Champagne Toast Marks First Spruill Harvest

The Dunwoody gardening community has celebrated breaking a lot of new ground in the past few years. Monday night was the first time they commemorated the event with a champagne toast.

The occasion was the first harvest at the Spruill Garden Project behind the Spruill Gallery at the corner of Ashford Dunwoody Road and Meadow Lane.

Pattie Baker, Regan Maeroff-Cox, Ben and Shawn Bard and their children Harry and Sadie all raised glasses to mark the moment. For the record, the children had sparkling white grape juice.

And then the adults offered toasts.

“To a happy harvest!” “To a healthy life!” “To watching things grow!”

“To a fun summer!” chimed in the children.

First, there was work to do.

“Let’s get scissor happy!” exclaimed Shawn, the project leader. She assigned the inaugural harvest snip to Sadie. Under Mom’s watchful eye, a jalapeno pepper became the first produce to be harvested from the garden.

Then the adults got in on the action, filling baskets with mostly purple and sweet basil. By the time they were through, the baskets of vegetables and herbs, which were donated to the Food Pantry at St. Patrick’s Episcopal Church, looked as much like a floral arrangement as a late spring harvest.

The smell of the fragrant herb hanging in the thick, late spring air added a special flavor to the first Spruill harvest.

It also attracted a pollinator.

“Look at that!” Shawn exclaimed after spotting a bee on the basil in the tomato patch. Most people would run from a bee. Shawn knows how important they are to increasing production in a garden and, well, embraces them!

It’s also safe to say that people embrace the work Shawn and the other volunteers are doing to educate schools, families and retirement communities in Dunwoody about gardening.

“A year ago, a month ago” Pattie said, “no one knew each other. Now, everyone is so close.”

As if on cue, Jonathan and Lacey LaCour walked up with their baby, Colette. “We heard about tonight’s event from a blog and wanted to come by and say hello to everybody,” Jonathan said.

With pleasantries exchanged, Lacey was quickly put to work harvesting. Holding Colette, Jonathan talked about how much he likes to cook with fresh vegetables and herbs.

 “I think our whole community's ‘collective good energy’ is now initiating these things,” Pattie told me Tuesday about gardens and gatherings like the one Monday evening behind the old Spruill farmhouse.

“We help a bit, we inspire a bit and we do some ourselves,” Pattie said.

Shawn, Ben, Regan, Pattie and the many other volunteers are doing all of these things and so much more. They’re not just growing gardens. They’re growing community and giving back to their neighbors.

Something special is happening here in Dunwoody. And that’s worth toasting.