Gardening Still Another Year

With aging comes changing.  That even rhymes!

My spouse and I (my spouse doing about 90% of the work) have community gardened in Binghamton, New York since the late 1980's except for a couple of years when there was no community garden.

As certain musicians said once "it's been a long, strange trip." 

We've tried some gardening on our small back yard, but it's too shady.  Our front yard - well, it's my flower garden and more sunny.  But we've only had limited success, partially thanks to groundhogs and the fact that our front yard isn't fenced.   So we've been community gardening all this time.

We started out with two inground plots.  Several years ago, he downsized to one plot. Then I qualified for a raised bed, in which we grow tomatoes, peppers, and some other crops.  Last year, deer did a number on our raised bed (more than the inground, for some reason we don't know.)  It was so discouraging, and my spouse came close to quitting.

Last year we faced a decision, with physical issues both of us have:  stop gardening, or go all raised beds.

The decision was made, and our application was accepted just yesterday.  This year we will have one inground plot AND two raised beds.

Our current community garden was taken over in 2020 by an organization called VINES (Volunteers Improving Neighborhood Environments).   

Their mission is worthwhile.  The organization itself, I have nothing but the utmost respect for.  Without them, we might not have a community garden at all.

VINES has put in more raised beds and they try to reserve them for those with physical disabilities or limitations that need them.  It's a bit humbling to realize that my spouse now can't do all the things he did 40 years ago.  The two raised beds will help, but we are behind on preparing for the season, because we didn't know if we would get the raised beds and ingrown plot spouse wanted.

We've already ordered onion plants, one of the main crops we grow (we buy plants from a grower in Texas, Dixondale Farms, we've done business with for years.  They specialize in onions and do them well.  Their customer service is first rate.  Onions grow well for us.

For seeds, we are using a combination of locally bought seeds and some seeds we may mail order. We haven't bought any, though, and now that we know we are going to have the plots this year, we have to get our seed act together.

Incidentally, if you garden, you may ask your local library if they have a seed "library". And no, you don't have to return the seeds at the end of three weeks.   Our local library offers this service (limit of six packets per person).  Seeds are getting so expensive.

So, another year, another garden.  We hope to do this as long as we can.

We aren't giving up yet.