WHAT IS A COMMUNITY GARDEN (AND WILL THEY LET US JOIN?)
PRELUDE: the sunflower, SUMMER 2020
On a walk one day with JJ, he quietly asked if he could tell me something that had been on his mind. “Of course,” I replied, imagining the endless number of things that could be on his mind mid-summer 2020. “Mom,” he started heavily, “I don’t think our sunflowers are going to make it.” I held in a sigh of agreement, and assured him that we’d just keep on trying.
As the summer wore on, social media displayed the bounties of friends’ gardens along with the cucumbers and tomatoes they’d harvested. With each post I’d glance to our now mostly empty garden beds with another sigh. And yet, we had one. One sunflower managed to survive! The day it finally opened we were all on watch as though we were waiting for a baby to be born. Then at last…it bloomed!!
Our one little sunflower gave us the hope we needed going into another growing season, but this time we were going to bring in some help. And that brings us to the Taylor Street Farm Community Garden.

“To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.” – Audrey Hepburn


What is a community garden?
Taylor Street Farm differs from your average public community garden in its education-focused mission. Their core mission is to educate the community on where food comes from and how it’s grown. Seemed simple enough, and exactly the type of place that might be able to help us figure out just what we we’ve doing wrong.
At our scheduled pick up time we met Sally who taught us about the garden’s history and generously offered to share recommended gardening books for the kids (she’s a school librarian). One thing I loved about Taylor Street from the start is that families were welcome to volunteer together, something I’ve struggled to find in the past. If I can pass the Zoom class, I hope that we’ll be allowed to help on site!
But first, I need to keep our new fall veggies alive until day 1 of class…
