If I’ve been a bit sporadic in my posts here, there are a few reasons why. Here’s one:
The Community Garden
The little church in my neighborhood where we hold our Environmental Change-Makers meetings decided last fall to rip out their side yard and convert it into an edible landscape. Guess who jumped in to design the garden layout? The construction effort took most of the spring as we ripped out 1,250 square foot of lawn and replaced it with artistically shaped raised beds (Peter had seen a photo of the gardens at Villandry). I designed a garden rotation and tried to lay out the vegetables in a symmetrical, aesthetically-pleasing fashion.
The Community Garden at Holy Nativity serves a charitable and social justice purpose in that most of the produce will go to feed the hungry through the local food pantry and similar distribution organizations.
Additionally, this garden serves tremendous environmental purpose. In the midst of a neighborhood of manicured chem-lawns and ornamental yards, this garden proclaims that front yard vegetables can be beautiful. Its corner location places the issue of local food sources right out in public view. It represents a return to functionality for city land which had been nonfunctional for several decades. Through our workdays (and a series of gardening classes) we are helping to educate people about what it really means to “work the soil” plus the basics of organic and edibles gardening. Future additions such as rainwater collection barrels will highlight other environmental solutions. And the garden creates a focus around which to rally a community, when healthy and vital communities are such an important part of our journey toward Sustainability.
Plus, we’re having a lot of fun!
Yesterday, we went to the garden and participated in the first major harvest. It seemed like a “light” harvest, in that many of the plants are just coming into their first produce. But when we began to weigh it, boy, did the numbers add up. We harvested 35 pounds of food!
You can read more about the garden on the Community Garden blog here.