Growing Our Own Food





Home Sweet Home

I was born a city-slicker, and I happened to get interested in vegetable gardening kind of late in life.  I had a neighbor (Mr. Price) who was an old-timer, had a little plot of dirt, lived in a little old house, and refused to let the sprawl of the city take over his home of about 50 years.  In fact, there were apartments and condos on either side of his property--lots of traffic and lots of concrete.  Before the city limits moved out past him, he described our neighborhood as once being “way out in the country”.  His garden was about the size of SPCC’s Almost Organic Garden, and he could make anything grow in it.  He wore faded overalls every day, and kept a red bandana in his back pocket.  His hands were big and strong.  His skin was leathery.  His facial features were hard with deep lines of expression, especially around his eyes.  But he seemed to always have a little sparkle in them.  You couldn’t meet him without noticing the tell-tale signs in his face of his having worked outdoors most of his life.  


Mean, Mean Machine

I’ll never forget his old antique, one-man plow.  No matter how hard I tried to hold on to it, that thing would jerk me all around his garden and the furrows I tried to make with it were as wavy as a winding road.  I was about age 40, and he was about my age now--70.  He had arms on him as big as my legs, and he could handle that plow like there was nothing to it.  He was a fine old fellow; a real gentleman and he seemed to enjoy watching me learn (the hard way) how to grow my own food.  He helped me get my townhouse association community garden started, and he didn’t let us fail at “turning good dirt into good food”, as he would say.   I could have learned much more under his guidance, had we had the time, but he died after my second year of community gardening, and I’ll forever be grateful to him for teaching me about growing good things to eat and giving me a glimpse into that part of his life where vegetable gardening was a necessity and not a hobby. 

I only had the benefit of his tutelage (and friendship) for about 2 years, but he taught me enough about it, that I became able to do it on my own.  There’s something quite gratifying about making a pretty garden, and I often think of Mr. Price whenever I step back and admire ours.  I sure do wish he had been around a couple of weeks ago--before our church rabbits snuck in past us.  He would have seen it coming, and would have steered me away from that trouble long before the rabbits gained access to our pole beans, if he had been there. 

The hard work of our garden subscriber families has surely paid off, too.  We’ve suffered an occasional setback, but barring any future disasters, we should soon be harvesting some good vegetables.   I know we’ll be so proud to supply vegetables not only to our own tables, but also to share our bounty with others--folks who don’t always have good food on their tables, and some who aren’t even able to eat regularly.  It strikes me as quite unusual that smack dab in the middle of one of Charlotte’s most hooty-tooty neighborhoods, South Park, our installation of a common ol’ vegetable garden doesn’t seem to offend any of our neighbors.  In fact, word has it that some of our neighbors are thrilled with it, and track our progress regularly with little evening walks down to our backyard to observe how well we’re doing. 



Digging Deeper Seed Planting

We can all be very proud of our accomplishments.  Our fellowship, alone, has made the entire project worthwhile to me, and I look forward to the continuing rewards that are sure to come.  I hope everyone has had fun with this project.  I sure have, and I’ve learned even more garden tricks since we began.  Just think…it all started back in January, when our kids agreed to plant seeds and to take them home to keep warm and nurture until we could transplant them in the spring.  Now, with a productive garden, a spruced up the garden shed, some hard labor and lots of sunshine, we now have a full-fledged agricultural marvel right in our own back yard.  I think Mr. Price would approve.