Vegetable garden feud: Landowner, charity gardeners harvest a truce

Chris Blitstein and her fellow charity gardeners made peace with Kenny Cohen on Tuesday in the shade of a catalpa tree.

There remained, perhaps, a little tension in the air, like the low hum of a power pole.

"But I didn't think they were going to beat me with the shovels or tomato stakes," Cohen joked afterward. It was the first time he'd met them face to face.

"He seems to have seen the light," one of the gardeners said. But then, so had they.

Things had gotten ugly out in Cohen's patch of Willowbrook last week. I wrote about the feud in last Wednesday's column. To recap:

In February, Blitstein, an enthusiastic gardener and activist for charity causes, had come up with an idea for the overgrown, littered and long-vacant lot behind her yard. By spring, after getting permission -- vague and oral -- from Cohen, who owns the land, she and a troop of other women set to tilling, planting and watering.

They called their project Vacant to Vegetables and arranged to give their bounty to a local food pantry.

When Cohen discovered the extent of their enterprise, however, he objected. They were squatting on his land, he said. And he'd never sell it if it looked like Green Acres.

In the wake of some bitter conversation, he'd posted "No Trespassing" signs.

That's where we left the story last week. Cohen was worried for his property and wanted some respect for his rights as its owner. The gardeners risked losing their vegetables and their dream. Feelings on both sides were as hard as unripened tomatoes.

And it got uglier after that.

Insults and accusations -- mostly, but not all, from strangers -- were hurled at both sides on the Tribune's online comment boards. Cohen and the gardeners were astonished by the vitriol.

Then Willowbrook Police Chief Ed Konstanty stepped in. Konstanty doesn't like to hear bad news about Willowbrook, and when he heard about the feud, he called Cohen. Then he invited a couple of the gardeners to his office.

"I didn't do anything extraordinary," he said Tuesday. "It just took one or two phone calls. They're good people. They worked it out for themselves."

So there they were on Tuesday morning, strolling through the garden.

OK, Cohen told the gardeners, they could keep the poultry wire that keeps the rabbits out. He said they could keep the wooden gate once they assured him it would soon be bright with climbing flowers.

He had wanted them to remove the tomato stakes, but without the stakes, the women explained, the tomato cage would collapse.

He gave in.

The straw, though, had to go, which meant no pumpkins. Oh well. And it wasn't a big deal to move the chairs out of view from the street. And, sure, the gardeners would sign liability waivers. And leave the "No Trespassing" sign up, to ward off intruders.

"With any project," gardener Gretchen Wasniewski said, "there's a huge learning curve. The learning curve was on our side and Kenny Cohen's."

Among the things the women learned: Get it in writing. Among the things Cohen learned: Listen. Carefully.

"We get so busy with our lives, work, kids that we don't slow down to listen," he said. "In the future, I certainly will slow down and make sure I have a clear understanding of any deal."

For some of the gardeners, the feud leeched the joy from the project. One quit. But most are looking forward to a summer of getting their produce grown, harvested and over to the food pantry.

They'll save some vegetables for Kenny Cohen.

From : http://www.chicagotribune.com/