Gardeners who come from all over the world grow a wide variety of vegetables, fruit and flowering plants each summer in the Orchard Downs Garden Plots. 
 
Something described as “magical” also takes place in this Family & Graduate Housing green space: the growth of a community and the blossoming of friendships. 
 
Since 1987, two gardeners connected to the University of Illinois have been at the heart of this community, and they’re still going strong.

Betoel Escobar, an acclaimed musician who played trombone with the National Symphony
Orchestra in Costa Rica, came to the U of I from Puerto Rico in the summer of 1986 as a graduate student. Born in El Salvador, Escobar came here to further study music education, moving into Family & Graduate Housing’s Orchard Downs apartments with his wife and 14-month-old.
 
Escobar said that after moving in, he saw people gardening while on walks with his family. While it was too late to start that first summer, he rented garden space the next spring.
 
Nearly four decades later, he still works in the community garden each year.
 
Richard Coddington, now a retired professor emeritus in the Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering, came to the university in 1985. He began renting garden plots at Orchard Downs in 1987 after driving down Race Street in Urbana and seeing signs advertising the garden spaces.
 
“As a young man, I rented three plots,” Coddington said. “I have a hand-tiller, which I could push back then, and I would hand till all three plots and then go ahead and plant all three plots. I think I did that for at least five years.”
 
Coddington said he’s cut back through the years and is now just tending to one garden plot. But it still brings him joy, and working in his garden is good exercise.
 
“You go out there; you enjoy what you’re doing; and you forget about your daily life and the pressures that you have,” he said. “It’s a way to relieve stress and enjoy yourself and enjoy the people around you.”

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Longtime gardeners Betoel Escobar (left) and Richard Coddington (right) enjoy a friendly moment in the Orchard Downs Garden Plots.

Making Connections

Though they both started working in the garden plots around the same time, it would be several years before Escobar and Coddington became well acquainted. However, they both began meeting other gardeners and making friends from all over the world.

That’s not surprising to Sam Holden, assistant director for residential experience for Family & Graduate Housing, who oversees numerous programs and activities for residents like the garden plot program.

“It is a really a great way to connect with the community,” Holden said. “Gardeners tell us all the time that this is where they first made the connection to the community.”

Escobar said he and his family felt immediately welcomed and comfortable after moving into Orchard Downs apartments. 

“Mainly because of that close-knit community there in Orchard Downs, that was an easy transition for us to come and function in a new environment,” Escobar sad. 

Right away they got to know people and developed friendships. He said they had “dinners together with Brazilians, Pakistanis, Turkish, Egyptians, Argentinians, [people] from Spain … it’s a wonderful place to live. Wonderful!”

Escobar also met friends from Puerto Rico, who knew his wife was also a musician. Their new friends had an acquaintance who was moving and had a piano to give away, which they moved into the Escobars’ apartment. His wife began teaching music lessons shortly thereafter.

“The university – whoever came up with the idea of having Family & Graduate Housing – did the right thing, because there’s a lot of commonalities there,” he said. “We’re experiencing the same thing. Most of [the residents] have children, like I did. The children play together, hang out together, go to the same school, so there is a lot of similar experiences that we have. So although we’re from different countries … there is that bond of closeness.”

During their time at Orchard Downs, two of their children were born, Escobar completed his doctoral program, and his wife earned her master’s degree.

After graduation, the Escobars stayed in Champaign-Urbana and had one more child. Betoel Escobar now works at the University of Illinois in the Office of Minority Student Affairs. 

His wife Margaret continued to teach music lessons, which is how they connected with Coddington.

From Violin Lessons to Zucchini Bread: “It’s just beautiful.”

“In fall of 2004, I had retired,” Coddington said, “and it turns out Betoel’s wife teaches violin and piano. And at that time, I had a granddaughter taking piano lessons from his wife, Margaret. So I contacted Margaret, and I said I’d like to try to learn how to play violin.”

During “maybe four to six recitals,” Coddington’s granddaughter played the piano as he would accompany her on the violin.

At lessons and recitals, Coddington got to know Betoel Escobar better, and their friendship grew. They eventually started renting garden plots next to each other.

While it’s unique that Escobar and Coddington have spent so many years gardening in the Orchard Downs Garden Plots, Holden said it’s not unusual to have non-students utilizing the space.

He said there is a “good mix of Orchard Downs community members, other apartment community members and then the broader community as well.”

While discounted garden plot rental rates are available for Family & Graduate Housing residents, Holden said the community garden is open to anyone, including people living in the broader Champaign-Urbana area.

“We also recognize that the community for our apartments is beyond just who lives with us,” Holden said. “I think that’s one of the magical pieces … that our residents have great connections with other members of the community, including that group. It really helps to more fully build our residential community.”

