I've got dirt!

I'm so excited.  Today I was assigned a plot in the community garden at Victoria Manalo Draves Park!

This is a park about 1/2 a block away from us.  We take Pi there every day to play.  There had been no changes to the bulletin boards for a couple of years (I think the last postings were from early 2011), but I always would check to find out where to sign up for the waiting list or who to contact to find out how long the list was.

Most of the community gardens in San Francisco have wait lists that are several YEARS!  So when there was finally some updated contact information on the bulletin board in January, I practically ran home to email.

When I got an email saying there were 6 plots opening up (and there were only 5 people on the email list), I was practically jumping for joy.

We had our first garden meeting this morning.  It was a good chance to meet some new people with common interests in the neighborhood.

Here is my plot.  It's pretty shady, but I have
a lemon tree!  

I am a bit under the weather and I had a horrendous amount of homework to finish today, but I allowed myself 2 hours at the garden including the meeting.  I did some weeding (okay, a LOT of weeding).  There were a couple of kale plants in that jungle and I even ended up pulling a few tiny carrots out of the ground.

Here I am with Pi and my plot
(only a bit more clover to pull out!)

So at the moment I'm not entirely sure what I'll be planting. I have to do some research, I think this garden has even more shade than my last garden.  I know that greens will do well, so kale and chard are a must (and I eat a lot of both!).

I'm going to try out using www.smartgardener.com to plan my garden.  I haven't reintroduced any nightshades to my diet, so a lot of things I normally grow are out (peppers, eggplant, etc.) plus we don't have much of a hot growing season here.  It's basically cool aside from a few weeks in July and August here.  I have to say, based upon the recommended plants, I'll be growing greens and lettuce.  Lots of greens and lettuce.

I just found some add ons to Smart Gardener that I am going to try out.  They are the Smart Squares and Smart Shade.  My garden is only about 8x3 and is in the shade most of the time.  I think these would be worthwhile add ons to try out.

I'll admit though, my excitement isn't because I think I'm going to have loads of veggies or fruits.  It's more because it's a ray of sunshine and nature in this grungy place. It felt awesome to be outside, in the sunshine and getting dirty (actual dirt not all the other stuff that makes this city dirty).  It was nice to be with people who feel the same way.  I've never really had a substantial harvest of anything in all the years of gardening, but I love to do it.

And Pi is going to love basking in the garden while I work.  It's fenced in and there is plenty of room on the opposite side of the garden that gets sun for her to enjoy.