Sunday, May 27, 2007

Gardening weekend

I'm happy to report that all the items I put on the sidewalk for Neighbors Day were eventually carted off to other people's gardens. Last weekend I got the vegetables and herb bed planted, and this one is dedicated to getting the flowers tucked into their beds as well. The end is in sight! I'm down to half a flat of things left to plant tomorrow.

Here's the herb and lettuce bed in the middle of the vegetable garden after one week of growth:

As I worked in the front yard today, I finally had a chance to talk to one of my neighbors. She told me that her family will have to move out of their house. They've been renting for 16 years. Their landlord is going to tear down the house and sell the property, which includes an empty lot on the other side of the neighbor's house. Two houses will be squeezed onto the properties.

Summit Lake was once Akron's outdoor pleasure destination. The homes that were built alongside it were summer cottages on small plots of land. Today's home buyers don't want cozy cottages. So what we get are large houses with very little in the way of yard and garden space.

My neighbors have turned the empty lot into a full garden. They are originally from rural West Virginia, and have had lots of bad luck in their lives. Their country skills have been useful in providing food for the family. I'll be very sad to see them go.

1 comment:

microdot said...

Too bad about your neighbors luck and the loss of the space and a garden! We just fought an attempt to put up housing here. All communes in France are getting funding to provide low income housing and lot's of people want to make money off the deal by rezoning and selling agricultural land. There's a few people here who would like to do that and a few locations where it would have low impact...this is not one of them, yet it looked like this is where they wanted to plunk down a new development....
Neighbors got together wrote letters, used influence, researched clauses in property deeds and I think we killed the idea!
I wish I could work in my garden...nonstop rain, high wind, storms, actuaslly chilly here after weeks of summer like weather!
I have a large chunk unplanted and a chunk covered with weeds that I have to let dry out before I can weed.
Corn is coming up, though. Three long rows of potatoes, rows of tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, courgettees and potimarrons. The raspberries are ahead of schedule and it looks to be the biggest haul yet!
Strawberries everyday...I have to get them before the snails!