Like Escobar, Coddington got to know many of the residents who utilized the community garden, including a number of international students.

“People would come from all different parts of the world,” Coddington said. “I became friends with a young graduate student from Russia and also several grad students from China. Each of these international students would raise the type of crop they’re used to in their homeland. And the procedure used to raise their crops is a lot different from the procedure I would use to raise my crops. So it was interesting for me to observe how they raise their crops and what kind of crops they did and exchange friendship.”

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Not only have Coddington and Escobar become very good friends in recent years, but they also admire each other as gardeners and help one another out.

Coddington said Escobar is “really a master gardener, much better than I.”

He complimented Escobar’s tillage practice and ability to destroy the weeds that grow, which Coddington struggles with.

Likewise, Escobar marvels at Coddington’s gardening practices.

“Actually, I have learned from him, by the way, it’s not the other way around,” Escobar said with a laugh.

Coddington said he has enjoyed growing sugar snap peas, Kennebec potatoes, butternut squash, tomatoes, zucchini, cantaloupes and watermelons, among other crops.

It remains a family affair for him. He has a daughter who had already canned “a couple dozen quarts” of tomatoes for the winter as of late August. He said his wife often fries the zucchini he grows, and his daughters will occasionally make zucchini bread, “which I dearly love.”

Coddington’s granddaughter, with whom he performed during the music recitals, recently got married. She gave wedding guests a pack of wildflowers, which he planted this year.

Like Coddington, Escobar also said gardening helps relieve stress, and he finds it very inspiring.

“The main thing is, there are some days that you are tired and maybe stressed,” Escobar said. “You come into the garden after work, and it’s just relaxing. After a good work out, I go home, and I’m a different person than when I get home from work.”

Other than his tomato and green pepper plants, Escobar said his other crops – including green beans, sweet peas, cantaloupe, zucchini, yellow squash, cucumbers, butternut squash, acorn squash, kale and mustard greens – come from seeds he puts in the ground.

“It’s just beautiful,” Escobar said. “You plant, and I come every day because I’m hoping to see these little sprouts coming out, and it’s so beautiful to think of it. I’m growing, and you just work around them and help them not be killed by the weeds and other things and the bugs, and they become part of you. Really part of your life. When you see how much they have grown, and things I planted – I saw them grow from seeds. It’s amazing how nature works.”

Kids of All Ages

Holden said hearing stories about gardeners becoming friends and making connections is exactly what the Family & Graduate Housing staff is hoping for.

“I think it is really simple on the face of it. It’s just a plot of land [where] residents go out, and they plant things, and we’ve all talked about gardening,” Holden said. “But the real magic in it is in the relationships that are built. We think a lot about how to engage culture, because we have so many different cultures represented in our community – and how do we really find ways to represent them – and the garden plots make this very easy.” 

Holden said while gardening and connecting with members of the community, residents share stories about growing up, talk about their families and learned experiences and remain “connected to their culture as well. I think it’s incredible.”

Family & Graduate Housing offers a variety of different programs for residents and their families. The FGH staff hosts a full calendar of events each month, and they recently celebrated the renovation and expansion of the Orchard Downs Community Center.

One of the many FGH programs is a garden group, which Holden said was designed to engage the children in the community.

“The thought behind the idea is to teach techniques for planting, for caring for the crops, for cooking and how you take it from the farm to the table and to engage them in that process very early on,” Holden said. “But we do have gardeners of all ages that participate in that, and oftentimes we find that even though it was designed for the children, the parents are just as excited to be a part of that experience as well.”

Escobar expressed his appreciation for Family & Graduate Housing, and he called the Orchard Downs Garden Plots a “blessing” and “a great service” for the community. “It’s a tremendous, tremendous service.”

After all these years, Escobar and Coddington both continue to build new friendships with the graduate students and other community members who share their love for gardening.

Holden said the garden plots are “for everyone,” and he encourages residents and other community members to give it a try.

“It’s an opportunity to learn that craft, and it’s also an opportunity to connect, but don’t shy away from the garden plots just because you may not feel that comfort there,” he said. 

“We have gardeners who’ve been gardeners for two to three years and have really learned everything they know about gardening in that time, and they’re very, very happy,” Holden said. “I’ve never heard of an unhappy gardener (laughs), so don’t be afraid to engage with the garden plots. It really is meant for all, and it’s an incredible experience.”

Residents interested in renting one or more plots in the community garden should watch for an announcement in the Neighborly News monthly newsletter in the spring and look for garden group events in the Family & Graduate Housing events calendar. Community members interested in the Orchard Downs Garden Plots can email us at apartments@illinois.edu or call 217-333-5656.