If At First You Don't Succeed -

There are lots of folks out there who love to garden. My partner TJ and I have really bad joints, and never developed the love of it. Still, we are drawn to the idea of using our large corner lot for food production, and we very much want control over what we eat.

Six years ago we reached out and found nine other folks to share a garden effort here. We hoped that scale would allow us to make a great wonderful organic garden, and offer some gardener a part-time paid position. We all chipped in and set up a large 6-bed garden with a landscape gardener's help. We convinced a horticulture prof at a local community college to use us as a "how to double-dig" field trip, and our beds were ready!

But despite its size and everyone's enthusiasm, we went through 5 gardeners, and wound up struggling to do the tending, and harvesting ourselves. TJ mostly. They tell us it was one of the worst growing seasons that year. Even experienced gardeners were wringing their hands.

Sigh – our lovely first effort went to seed - oxalis to be precise.

Take two - 
Then we met a young guy in a garden group who worked with a small urban farmer in the outskirts of Richmond, and wanted to start one of his own. The idea of using our yard as an urban farmlette intrigued him and he agreed to do it all for both his household and ours.

A local gardening group member "lent us her chickens" to clean the areas of weeds, while "the girls" got their healthy greens. It seems a lovely date. We'd get to hear the lovely burble of happy chickens grazing.  Seems the ladies didn't feel secure enough in the new yard to eat, but it was a try.

Then we gathered some strong arms and they hand turned large long rows and deep beds. We installed a drip watering system and timer. But in his inexperience, he had turned the oxalis in deeply, and then watered it. As the veggies stuck up their meek tiny heads up, the oxalis overwhelmed them and took over. Try as he might, he could find no way to get beyond them. He slipped away in disgrace and left us with a thick lawn of weeds.

We collected cardboard from recycling bins and free chips through Christmas, and after four months, hired  a team to cover the oxalis with 6" of  interlocked cardboard and another 5 or so inches of chips.


Neat chip covered yard again, but empty.

Take three – ( It's important to us, you see.)

We found a new neighbor couple that love to get dirt under their nails, but don't have any dirt where they live a block away. So we are starting a simple, simple garden - a sunny box and a shady box with recycled wood, city compost and seed. Perhaps a worktable and a cold frame too. We provide water, and land, they take the lead as designers and stewards. Our food wishes are similar and we're all excited about it being sweet and small, ... and do-able.

The four of us toured some gardens and saw lovely flowers and herbs. Such color, texture and variety of heights and views... with bits of art throughout the yard. At one place they showed us a terrific water catchment system and we know just where ours could live discretely tucked away.

I'm excited.

Wait, wait. Start simply. It will come, Loni.

We sometimes dream of our own chickens and plan where the coop might be. We see a place for more beds and a future spot to sit in the sun amongst the lovely food and watch it grow.Play some music.

But later, Loni. Later.
Simple will be lovely.

Well the couple backed out last week. Sigh. Not even the start of a simple garden. They were just too concerned they'd get overwhelmed since they both has brand new jobs and didn't know the demands. We understood. Gardens can do that. We know.

Take four - 
Will we find a housemate who loves to get into the soil? Will someone  intertwine what our yard can offer with their love of warm earth and baby sprouts?

But later, Loni. Later.