Skip to main content

Community Gardening Bust

While I was staying with my wonderfully supportive boyfriend who was letting me borrow his car to get back and forth to work (I now have my own set of wheels again...yay!) he and I went for a walk around his neighborhood.  

We came across what had once surely been a magnificent community garden complete with a children's garden, raspberry bushes, and herbs. But it was no longer the beauty it once had been.  


You could hardly see the vegetables for the weeds and the grass and you could tell that no one had been taking care of it recently.  


So this brings me to a frustrating question: should we really create community gardens?  I know you're all screaming "yes! Yes! of course we should!" but this is not the first garden I have seen get neglected by its creators.  Another baby community garden in Wilmington was overlooked almost completely this season, some of the beds were not even planted!

Of course we all know the pros of community garden: teaching people to grow their own food, teaching children where food comes from, teaching children through gardening (science, math, etc), eating healthier, etc.  But you cannot simply plant a garden and expect those things to happen.   You must continue the work throughout the season.  You must meet with the families and teach them first how to plant, then how to water, how to weed, how to harvest, and what to do with what they've harvested.  

I rescued a ripe zucchini and squash from the garden after sadly seeing several rotting away into nothing.  Rotten tomatoes litter the ground; other plants, weed choked, produced nothing.  

I just wish people who come up with these great ideas and start organizations and projects and initiatives would follow through.  Its a great gesture to plant a garden but is the gesture not unlike a fake smile if you allow it to rot and become choked with weeds?

Is there a solution to this?


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Vermicomposting

Vermicomposting is exactly what is sounds like: composting with vermis, which is the Latin for worms.   I first became acquainted with vermicomposting when I started at Grow Food, Grow Hope in November 2009.  One of my coworkers was attempting to vermicompost in a container he kept in his desk and usually the 1st thing he said to you after "hello" was "want to see my worms?"  However, the worms jumped ship, were all over the office, and then were banned permanently.   Since that day I had a small adventure into composting with worms.  In my ignorance in the nature of compost I assumed that worms were always necessary for compost and therefore dug up worms from the backyard to add to my porch compost bin (an 18-gallon Rubbermaid tub I drilled holes in and added my food scraps to).  These worms of course were never seen again as they were cooked in my compost bin.   And then the research began.    Now tha...

Shoes

Shoes Shania Twain Tell me about it... Ooh! Men. Have you ever tried to figure them out? Huh, me too, but I ain't got no clue How 'bout you? Men are like shoes Made to confuse Yeah, there's so many of 'em I don't know which ones to choose (yeah, yeah, yeah) Ah, sing it to me If you agree There's the kind made for runnin' The sneakers and the low down heels The kind that will keep you on your toes And every girl knows how that feels (yeah, yeah, yeah) Ouch, ah, sing it with me Chorus: You've got your kickers and your ropers Your everyday loafers, some that you can never find You've got your slippers and your zippers Your grabbers and your grippers Man, don't ya hate that kind? Some you wear in, some you wear out Some you wanna leave behind Sometimes you hate 'em And sometimes you love 'em I guess it all depends on which way you rub 'em But a girl can never have too many of 'em It's amazing what a little polish will do... Men ar...

FINALLY

After more time than I ever intended on dedicated to creating the list, blog, and ticker that has accompanied this 101 in 1001 I am finally finished. As you have seen, the bolded items are the categories, and the items that are NOT pink (in this case I believe we'll let them all be purple, because its a nice match, are the items that are finished. Today's one and only item (and the motivation for FINALLY getting this up) is Emma, a great book. I watched the movie with Megan before leaving for France so I knew what was going to happen. Now I'm sitting here dreaming of my own Mr. Knightley, but where I will find him I have no idea. Let me know if you find any men as perfect, graceful, handsome, and amazing as Mr. Knightley for me.