Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: shared garden space

[Craig Ragland (craigragland]

Gardening - what a wonderful thing, as long as other people do (most) of it.

Songaia has a large amount of space (maybe an acre total) dedicated to
gardens and orchards - the vast majority is community spaces, but
there are also private family plots.. One large area was exclusively
vegetable, but flowers have been added to make the garden more
attractive to all.

We recently put in rock sand paths with a central solar-powered
fountain - to make it more attractive and inviting for those of us
that are not too attracted by plants, soil, and work. I am not a
gardener, but I am recruit-able by invitation to join in work parties.
Last year, I did some harvesting, helped put the garden to bed for the
winter, and moved a whole lot of rock sand. I did help use a rented
bulldozer/back-hoe a few months ago to move one of the compost piles
that was infected by Bind Weed - nasty stuff that.

More importantly, the rock sand paths make our garden accessible for
our beloved neighbor, Fred Lanphear, who was our most active gardener
- now he is wheel-chair bound (ALS is a VERY bad thing) - and his
gardening work is limited to design, guidance and active planning
work. He also joyfully supervises, especially when his grandchildren
and two sons are working around her on their many visits. Building a
gazebo is currently on our Decision Board and will almost certainly
pass. We want it built while Fred is still able to enjoy it. The
passion toward gardening that many of my neighbors display year after
year is part of his legacy.

All this is managed by the Biogaians (Songaia makes up some fun names
for our "committees," e.g., I'm one of the Fabulous Food Folk). Since
one of our readers, Doug Larsen, is a Biogaian, I'll invite him to
share more.

FYI: Some of this stuff is documented (or will be in future
installments) in Fred's upcoming book:

Songaia Cohousing Community, an Unfolding Dream.

Fred's book is one of three Cohousing books which Coho/US is now
publishing online on the Cohousing website, right here:

http://www.cohousing.org/cohobooks

If you've not seen these books before, its because you don't read
Cohousing Now! - and because we've not hooked the books into the
website navigation yet, which is in the works.

Craig Ragland
Songaia resident and Fred's friend/admirer since 1992
and, of course...

Executive Director
Cohousing Association of the United States (Coho/US)
425-487-3550
http://www.cohousing.org
craig [at] cohousing.org

Please consider attending the National Cohousing Conference. Click here:
http://www.cohousing.org/conference

, the Coho/US stuff which you see all the time in my quest to grow the movement.

On Wed, Apr 15, 2009 at 1:13 PM, Karen Scheer <karen [at] monkeyhouse.org> 
wrote:
>
> I echo this request.  I would love to hear from other communities about
> what has worked and not worked in other communities' shared gardens.
>