Karl Reamer's backyard farm in Patchogue yields bounty of goodwill and friendship

For the past three years, Karl Reamer has been raking in more than just fruits and vegetables at his backyard “farm” in Patchogue.

The longtime gardener, inspired by the trading he saw among members of a local Facebook group, said he posted an offer of sunflower seeds in 2021. From there, a word-of-mouth bartering system sprung up, with community members swapping labor, plants and even compost for fresh-picked produce. And along with the bushels of tomatoes, beans, pumpkins, watermelons and other crops, Reamer said he has also cultivated something more lasting: a bounty of goodwill and friendship.

“I appreciate the in-person exchanges,” he said. “It’s a good break from interacting on social media. We learn a lot from each other [and that] really helps with problem solving the following season. It’s a win-win.”

Reamer, 68, said he learned about gardening from his then-father-in-law in 1979 and started his first small garden in 1982. He and his wife divorced in 1997 and, after moving into his current home in 1999, he planted beds in his side yard. By 2015, he said he had created a 16-by-16-foot plot in the backyard.

“Then every year, I kept making the garden bigger and bigger until I didn’t have any more lawn left,” he said. Before long, Reamer realized his garden had become a small farm measuring 30 feet by 60 feet.

In 2021, Reamer retired from his job as an estimator for a commercial printing company and joined the Long Island Homesteading Forum Facebook group. There, he said, he saw people exchanging garden supplies and harvests. Bartering, a common practice in the homesteading community, had gained widespread popularity during the pandemic, as shortages led friends and neighbors to trade sought-after goods like masks, sourdough starters, disinfectant spray and toilet paper.

Scrolling through the Facebook group, Reamer said he encountered people trading garden supplies and harvests. He had an abundance of sunflower seeds that year and decided to offer them to the group.

“I met a lot of people that way,” recalled Reamer, who is known around town as “BD,” short for Big Daddy. “They came to my house for the seeds, and then the same people would come by for whatever I offered after that.”

His visitors didn’t arrive empty-handed. One brought eggs, and others traded pepper and onion plants, compost and fresh-squeezed lemonade. Soon, Reamer said he was offering fruits and vegetables to anyone who had something to share or who could spare time helping him plant or weed.

Reamer said he had 20 to 25 barter partners last summer. So far this year, there have been 10, he said, adding he expects that number to rise as his fall crops mature.

A FOOD EXCHANGE

Leah Pollard, of Bayport, said she met Reamer about eight months ago via Facebook when she offered to give him food scraps for compost. “The first time I saw his setup, I said, ‘If I help you, will you give me food in exchange?’ and he said, ‘Absolutely!’  ”

Since then, Pollard, 48, has been dropping off food scraps and helping Reamer plant and weed every week. She said the arrangement works well for her. “I get so many vegetables, it’s insane. It’s totally an unfair trade,” she said. “I get way more than I give.”

As a vegan, Pollard said she appreciates the “ton of spinach he gives me every week for my green smoothies.” She also brings home cucumbers, wax beans, garlic and enough basil to make pesto every day. “I love working here because Karl is so nice and he’s such an incredibly smart gardener,” she said.

Ginger Farrell, 66, of Patchogue, said she met Reamer about 20 years ago at a water aerobics class at the local pool, and the pair struck up a friendship. She said she often buys him groceries in exchange for fresh produce.

Recently, she said, Reamer “asked for Gatorade and turkey bacon, so I bought them for him, and he gave me some tomatoes so I can have BLTs for dinner.”

Sometimes, she said, she brings home more vegetables than she can eat, so she cooks them for Reamer and returns them as prepared meals. “There’s always a piece of chocolate included” for Reamer, who has a sweet tooth.

Reamer said the arrangements help him financially, “but it’s more of a convenience because I don’t have to go to the store.”

He appreciates the special items he gets from his bartering partners: “I don’t have chickens, but my chicken people bring me eggs. I don’t have horses, but I get my compost,” he said. “I don’t have bees, but people bring me honey from their bees.”

