Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Politics and a Community Garden

Here in the town where I live, a committee is forming to create a community garden. I love the idea of having a "real" garden, instead of just the patio garden, so I went to the kick off meeting.

Amusing.

Even at such a simple event, there were hidden agendas and politics. The folks from the garden club went on and on about their own personal achievements -- nothing whatsoever to do with why they want a community garden. And, of course, they advertised the garden club. The retired teachers talked about the need for education and solving world hunger (people must learn to feed themselves, insisted one well-meaning altruist).

Then there was the long discussion about PR and Marketing the gardens to serve as some sort of example to the town.

Finally, wiser heads prevailed and we ended up back to the discussion of having a garden so people could grow their own stuff and do it as part of a small community of people with a similar interest. Whew! Because, that's all I'm looking for -- a place to enjoy growing stuff because I don't have my own land.

After the meeting, the very nice gentleman from the Landscape Trust chatted with me a bit and I was pleased to hear that he totally got where I was coming from and he agreed that the community garden really should be something geared towards those who don't have space.

I think it will be quite interesting to see how this progresses. It's very admirable that people are willing to volunteer to get this project going. At the same time, it's quite fascinating to try to figure out what's motivating these people to work on this project. I have a sneaking suspicion it's not because they want a garden.

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