The temperature hasn't made it out of the 20s all day, a cold east wind and snow flurries let me know it is winter. But, a bit of spring has begun to fill the mailbox conveniently located on my front porch, seed catalogs.
I am a gardening addict, I admit it. I plan every inch of space and figure out where I can squeeze in yet another pumpkin plant or row of lettuce. My addiction is so great I have infected my entire neighborhood except one person who hates it all and me in particular for turning all those "lovely manicured lawns" into "ugly" vegetable gardens.
I did not set out to become the pied piper of vegetable gardening in this neighborhood nor can I claim I had some grand scheme to go green or save the world. No, I just wanted tomatoes that didn't taste like cardboard and that feeling of accomplishment I have always had when my harvest is in and my pantry is full. Call it a security thing.
But it has become so much more.
Today fifteen neighbors have gardens and the beginnings of permaculture landscapes. Then there is our one cranky detractor.
Last year we sold enough at the farmers market for each of us to buy our supplies for this coming year and build a small greenhouse on a strip of land on long term loan to us from our city.
We also donated enough salad ingredients to our local inter faith free dinner to keep them going for three months. Enough Tomatoes for them to make fifteen gallons of spagetti sauce, and enough pumpkins and potatoes to cover Thanksgiving dinner.
We still fed ourselves and those neighbors unable to garden for themelves as well. We do all this on regular city lots using innovation and friendly competition among ourselves to see who can come up with the best ideas to squeeze more out of our tiny bits of land.
Our detractor spent her summer writing letters to the local newspaper supporting the republican candidate for mayor. This candidates ideas included making it illegal to park an RV in a residential driveway (to eliminate our ability to give shelter to the newly evicted), to bring a "high end" condo and retail shop complex to our riverfront (eliminating the only river front public park), and make our city government "run like a business". Our democratic incumbant got 72% of the vote considering this was the only county west of the cascades that went for John McCain that is really amazing.
At the end of last summer we had a harvest potluck party we even invited our detractor to come. She declined and then called the cops to complain we were making to much noise. The cops really loved my neighbor Steves blackberry ice cream. As we made them cones to go,our detractor paced her porch sending hate rays at us. We smiled and waved her over to join us. She went back in her house, slamming the door hard enough for all of us to hear.
Gardening has brought us together and spilled over into helping each other out with other projects. It taught us alot at the same time. Last year we spread our disease even futher by offering free gardening lectures at the local library. Since the librarys budget has been cut alot recently we asked a dollar donation to the library, if people could afford it, to add new books. They had to turn people away because of the fire codes. The library got $225.00 in new books. apparently some people thought we were more than a buck. This year we have pledged to give our talks as many times as necessary so that everyone who wants to hear what we have to say gets that chance.
Our detractor is trying to convince the city to form a downtown neighborhood association and make her president so she can outlaw vegetable gardens.
While the city council is rolling their collective eyes and calculating all of those votes they would be flushing down the political toliet if they even considered the idea, we are busy dividing and speading the 20 yards of ground up leaves the city has donated to us to build our soil. That with the seven yards of composted chicken manure we hauled in, coincidently, on the same day our detractor threw a party to which none of us were invited, should really make things grow well next year.
So as the snow flies and our detractor struts around the neighborhood arms crosed tightly, looking like she sucked on one of my Meyer Lemons, we hardly notice. We are busily plotting the future, including our newly aquired lot, offered to us by the construction company that maintains a small work shed on it. It is right next door to our detractor. We are thinking a small community garden plot for the four unit apartment house down the street, or maybe a corn patch, there is nothing like fresh picked sweet corn. Either way the soil needs improving, a couple yards of chicken manure ought to do it.