COMBATING LONELINESS

Reamer’s son and daughter are grown and live elsewhere. The retiree, who shares his home with a Maltese mix named Scooter, said he appreciates that the people who come to barter “always stay” awhile.

“We sit in the gazebo and BS, and that’s how I get to combat loneliness,” he said. “I’m single and I’m like a hermit over here, so I like the companionship.”

For years, Reamer played local gigs with his former band, BD and the Bulldogs; served on the boards of several nonprofits; and organized music-driven charity events through the fundraising arm of his music-booking business, Act 1 Entertainment Inc.

Although he no longer plays in the band or sits on the boards, no grass grows under Reamer’s feet. He continues to run Act 1 Entertainment and said he recently started another small business, Ace of Spades, for which he works in other people’s gardens five or six mornings a week, weeding, cleaning out sheds, moving cinder blocks and performing other chores.

And he keeps busy in his own garden.

“After I retired, I was no longer responsible to anything, so I needed to be responsible to something,” he said. “That’s why this gardening thing is good. I have to set my alarm and I have to get up. If I don’t, then I won’t have structure and I’ll get lazy.”

Over the years, Reamer has remained in contact with a former fan-turned-friend whom he met through the Patchogue music scene. Robert Ford, 64, of North Babylon, said he “used to follow the band around and ended up helping with a couple of [Reamer’s] fundraising events.”

The pair bonded over music and plants. Ford, who works in quality control for government equipment, has a penchant for collecting sunflower seeds, which he regularly volunteers to plant around his community, most recently at the North Babylon Public Library.

He said he first helped Reamer in 2015 with a “large planting of all different kinds of sunflowers, from dwarves to multiheaded ones and ‘skyscrapers,’  ” including uncommon purple, orange and red varieties. Some of his sunflowers border a bed of banana plants, cannas, elephant ears, castor beans and other tropical plants that populate Reamer’s traffic-stopping front yard.

Recently, Ford brought Reamer a rare, potted “Peacock” dogwood tree. The hybrid species was named after Peacock Lane, the street Ford has lived on since 1961, by his late mother, a landscape designer who knew the breeder.

Ford said he occasionally helps with the heavy lifting on the farm, including mulching and weeding, and turning over the soil in Reamer’s sunflower beds. He always goes home with a mixed bag of vegetables.

LEARNING FROM OTHERS

The plants on Reamer’s farm are grown, he said, “absolutely, 100% organically with no synthetics.” He avoids chemical pesticides and makes his own fertilizer by fermenting comfrey, nettle and red clover cuttings in a 55-gallon jug. Sometimes, he said, he adds onion and garlic skins and spoiled milk to the mix.

Although he generously shares his gardening knowledge, he said, “I’m also furthering my own education by learning from other people.”

One thing Reamer said he’s picked up along the way and implemented in his own vegetable garden is the “Back to Eden” method, which he described as layering cardboard, compost and wood chips over the soil every winter, then using an auger attached to a drill to dig planting holes “right through the woodchips and cardboard” every spring. This no-till approach aims to restore natural growing conditions to the land and is believed to enrich the soil and nourish plants as the materials decompose.

There have been other lessons, too.

Once, he said, a doctor he met through the Facebook group brought a goji berry plant to trade. “I didn’t even know what it was, so I Googled it and followed the [online growing] directions and I got goji berries. I put them in my cereal.”

Another time, he recalled, somebody brought him an elderberry plant. “I never grew elderberry before. Now I’m making elderberry-rhubarb paste.”

Each bartering friend who stops by Reamer’s farm receives a bag of produce in exchange for something that will enrich his garden or stock his refrigerator. And no matter what it is, it’s sure to brighten his day.

“It doesn’t matter what people bring,” Reamer said. “It’s like a potluck. Just show a little love.”

To participate in Karl Reamer’s bartering system, visit his Facebook page at facebook.com/karl.reamer.