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CHICOPEE —
It isn’t quite the Garden of Eden, but the “Garden of Weed’n” in Chicopee comes close.
Presiding over the garden, which will be one of six featured on the June 16 Pittsburg Garden Tour, is Eva Smith. Not content with leaving its beauty outdoors, she has painted several garden murals on the walls of her house.
She’s also been known to do a little brick-laying when the occasion warranted it.
“I’m just a workaholic,” Smith said, but added that her daughter Julia Hudson, who lives next door with her family, shares in the work.
In fact, Hudson is currently busy canning green beans.
“My daughter feeds her family and me all year with her canning,” Smith said.
She and her husband, the late D.C. Smith, moved to Chicopee in September 2000.
He had operated Smith’s Upholstery for 36 years.
“I started the business,” Smith said. “My husband had been working for a man who made campers, then the man went out of business when gas prices went higher and nobody was buying campers.”
Smith decided that she would do upholstery until her husband found other work. Her husband became involved when another upholsterer bailed out of a job re-doing chairs in a beauty salon.
“The chairs had to be taken apart before they could be re-upholstered, and the other man wanted the salon owner to do that,” Smith said. “She asked if we would do it, and I said yes."
Their upholstery business took off after that.
“We did everything, including cars and trucks, and re-lined trunks,” Smith said. “I don’t do it any more.”
But the garden, started around 11 years ago, keeps her busy.
“This was just a wild plot before,” Smith said. “My daughter had grown a few vegetables here.”
She also enjoys helping with grandchildren and great-grandchildren. At the south end of the garden lot is a playhouse for the youngsters.
Behind that is a chicken coop, presided over by a handsome, swaggering rooster appropriately named Elvis.
The garden has 15 raised beds for growing vegetables, including asparagus, parsley, green beans, potatoes, tomatoes, peppers and squash. Smith also grows numerous flowers, which the bees enjoy.
“I finally caught some bees,” she said. “I’d been trying to do that for years.”
Now she has one modest hive in her back yard and is looking forward to the honey.
It isn’t quite the Garden of Eden, but the “Garden of Weed’n” in Chicopee comes close.
Presiding over the garden, which will be one of six featured on the June 16 Pittsburg Garden Tour, is Eva Smith. Not content with leaving its beauty outdoors, she has painted several garden murals on the walls of her house.
She’s also been known to do a little brick-laying when the occasion warranted it.
“I’m just a workaholic,” Smith said, but added that her daughter Julia Hudson, who lives next door with her family, shares in the work.
In fact, Hudson is currently busy canning green beans.
“My daughter feeds her family and me all year with her canning,” Smith said.
She and her husband, the late D.C. Smith, moved to Chicopee in September 2000.
He had operated Smith’s Upholstery for 36 years.
“I started the business,” Smith said. “My husband had been working for a man who made campers, then the man went out of business when gas prices went higher and nobody was buying campers.”
Smith decided that she would do upholstery until her husband found other work. Her husband became involved when another upholsterer bailed out of a job re-doing chairs in a beauty salon.
“The chairs had to be taken apart before they could be re-upholstered, and the other man wanted the salon owner to do that,” Smith said. “She asked if we would do it, and I said yes."
Their upholstery business took off after that.
“We did everything, including cars and trucks, and re-lined trunks,” Smith said. “I don’t do it any more.”
But the garden, started around 11 years ago, keeps her busy.
“This was just a wild plot before,” Smith said. “My daughter had grown a few vegetables here.”
She also enjoys helping with grandchildren and great-grandchildren. At the south end of the garden lot is a playhouse for the youngsters.
Behind that is a chicken coop, presided over by a handsome, swaggering rooster appropriately named Elvis.
The garden has 15 raised beds for growing vegetables, including asparagus, parsley, green beans, potatoes, tomatoes, peppers and squash. Smith also grows numerous flowers, which the bees enjoy.
“I finally caught some bees,” she said. “I’d been trying to do that for years.”
Now she has one modest hive in her back yard and is looking forward to the honey.
Her future plans include putting up a greenhouse on one section of the garden lot. Smith said it will be solar-heated by black barrels filled with water which will soak up the sun’s heat.
Around 30 years ago she began painting, with garden scenes and flowers among her favorite subjects.
“I’m entirely self-taught, and I’ve read some books,” she said.
One painting, of a nest filled with baby birds, is special to her. The nest was at the corner of the house, and her husband, who died in May of 2009, could watch the birds from his bed.
“He was worried that they wouldn’t come back the year he died, but they did,” Smith said.
Some of her art work will be available for purchase during the Pittsburg Garden Tour, which will run from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. June 16.
Tour tickets will be available in advance for $6 from Zone 6 Garden Club members, Carla’s Country Gardens, the Home Place and Kitchen Place, In the Garden and Paradise Mall. Tickets will also be available for $7 starting at 7:30 a.m. the day of the tour at the Garden Market which will be located in Immigrant Park. Children 12 and younger will be admitted free.
