I love my community garden!

[Toil]

I just had a nice long walk with the dogs, and along the way some children played with my pit bull mix niko.

They were spanish speakers, and I did my best to communicate, but really niko did the talking. Which gave me a chance to invite them to their community (communal really) garden, so they can cooperate with us to grow some healthy organic food for themselves and their families. Our area has very poor food choices. Now we just need a translator...

Anyway, I joined because I have no land right now, but now I realize a crowd cultivating a big plot is a more efficient way to grow decent amounts of food. It's something between farming and gardening. And best of all, our organic only rule means we have a terrific lure to bring the skeptic in.

Sorry this is not a gardening question, I am just experiencing a bit of joy here.

[gixxerific]

Cool I wish I had a community garden to be involved.

I used to have pit bull name Niko, still have another named Maya though.

[Toil]

hey gix why not start one?

[dan1003]

Sounds like you have a really great thing going, Toil. Good luck and let me know if there's any way I can help out (from a distance, obviously). The community gardens in my area are really taking off too. Hopefully this is the beginning of something...

[Toil]

well a good portion of that is me just thinking positive. We definitely have some major challenges. Just like everything worth doing I guess.

But yeah, I think we got a good, if fragile and small, thing going.

I'm still exhilarated because I brought up the idea of planning for more fungal and more bacterial areas, and everyone thought that sounded like a good idea. awesome!

Now we just need to figure out the complex sun/shade pattern over the seasons, our lack of tools, a truck, or a chipper, no electricity (so no tea!), and slope facing the wrong way from a light standpoint.

Mission critical is still getting organic matter into the soil. The city compost is very sandy, and every year we get a bunch delivered by the land trust. Things grow, but the topsoil will just flow through your fingers. I got a restaurant on board for food scraps, but browns are hard to come by. We are talking about a big pile, so it can't be newspaper.

[dan1003]

At the hospital I'm at, one can pick up enough bags of shredded paper to fill a small office in less than a week (not from experience *cough cough*). If you're not too worried about laserjet ink etc, someone that works in an office building could get you a heap of the stuff. There's got to be some other good sources too...

[mtmickey]

Try your local library for shredded paper and newspaper.

[Toil]

you guys rock. thanks!

[Ozark Lady]

Spanish classes are often offered locally, at least they are here.

My husband made me up some cheat sheets. He spelled the word the way I would pronounce it, and we thought of all the words I needed to do my job. It worked. Minimal communication, but still it was better than none.

Lots of photos with you help too, with alot of pointing you can often get your point across.

I visited Europe and was not bilingual at all, so I have seen the can't communicate issue from both sides. And patience and pantomime really help alot.

[Toil]

lol.

OL, the hardest part, I think, will be getting the other gardeners relax. Some are not comfortable with the idea of that kind of outreach. I can hear nervous laughter.

I'm thinking about good outcomes.