Before I moved to California, I gave some thought to the whole how-am-I-going-to-garden concept. I had visions of a balcony garden, complete with herbs and maybe a flower or two, and some peppers ripening in the golden sunshine. I imagined myself sitting out on the balcony, sipping a glass of wine, and marveling at a rabbit-free existence. (Although I wouldn’t put it past an urban bunny to scale an apartment building. It’s hard out there for a city rabbit.)
I did a search on community garden plots in the area, and my eyes popped out of my head a bit when I read that San Francisco’s very active community garden program has an up-to-five-year waiting list for plots in the city. And that’s in a city where the fog situation makes tomato-growing a near impossibility in some spots.
But no matter, I thought. I was moving to Oakland. Oakland, where people were more likely to have land, because fewer people want to live there, and where there was no way I’d have any trouble getting a spot in a community garden. Right? (Cut me a break, people of California…while I was thinking all these misguided thoughts, I was still living in Iowa.)
In fact, once I signed the lease on my apartment, I felt certain I could just slide right into an open plot. No problem whatsoever. The good people of Oakland’s community gardens? They’d be thrilled to have me.
Then I discovered…The Rules.
Plants in by a certain date (I’d missed it already). Garden plot cleaned up or replanted with groundcover or winter crops by no later than November 1. Disobey and lose your plot.
Also? Oakland? Reported to have a waiting list in the community plot closest to my apartment.
I stopped investigating the options at that point and gave up the idea of gardening over the summer, figuring that I would just put it aside until the seasons turned. And now they have, and now?
The investigation into Inadvertent Gardening 2009 has officially opened.
on Nov 13th, 2008 at 11:16 am
You and your apartment-scaling urban bunnies crack me up! Good luck with the investigation!
on Nov 13th, 2008 at 11:31 am
Jeez, I have a place where I have to live within that tight a structure. I call it “work” and they pay me to be there.
on Nov 13th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
Nicole, they are an endangered species, those urban bunnies.
Don, I have to agree with you…I was a little dismayed by the rules…
on Nov 13th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
I can’t imagine you not gardening. What are winter crops in Oakland?
on Nov 13th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
Ree, that’s a good question, and one I haven’t (not having a place to plant said crops) investigated. But I’m guessing I could pretty easily grow some greens and probably broccoli, radishes, etc. — the stuff most of the rest of the country can grow in fall and spring. Allegedly we get a bit of frost here, but no hard freeze, so game on, as far as I’m concerned. But currently, I’m sans dirt.
on Nov 13th, 2008 at 6:42 pm
Unthinkable that you would go through two summers in Oakland without a garden. Shall we start a campaign??? The Inadvertent Gardener needs a garden!
on Nov 13th, 2008 at 11:13 pm
Lydia, I know…I kind of think it’s unthinkable, too. It’s going to have to happen…just am not sure how yet.
on Nov 15th, 2008 at 10:04 am
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on Nov 17th, 2008 at 8:29 pm
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