Our Garden Was Born...

...on a warm spring day in 2006. We started with one of the greatest stress-busting activites -- removing sod by hand. We saw the huge earthworms wiggling underneath, and burying them back the best we could, were excited that this was a good sign.

As our garden is over our underground garage (lots of patio stone and cement), we soon ran out of areas with sod and were scratching our heads as to where our shared herb garden would go.

Enter the containers: donated wooden boxes (or wood we made into boxes) and slightly damaged green food boxes donated by FoodShare. And lots of compost, manure, and triple mix dragged into the courtyard on wagons and dollies.

But would this garden fly? Would people really come out and plant?

The beautiful mini-gardeners

The garden beds were all prepared, the containers and soil ready, and the seedlings sitting in trays. The weather was warming up nicely. Kids were playing in the courtyard playground. Some of the boys were playing "See if you can make me cry". Invited into the garden, the kids each grabbed a small container of herbs and a trowel. They spent hours mixing the soil, smelling each others herbs, planting, and watering, and would not concede completion when all the herbs were planted. They went home with dirty hands.

The next morning, fresh and (too) early they persisted, "Can we plant today?"