to scuttle the arrangement.

In an email last Thursday, LCI Director Frank D’Amore instructed the NHS to ​“refrain from gardening activity” on the Bassett Street lot, citing ​“other plans” for the site.

Elicker said he was surprised the city prevented the NHS from taking over the lot — but added that he would have cancelled the lease regardless.

Clyburn, a former community organizer in the neighborhood, said she personally intervened to keep the NHS from assuming control of the property.

“It’s something in the community, so it’s for the community. I believe the community should have first choice of using it,” she said. ​“Just because [the NHS] have been doing things in the neighborhood, should they have it?” 

Clyburn added that she plans to transform the plot into a community garden tended by multiple residents, just as the NHS proposed. Different groups of Newhallville neighbors affiliated with the NHS, with the local management team, and with a third organization (a ​“resiliency team”), have clashed on numerous matters involving the neighborhood’s destiny, and view each other with distrust.

“It’s not as if we were sending troops of gardeners in there to work on that site. It was intended as a site for people in the neighborhood,” Paley said. ​“It’s strange how things work in this city.”

Drip. Drip

The majority of the Bassett-Newhall plot is overgrown with weeds. But a strip of fresh dirt in the middle third of the garden stands out amid the general disrepair.

Harry Reddish, who has lived on Newhall Street for more than two decades, began gardening there last week, planting kale, okra and summer squash, among other vegetables.

But the future of his vegetable patch, which has no connection to any formal city initiative for the land, remains uncertain.

Reddish said he was encouraged to start planting by a representative from the NHS, who knocked on his door last Friday to invite him into the garden, even though the city has sole jurisdiction over the plot.

The LCI had instructed Paley to stay away from the garden the day before Reddish began planting his vegetables. But by Friday, Paley said, not everyone on the NHS staff had heard the news. 

“We obviously are not authorized to tell people what they can or can’t do on a city-owned lot,” he added.

In an interview outside the garden, Clyburn told the Independent that she hopes the confusion over the ownership of the land will not interfere with Reddish’s plans.

LCI chief Serrena Neal-Sanjurjo said Friday that the water should be turned on come Monday. LCI needed to get the account with the water company switched from the land trust’s name first this week, she said.

“I Always Wanted a Part in the Garden”

That will come as a relief to Reddish, who has struggled to get the garden going with no water supply.

“If this water don’t turn on, then I have to figure out a way to get a hose from my house to the garden,” Reddish said. ​“Because I’m gonna need water.”

And then he paused, shifting to a conspiratorial whisper as he gestured in the direction of Quattlebaum’s porch.

“And no way I’ll be using a hose to my house to water my flowers,” he said.

Still, Reddish was thrilled to begin gardening in the Bassett Street site, which he has coveted ever since he moved in. 

“God gave me the opportunity that I would be able to plant in that garden,” he said. ​“Over the 20 something years I was living there, I always wanted a part in the garden.”

Reddish said he intends to distribute vegetables to all his neighbors, ​“no one getting more than the other.” And he also plans to open the remaining space in the garden to the whole community — a gesture of inclusivity that he said was missing from his predecessor’s stewardship.

Reddish said he always got the sense that Quattlebaum wanted to keep the plot for himself. And over two decades, he never volunteered to help with the gardening. 

“The way this guy acted, it was like he owned everything and ran everything,” Reddish said. “[He] didn’t give anyone else the chance to plant anything there.”

Reddish added that he once asked to buy collard greens from the garden. But Quattlebaum, who typically shared vegetables with only a small circle of family members and friends from church, did not follow through on the request.

“The way he was running this thing, everybody just let him have it by himself,” Reddish said.

Quattlebaum told the Independent that he tried to get more neighbors involved in the garden but that no one expressed much interest. He declined, however, to discuss how his vegetables were distributed.

“I got nothing to do with that damn garden,” he said. ​“Just forget it.”