Growing gardeners while we tend our plants.
When I was in elementary school, lo so long ago, one of my favorite assignments was writing a recap like, My Weekend Story, or What I Did Last Summer. This feels like that, only with snapshots.
Last spring I posted a story here on Garden Rant about Beyers’ Bulldog Garden, a property in my neighborhood that’s been continuously gardened for generations that was transitioning into a community garden just a few doors down from my house. It’s hard to believe that it’s only been seven months since we began digging through weeds, establishing beds, and wrangling out of control berry vines. Seeing how much a willing group of volunteers can accomplish has been revelatory to this gardener who’s more accustomed to solitary tending.
The dedicated Beyers Bulldog Garden leadership team.
Beyers’ Bulldog Garden has approximately 30 members under the direction and governance of a leadership team made up of a dozen or so of us who are mostly making things up as we go along. Decisions ranging from what we should grow to where we should plant it are settled collectively. We don’t tend individual beds—the Garden is “ours” and everything is generously shared on a loosely defined but respected honor system.
Nearly 50 tomato plants produced abundantly in the Beyer’s Bulldog Garden.
In every way, our harvest has been abundant. We’ve enjoyed raspberries (!!), hardy greens, herbs, and zucchini—soooo much zucchini. Our tomato crop was extraordinary, including a glorious giant beefsteak variety that no serious Pacific Northwest gardener has any business growing in our notoriously mild climate.
These are just a few snapshots of weekly donations from the garden to our local food pantry.
From the beginning, one of our garden goals was to support our local food pantry with weekly deliveries of fresh produce. Just in the past month, Bulldog donated more than 56 pounds of tomatoes—and that’s in addition to all the gorgeous fruit we’ve hauled to our own kitchens.
We range in age from 7 to young adult to busy parents to gardeners with decades (*cough*cough*) of experience. A lively What’sApp channel keeps us up to date on what’s ripe for picking, weekly work party priorities, recipes, and the status of various grant applications.
As the season wound down everyone gathered for a Harvest Celebration dinner in Beyers Bulldog Garden.
In addition to everything coming out of the garden, we all agree that the harvest that we most treasure is the community that’s grown among us. A harvest celebration dinner in our garden was festive and delicious, an echo of long ago summer picnics once held in the garden when it was it was under the care of Bill, Sr. who must surely be smiling down on us even as he’s raising an eyebrow at our beefsteak tomato.
Other than those beds that are filled with sturdy greens, hardy root crops and numerous rows of garlic, summer plants have been cleaned away and composted. Cover crops are sown, and everything has been tucked in with a generous layer of mulch. We’re already dreaming about what we’ll grow next year, when the seasons roll over and everything begins again.
I love hearing about the progress of this wonderful community garden. Thank you! But I am confused regarding your comments about growing a beefsteak tomato in a mild climate. It seems to me that is just where a tomato would do quite well. Since the species is actually a perennial in tropical/sub-tropical regions, why wouldn’t a climate such as yours be conducive to growing tomatoes successfully? Thank you in advance for helping me learn something new.
Hi Astrid, Thank you for your kind words. Here in the Pacific Northwest our moderate summers often don’t generate enough heat to develop the sugars and fully ripen the flavor of a beefsteak tomato. So while we can (occasionally) grow them, it’s likely the tomato won’t taste as good as the same fruit grown in a region with hot summers. But like a good story, sometimes gardening is rooted in the willing suspension of disbelief — and my beefsteak was delicious.
Lorene,
Thank you for all of that information. It sounds like you have beautiful, Goldilocks summers there. I am so glad you had the delight of a delicious tomato in your not-too-hot and not-too-cold summer. I appreciate the explanation!
What a beautiful story of community – thank you for posting.