ven with temperatures nearing 90 degrees with high humidity, the Mt. Lebanon Golf Course is a hub of activity. Course manager Colin Agster is the ultimate multitasker. During our interview he was setting up tee times via phone calls, getting golfers ready to head out to the course while also taking care of a large group of league golfers.

In addition to running a golf course, Agster and course superintendent Jason Baranowski are responsible for keeping Mt. Lebanon’s community gardens in shape. The 66 garden plots that adjoin the golf course are around 10 by 35 feet and split into two groups and can be rented for $55 per season. The upper garden has 36 tilled plots, and the lower garden has 30 which are not tilled.

One advantage of the no-till beds is that gardeners could plant something like garlic in October, which sprouts in the spring.

There’s usually a waiting list in the spring to get a plot, but a couple of plots can open up at the end of May. This year, there were only a few unclaimed plots.

“We do all the maintenance, Baranowski said, “trimming around the edges, keeping the walkways clear and supply all the water.”

He brings a tractor down in the spring to till the upper beds. One advantage of locating a garden next to a golf course is the abundant water supply. The taps open sometime in late May as the gardens are supposed to be planted by the end of May and put to bed around Halloween, or sometimes later.

“[The gardeners] always want to start earlier and stay later,” he said with a chuckle. Since the water is linked to the course, that would be impossible. “Once you get it ready, you just unleash them on it,” Baranowski said with a smile. “They’re able to do their thing, but there are rules,” he adds.

Closing the gates, turning the water off and keeping the beds tidy are a few of the most important rules.

Agster and Baranowski sometimes reap the benefits of their hard work of maintaining the garden each season. “They drop off tomatoes, zucchinis and other stuff to us up here,” said Agster. “It’s always nice to see some of our regulars for sure.”

Just across the fence, Tim Donahoe is tending his garden and harvesting an edible weed called purslane. He’s been gardening here for a decade with one plot in each of the two gardens. He picked lettuce well into winter in the no till garden, another advantage to gardening in the lower area.

He has lots of deep green tomato plants filled with fruit, including Pittsburgh’s famous heirloom Limbaugh Legacy Potato Top. He has an oxheart variety given to him by on old Italian gardener, an unknown early round tomato, Amish Paste, with more than 20 plants in the garden and tons of basil too. His favorite is an Italian variety called Lettuce Leaf basil, which has huge, tasty light green leaves. The celery in the middle of the bed loves water and is a fun plant to grow for him with unparalleled taste.

“I’m here probably every day for an hour or two,” said Donahoe. “Once you get on top of things, it’s not bad. I have some weeds.”

His garden also has two types of beans, including Cantare, an early French heirloom from Baker Creek Heirloom seeds, along with Calima from the same company.

Donahoe has a little blue chair in the corner of the bed to sit and enjoy the garden. “I got that out of Myrtle Avenue Elementary one summer,” he said with a laugh. “They were throwing their kids’ chairs away, and I needed something to take a break.”

Gardening for most people is a solitary endeavor, but he enjoys the camaraderie of working in a community garden. “There’s a lot of people that I’ve learned from, my dentist is up there,” Donahoe said, pointing up to another plot. He’s friends with Valentina, who is from  Ukraine and has a stunning plot across the path from his garden. “The nice thing is, if you’re going away, people will keep your garden watered.”

The gardeners often share tips, tricks and ideas with each other. Rick Tony has two plots right next to each other, one is filled with blue corn which his son and daughter-in-law use for milling. He’s been planting here for seven years. “We get a lot to eat out of here and it’s a nice activity,” he said. Tony has a garden at home, but this gives him more space for potatoes, chickpeas and an Arabic squash called Kousa.

“It is a nice community thing,” he said. “Everybody has their different things going on here, planting what they want. People take care of their plots.”

Tony agrees that having gardening neighbors is one of the best things about planting here. He was complimenting a fellow gardener on his beautiful-looking lettuce one day in the garden, when he received a surprise. “He pulled one out of the ground and handed it to me,” he recounted. “It was the freshest lettuce I ever had.”

Large metal cattle panels are used in Eric Stuart’s plot to support tomatoes. He’s pounding thick wooden stakes in the ground for his squash to grow vertically. For two decades he’s worked the earth here. “Every season is different,” he said with a smile. “Regardless of how long you’re doing this, it is a learning experience, and you get to try new things. You come across new challenges and try to adapt to improve for the next year,” Stuart added.

The cattle panels inspired fellow gardener Donahoe to use them in his garden too.

Stuart’s neighbors in the garden have also taught him valuable lessons, and he shares his successes with them. “There’s 60 ways to do things in this garden, and you’re always learning from other people,” Stuart said. “Whether you’re talking to them or looking to see how they’re doing things, you try to incorporate lessons learned from other gardeners and they do the same, it’s really great.”