Lena, my wife Tracey, and I recently took over a plot in Richmond. As you can see it was VERY overgrown and in need of some work.
Why did we do this? For Lena, I think the answer is simple. If you are following her other blogs on the site, you’ll know she is struggling with what she can eat. It turns out that, for the most part, vegetables are her friends. She can talk more about this herself, but it’s important to understand where we are coming from.
For Tracey and I, it’s a little more simple. We miss growing our own food. Before we moved from Richmond to Surrey in 2011, we had a great spot to grow our own vegetables…a huge patio that had 8+ hours of sun in the summer. We grew heirloom tomatoes, salad greens, radishes and herbs. Our new place is not as well situated and the amount of sunlight dropped to about 4 hours. We still have plenty of herbs, but that’s about it.
Lena had been on a list for a community garden plot for a number of years. She specifically requested the garden where we are because of its proximity to where she lives AND that it was a dog friendly site so she could bring her Frenchie Whally. When a plot became available this spring she asked me (or did I pester her) to share it.
We started last Friday and it was a lot of fun AND a lot of work. The plot is about 200 square feet, but after about two and a half hours it looked like this.
Two of these bins filled with weeds and we were done for the evening.
Some positive aspects of the plot
- a six foot tall bay tree stands in the middle of the plot. We will NEVER be out of bay leaves…EVER!
- it is larger than normal sized offering the chance to grow a variety of vegetables.
- it is close to where Lena lives so she can pop over when walking Whally and water.
- there is no shade, so the chance to grow some fabulous tomatoes certainly exists.
More to come as the summer goes on. Stay tuned.