Are you growing food this summer? While we are totally inspired by Nika's deck garden, we know that some of you don't even have that much space, and some of you just want to spread your seedlings out and really dig into the earth.
That's where a community garden comes in. Community gardens are public or donated plots of land where a whole community can come together and plant flowers and vegetables. They bring green plants and fresh fruits and vegetables into urban areas, and often they give kids their first look at how their food is grown. There's an article here about the effects of community gardening in Pittsburgh.
We are very lucky that we have the space in our Brooklyn backyard to grow a nice amount of produce. Our Green Zebra tomato plant has produced it's first little globe, and we have about 8 other heirloom tomato plants which are beginning to flower. We've also planted cannellini, borlotti, lima and green beans, fennel, Four Seasons butterhead lettuce, rainbow chard, kirby cukes, and a variety of herbs. We've got strawberries and mint that were here when we moved in as well.
I think that community gardens are a wonderful thing, and if we ever move to a place where we don't have the space to plant our own stuff, we'd definitely seek one out.
view jenblossom's profile
Growing food is so cool everyone should do it!Even peppers and tomatoes and strawberries can be grown in window boxes if you don't live near a community garden. I have an allotment and I love it and totally recommend them!(Have I spelt that right?!)
view tin_angel's profile
My husband and I gardened in Seattle's famed P-Patch community gardens for over a decade. It was terrific and I would recommend it highly. Really good for the soul to be out of a city apartment and out in a greenspace among the plants!
There are over 30 P-Patches throughout the city and over the years we gardened at three or four of them as we moved from neighborhood to neighborhood. At each place we met great new people and expanded our circle of friends.
I had always loved plants but through my participation in the P-Patches I became a real gardener. So much experience to share...I learned LOT about how to do it right, and how to succeed in our city's particular climate. I see friends learning to garden "on their own" and it's a whole lot harder. My two primary pearls of wisdom: (1) Mulch! A few inches of compost on top of your soil around your plants will keep weeds down and feed the soil. Life is too short to weed! and (2) Reemay or other "floating row cover" is a huge help--keeps seedlings just a bit warmer, protects plants from bad bugs, prevents birds from eating your strawberries...good stuff!
We don't CG any more since we have a backyard garden now (in our second house! Our first house's yard was so small we still maintained a CG plot.) But I still remember fondly the summer we grew two bushels full of basil and packed the freezer full of pesto for the next year. We grew the flowers for our low-budget grad-student wedding in our PPatch garden. I remember cheering as asphalt was jackhammered up to expand another PPatch in my neighborhood... Lots of good memories.
I encourage you all to go out and make some good garden memories too, in a community garden!
view AngieK's profile
that sounds like a great idea, i might have to start looking for our local community garden, and benefit from the help of my friend who works as a Poulsbo florist in plotting my plants and flowers.
view flowers to go's profile