THELEAVEN.ORG | VOL. 41, NO. 2 | JULY 19, 2019
LIFE IN THE GARDEN OF EATIN’
Story and photos
BY JOE BOLLIG
F
LUSH — Picture a warm summer night in the Flint Hills, about 10 p.m. A dark shape moves across Father Earl Dekat’s farmyard. Suddenly, there is a startled chittering and the shape goes scrambling away. Another raccoon has discovered Father Dekat’s three-strand electrified garden fence. Like most gardeners, the retired priest is generous with his produce — but draws the line at foraging critters. In Topeka, his friend Father Bob Hasenkamp also has a fence around his garden — chicken wire, not electrified. He hopes it will keep the raccoons away from this year’s cantaloupes. Maybe. Last year, he planted outside the fence. He had 18 or so big, healthy cantaloupes ripening on the vine. “Just about the time they were starting to get ripe, the raccoons found them,” said Father Hasenkamp. “They’d come in at night and eat a couple of them. If they didn’t finish one, the next night they’d come back and finish that one off before they started on the others.” “I kind of give the raccoons credit for good stewardship and not being wasteful,” he joked. Many priests in the archdiocese like to garden. The demands of ministry and lack of suitable ground often limit what they can do. Retirement, however, offers improved prospects for green-thumbed pastors with passions for planting. Two retired clerics — Father Dekat and Father Hasenkamp — graciously granted tours of their gardens to The Leaven.
It began with the roots When Father Dekat retired six years ago, he moved to his favorite place: the family farm where he was born and grew up with his three brothers and four sisters. Originally, the farm, near Flush, was a half section — 320 acres. He has sold most of it, retaining about 115 acres. Father Dekat rents out the remaining land because he doesn’t farm himself, but he keeps a big garden in the very spot where his self-sufficient parents had a garden. “It was a little bigger than what it is now,” he said. “As kids, we had to do a lot of hoeing and planting. I have a lot >> See “PRIESTS” on page 4
Father Earl Dekat walks through his garden checking on the progress of his produce. When Father Dekat retired six years ago, he moved to his family’s farm near Flush where he was born and grew up with his three brothers and four sisters.