Sue Miller parked her bicycle near the barbecue grill that had been set up for volunteer get-togethers and entered a large, humid greenhouse. She checked the rows of raised containers holding the remnants of peppers and salad greens after a productive summer season. It was early fall, and when the sun was shining the air was still more warm than cool. Even so, the bulk of the growing season was behind them. It was time to start putting things to bed. 

Miller has spent the past four years tracking the rhythm of the seasons inside these double-polyethylene-skinned walls off New York Avenue in Oak Bluffs. But the history of this much-loved, little-known space dates back much further. The Community Greenhouse of Martha’s Vineyard (CGMV), as it is now known, began in 1983 when a group of passionate gardeners and volunteers banded together to create a year-round space for fresh and sustainable food, companionship, and education.

Today, CGMV boasts nearly two hundred members who pay a small annual fee for access to organic fresh vegetables and gorgeous flowers. Members get their choice of the bounty, which they can pick or purchase at a discounted price, as well as first dibs when it comes to purchasing plants for their own gardens. Membership also covers access to programming that CGMV offers on such topics as composting, dried flower arranging, foraging, pickling, and canning.

The operation is run by approximately twenty core volunteers who routinely staff the greenhouse from 10 a.m. to noon Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. In the summertime, the greenhouse is open on Sundays as well. Depending on the time of year, volunteers divvy up a list of never-ending
tasks, including potting, weeding, watering, and harvesting. They plant rows and rows of tomatoes and herbs and kale. They mow the grass and prune yellowing leaves and propagate mother plants. They hang colorful, overflowing baskets of geraniums from the rib-bone rafters. Above all, they make sure that a sense of community blossoms in the space.

That’s what first drew Miller to the nonprofit. She was looking for something productive to do after retiring from teaching at the West Tisbury School in 2020. Today she serves as the board president and interim manager of the greenhouse. 

“I feel at home here. It’s a respite place for me,” said Miller. “My mom has dementia, and this is a place for me to work with people with a lot of common interests and common goals,” she continued. “Sometimes we take a break and
just talk to each other. Connection is very big here.”

Outside the greenhouse, Miller stopped to say hello to another volunteer, Nancy Cofer-Shabica, who was busy scrubbing and rinsing plastic pots. As part of CGMV’s sustainability and cost-saving efforts, members are asked to return used pots so that they can be sanitized and repurposed. 

“I come here to connect with other people – and because I care about the environment…there’s so much plastic in the ocean,” Cofer-Shabica said. She also enjoys weeding at the greenhouse because she finds the solitary activity meditative. “Mostly, though, I like being around other people here – they’re a great group and they are so welcoming,” she said. 

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When the greenhouse – originally known as the Community Solar Operated Greenhouse, or COMSOG – first broke ground in September of 1983, it was greeted with plenty of fanfare. Festivities included live Renaissance music, games, and demonstrations, according to a Vineyard Gazette article from that time. The open house also included a dedication from a reverend, bowls of  “Greenhouse Chowder” – “a ‘soon-to-be-famous’ concoction of Chef Pierre and his students at the regional high school, using vegetables and herbs that will be grown in the greenhouse and Island gardens” – fiddle music, and country dancing. 

An enthusiastic executive board made up of thirty members got the greenhouse going with start-up funds from the Cape and Islands Self-Reliance Corporation. Further support came from the Dukes Conservation District, the county commissioners, the Agricultural Society, the Martha’s Vineyard Garden Club, the Vineyard Committee on Hunger, and the Martha’s Vineyard League of Women Voters. The Dukes County Extension Service offered the land. Today, the county continues to lease to the operation at a generous rate: just $2,000 a year.

Volunteer organizers started out with a set of goals in mind, which they outlined in a February 1983 letter to the Gazette: “The provision of healthy winter gardening activities for old and young (with special concern for families of lower incomes) is one of our prime goals. Other, not lesser, aims are to produce the maximum feasible amounts of food and to encourage and increase the uses of alternative sources of energy. (All while having fun!)”

Such goals remain vital today but were arguably especially important at the time. Back then, the population hovered between eight and nine thousand residents. Farms were plentiful but year-round produce production was scant. Winters could feel barren, isolating, and overly long.

In September of 1984 – shortly before the greenhouse opened to the public – organizers reiterated the importance of their year-round mission. “We hope it will be a place for the community to visit on a Sunday afternoon in February,” said Michael Zoll, a co-chairman of the project. “In the winter there is a kind of horticultural deprivation that prevails. People who enjoy gardening and growth can’t do it. This will produce an environment that will provide people in winter with an activity they haven’t had before.”

Sharon Pearson was one of dozens of volunteers who readily signed on in those early days. She began volunteering at the greenhouse in 1986 and still volunteers occasionally. “One of the most magical things for me was going there in February and smelling the basil,” she said. “I don’t really care for basil, but I love the smell of it…. Playing around with plants in February is really special.”

This year – for the first time in its history – the greenhouse will close its doors in December for several months.  “We’re trying something new…. We were keeping the greenhouse heated only for the lettuce we were growing during that time of year,” Miller explained. “It wasn’t cost effective.” 

Come February, however, volunteers will once again gather in the greenhouse to fill hundreds of trays with tomato, cucumber, and pepper seedlings, and to enjoy the smell of basil. Volunteers grow most of the produce and many of the herbs that they sell from seed, and planting begins in the cold, dreary months of the year so that they will be ready in time for an annual plant sale on Mother’s Day weekend. The sale makes up a significant portion of the organization’s yearly funds. 

“Big sellers include tomato plants, ornamental flowers…we have hundreds of tomato starter plants,” Miller said. “There’s a nice variety of perennials and hanging baskets in spring at a good price with petunias, impatiens, geraniums, climbing black-eyed Susans, fuchsias.” 

All money earned is put back into the organization to ensure that the heat stays on and that the mission continues. Although finances are tight, CGMV is solvent. “When I first started in 2014, our yearly budget was $32,000; now we make it to $50,000 a year,” said CGMV treasurer Sarah Barnes. “We’re close to the bone and that’s because of all the work [volunteers] do.”

Grants and donations also help. Former greenhouse manager Mike Tinus secured a grant to repair a smaller, standalone hoop house on the grounds damaged by off-season storms. Once it’s repaired early next year, it will be filled with plants that can tolerate cooler temperatures, thereby extending the growing season. 

CGMV also started accepting credit card payments last summer, which Miller said has been a boost for the operation.

Apart from investing in their facilities, Miller said the board is looking for ways to attract more members and volunteers. They are also hoping to expand their program offerings. This spring, CGMV will present a workshop with BiodiversityWorks. The class will focus on native plants and why they are so vital to the Island’s ecosystem. 

Miller is also currently taking a class in horticultural therapy – utilizing plants and gardening activities to improve mental and physical health – and would like to explore inviting multigenerational volunteers. Planting and growing can help one’s well-being at any age, she said. “It’s incredibly peaceful when the Island is busy to come here and water plants, and it smells so good.”

Whether the Island is warm and busy or cold and quiet, for ten months out of the year the greenhouse environment will remain inviting and warm. The life of the organization has ebbed and flowed over the years, but one thing that has remained constant, Miller said, is the support of its volunteers.

“I feel like this place is old-school Vineyard,” she said. “We don’t have a gate up and we don’t have a chain across the entry. We want people to know they are welcomed here.”