By David Harry
Staff Writer

When South Portland resident Liberty Bryer decided to tear up her front lawn in the spring, she wondered what her neighbors would think.
She had lived on Edwards Street less than a year when she decided her yard needed to be more useful than ornamental.
About three months later, the result is a 2,000-square-foot garden of beans, tomatoes, herbs and sunflowers ripening to benefit Portland-based Wayside Food Programs.
As Bryer, 59, puttered and watered in her gardens Monday, her Edwards Street neighbor Laurie Kelley walked by and told Bryer what she thought:
“Your gardens are wonderful, they just make me feel good,” she said.
Many green thumbs have worked the soil and compost that used to be Bryer’s front lawn, said Carly Milkowski, Wayside’s volunteer coordinator.
Milkowski and others in March covered the lawn with tarps and cardboard to kill the grass. Cape Elizabeth business owner John Tommaso brought a tractor in May to till the 40- by 50-foot garden plot.
“Sod removal was a lot more work than I realized,” Milkowski said.
Bryer, who volunteers with the program, said she saw potential but knew she needed help to bring a garden to fruition.
“It was kind of uncared for, with a lot of crabgrass,” she said. “But I knew it got a lot of sunlight.”
Milkowski said every Wednesday she and as many as seven volunteers from Learning Works Youth Building Alternatives in Portland converge to weed, turn compost and thwart Japanese beetle infestation in the organic garden.
Milkowski said she expects a bountiful harvest of tomatoes.
“I’m already looking up recipes for gazpacho,” she joked about the tomato-based cold soup she might use at meal sites.
Milkowski said pole beans are a good choice because they can be frozen and grow well near sunflowers. The sunflowers, which attract beneficial insects for the garden, will later decorate tables at Wayside meal sites.
She estimated more than 1,000 people in Portland and Westbrook were served by Wayside food programs in 2010.
Bryer’s front yard garden is the second to benefit Wayside. The organization had one in Cumberland last year, but lost the site when the property was sold, Milkowski said.
Bryer moved to South Portland from the U.S. Virgin Islands last year. She said hot weather and a lack of topsoil made gardening difficult there and is surprised how easily plants grow at her new home.
She’s discovered pumpkin vines planted at the street edge of the garden can be sneaky and snaky.
“I keep trying to detour them back,” she said, redirecting a vine back toward her house.
Bryer said she first considered turning the lawn into a community garden for neighbors, but Kelley said the garden has a great purpose.
“She is helping lots of people and bringing life to the neighborhood. It is wonderful she has the time to give,” Kelley said.