When Mark Sanborn turned 40 in 1987, his wife Barbara threw him a surprise party at their home on Route 32A in Saugerties. They had purchased the bucolic 22-acre property bordering the Kaaterskill Creek just three years previously. All seemed well; Mark’s drycleaning business was thriving and the family growing. Mark already had a daughter from a previous marriage, and he added another with Barbara.
But as Mark can attest from personal experience, the Kaaterskill is a “historic flash-flood stream. It goes up very fast; it comes down very fast.” And on the day of that birthday party, some unwelcome guests came knocking with a warning to evacuate, in advance of potential flooding in the next few hours. “The dike was half washed out, and there were firemen at the door,” he recalls. “Some neighbors had to take people out by rowboat.”
That flood-prevention berm had been built in the 1950s by the US Army Corps of Engineers. The Town of Saugerties had signed an agreement to maintain it, Mark says, but “never made any attempt to alleviate the threat of flood.” After the 1987 scare, he approached municipal officials to ask why not, and was told that there was no money in the town budget to repair the berm.
In 1996, another storm event finished the job. “The berm washed out and took part of our foundation with it,” Mark says. “Route 32A was washed out and closed for a good while.” This time, the Federal Emergency Management Agency got involved and “covered the cost of repairs” to the Sanborn home. A year later, the New York State Department of Transportation purchased a permanent easement on their property for stream access and “built a new berm. Right now, it’s the strongest spot on the stream.”
While the house was saved and the threat of future flooding reduced, the forested acreage surrounding it had suffered serious damage. “The flooding left parts of our property with deep ruts from running water,” Mark recalls. “There are still scars in the woods where it’s very rutty and nasty.”
By 2014, he was beginning to think about retirement and what he wanted to do with his time when he had more of it. “I couldn’t sit around. I’ve always been very active,” he says. The answer was obvious: transform the flood-damaged woodland into a beautiful parklike landscape that would ultimately benefit the entire community. And so the idea for the Saugerties Organic Gardens was born.
He began the complicated process of getting permits from the town and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation for the improvements that he had envisioned, beginning with clearcutting 3.5 acres of woods. “I had to get permission from 12 different departments,” he says. “The town wanted off-street parking.”
Around the perimeter of the parking lot, he constructed raised beds to grow annual flowers, as well as a small seasonal building that he calls the Flower Cottage. In 2018, a year after he actually retired, he opened the first phase of the community gardens: Pick a Bouquet. Beginning with peonies in May and June and dahlias and other flowers from July until frost, passersby can take a sleeve or vase, pick up a cutter and assemble their bouquet of choice. Payment is by voluntary donation — on the honor system, although Mark is to be found on the premises more often than not, taking care of his ever-growing paradise. “People love it,” he says. “They come from all over. I had people from Paris this year, from Germany, from the State of Washington.”
Soon the cleared area expanded further back from the road, with the community garden component launching with 20 participants in 2020. “During COVID it was well-used. It was a sanctuary. People came here to find solace,” Mark says. The Sanborns subdivided their land, keeping only one acre around their house as their private domain and leasing 11.5 acres to the community gardens, which just attained official not-for-profit status about six months ago.
There’s now a spacious enclosure on the site, encircled by a high deer fence, which supports a variety of flowering vines on one side and two types of hops on the other. Homebrewers are welcome to come by and harvest them. Surrounding the main garden are perennial pollinator beds, which local horticulturalists help to stock by bringing their extra roots and corms when it comes time to divide their own overcrowded beds at home.
Inside, raised 20-by-four-foot raised beds are rented out to members at a very reasonable rate of $50 for the entire season to grow flowers, vegetables, berries, herbs or a combination. Everything must be grown organically. Mark hauls in most of the sandy loam topsoil from the alluvial deposits along the banks of the Kaaterskill where it passes through his property.
Some of the beds are entirely devoted to a single crop; when HV1 visited in October, several lush strawberry beds were still flowering and bearing fruit. Some beds have their harvest shared among the members, who now number about 40. These community crops are rotated regularly to keep the soil healthy and discourage pests. One bed that had been used for Yukon Gold potatoes was being readied for replanting with tulip bulbs for next spring; after they’re done flowering, it will become home to a pumpkin crop. Mark is hoping to host a pumpkin-growing contest in 2025.
In the middle of the large garden stand solar collectors that power a pump to bring up water from the aquifer that underlies the garden. Nearby is a shed filled with hand tools and gardening materials for communal use. There are also two chicken coops surrounded by a large yard, securely fenced to keep out hawks and four-legged predators. Mark uses garden funds to buy chicks each spring, raises them until they’re almost ready to begin laying and then sells off the live pullets in September, as a way to help finance the gardens. “We’ve raised some for meat, but I don’t really like slaughtering them,” he says. “We have an extractor for plucking that people can rent.”
To keep all the flowers, fruits and veggies productive, a healthy population of pollinators is essential. So, beekeeping has become a thriving component of the Saugerties Organic Gardens. Five hives, protected from bears with electric fencing, are lined up at the rear of the main garden space. Most of the honey produced is left to feed the bees themselves during the winter, Mark says. “Beekeeping is a challenge. You have to treat the mites” that can cause colony collapse disorder, he notes, and the acid treatment can occasionally kill a queen.
But the honeybees also provide educational opportunities at the gardens. “We teach beekeeping,” he says. “The Catskill Mountain Beekeepers’ Club sent us four students this year, and will probably send six more in the spring.” Visitors are welcome to watch from outside the fence when the beekeepers open the hives periodically for inspections, maintenance and harvesting. Serious students can borrow bee suits and get hands-on experience, and even learn how to attract a swarm to populate a new hive.
Experts from the club give occasional talks on beekeeping, and the Cornell Cooperative Extension sometimes sends speakers from its Master Gardener program to offer organic gardening workshops. Mark’s plans for future expansion of garden activities include more elementary school field trips, especially in May when the chicks hatch. “One member brought in kids from New York City schools who had never been in a garden,” he recalls happily.
The most lucrative part of the operation is a separate business that pays rent to the not-for-profit entity for space on the site to store firewood: Kaaterskill Creek Firewood. “I got into firewood when I was clearing the land,” Mark explains. “It’s self-service, and I deliver bags to campsites.” Visitors can drop $6 into a slot 24/7 and take away a bag of firewood from a shed close to the road. Beyond it stretch enormous piles of woodchips and of branches waiting to be cut up, some harvested from deadfall on the property surrounding the gardens and some donated by municipal road crews.
“Someday maybe I’ll build a greenhouse. There’s more land,” Mark observes as he concludes our grand tour. He keeps putting up more bluebird houses around the property, noting that when he was first courting Barbara, “I promised her bluebirds and strawberries. I’ve delivered on both of them.”
Saugerties Organics Gardens are located at 64 Route 32A in Saugerties. Stop in and have a look around, and visit the website at www.saugertiesorganicgardens.com to learn more about membership, volunteering opportunities, workshops and events. Reservations for beds for the 2025 season will begin January 1; text Mark at (845) 399-5137 for details.
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