Posts under ‘Other People's Gardens’

It occurred to me the other day that I had not, in fact, checked back in on the story of the girls in Clayton, Calif., who were trying to get the city council to allow them to continue selling surplus veggies from their home garden.
Turns out the girls won their fight! The San Jose Mercury [...]

On my fifth day in the Bay Area, I was scheduled to attend a communications workshop downtown. I rode BART across the Bay, found my way to the building, and signed in, noting that one of the other names on the sign-in sheet was Carina Wong, Executive Director of the Chez Panisse Foundation.
It was only [...]

I’m following a story happening in Clayton, a small town in the East Bay here in California: Two sisters (one 11, one 3) have been selling the excess vegetables from their family’s prodigious produce plot in their neighborhood, but a neighbor complained and the city shut them down, leading to a fight that has turned [...]

Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Chase Ledebur, my cousin Kären’s son. Chase has been gardening this summer for the first time at home, and I wanted you to hear from this wonderful and talented 12-year-old in his very own words.

Hi, I’m Chase - welcome to my garden. This is the [...]

On my way out to Oakland from Iowa, I made a stop in Grand Junction, Colorado, at my cousin’s house. She and her son Chase had planted their first vegetable garden in a beautiful raised bed off one side of the house. Tomatoes, squash, basil, oregano – the garden was still filled with seedlings when [...]

Bed 10A. That’s the location, on the official Victory Garden Map, of the tomato plants. During my first morning as a volunteer, I kept wandering over there, checking out the tiny yellow blossoms, eyeing the green tomatoes weighing down the branches, and admiring the basil and Italian parsley companion-planted throughout the bed.
Then I noticed suckers [...]

I very nearly left the house without a jacket on Sunday morning.
Two hours into my first stint as a docent in the Victory Garden, I was simultaneously applauding my decision to actually grab my favorite grey hoodie and kicking myself for not grabbing my fleece jacket to go over it.
“I’m freezing,” I muttered to Lauren, [...]

When I looked for apartments near my work in Oakland, I wasn’t sure what I’d find. I knew I had some very simple, non-negotiable criteria: I wanted to be able to walk to and from work. I wanted a decent kitchen. I wanted something safe, and I wanted to try to avoid paying my entire [...]

One of the things that has been most strange to me about the Flood of 2008 coverage is that I actually recognize the landmarks. In the past, most of my flood experience has been virtual – I’ve watched the news and sympathized, even sent money for relief, but never actually recognized the locations involved. It’s [...]

Back in the 1980s, when the farm crisis was breaking America’s heartland, my Uncle Charlie got involved. He was an economics professor at Iowa State University, and he focused on Extension and public policy issues. He, along with my Dad and their four other siblings, grew up on a small dairy farm in Upstate New [...]