Saturday morning was our first gig at the Leavitt's Community Garden in our neighborhood. The garden began as a resource to help alleviate the financial stresses of neighborhood residents. The Leavitt family who owns the big plots of land next to and in front of our apartment building donated some land to grow the garden. It has all the typical vegetables in a vegetable garden, plus some herbs and flowers. When they were asking for volunteers I volunteered since I've always wanted a garden (which is difficult to do in an apartment, although my sunflowers will be blooming any day now!) and enjoy being outside. Plus, (and no, he doesn't know this, but if he'd read my blog he would--heh, heh) I wanted Russ to spend a fraction of his time doing something outside, particularly physical labor, and performing some service for people outside our immediate family.
From the beginning, I've received the emails for the volunteers, including the one with all the assignments. I couldn't find our name on the chart and assumed they must have overlooked our great desire to participate. That was fine because of this and that and the other--maybe I was even kind of looking for an "out." Then last Saturday our home teacher asked Russ if we could weed the first two rows of tomatoes ("It should only take 30 minutes," Ryan said) since his family would be out of town for the week and Russ and I were assigned to the same two rows. Boy do we feel like jerks! Maybe I should learn to pay more attention to detail....
We decided to work together (Russ's idea, which I'm very happy for :). We weren't sure what the weeds would look like (they certainly didn't look like the ones we dug up in Texas), but determined they must be the plants that didn't have tomatoes growing on them. Luckily, another couple that volunteered dropped by and confirmed we were pulling up the right plants. It took an hour because we were so thorough. After about 30 minutes we began wondering if everyone else was so thorough. We were hot, sore, and covered in dirt (which I particularly like, although Russ remains true to his inner self--he hates physical labor and the heat). We also decided we need to pull our weight and have discussed this with our co-family. We're taking a row for ourselves (and, no, the other gardeners apparently don't spend as much time weeding the community garden as they do their own personal gardens).
It is fun to be a part of "something" and to now be committed to participate. Hopefully, we'll learn a lot for that "someday" when we have our own lawn and maybe a little flower garden and a small vegetable garden. Of course, this experience may also help us decide to just buy our veggies at the supermarket.
From the beginning, I've received the emails for the volunteers, including the one with all the assignments. I couldn't find our name on the chart and assumed they must have overlooked our great desire to participate. That was fine because of this and that and the other--maybe I was even kind of looking for an "out." Then last Saturday our home teacher asked Russ if we could weed the first two rows of tomatoes ("It should only take 30 minutes," Ryan said) since his family would be out of town for the week and Russ and I were assigned to the same two rows. Boy do we feel like jerks! Maybe I should learn to pay more attention to detail....
We decided to work together (Russ's idea, which I'm very happy for :). We weren't sure what the weeds would look like (they certainly didn't look like the ones we dug up in Texas), but determined they must be the plants that didn't have tomatoes growing on them. Luckily, another couple that volunteered dropped by and confirmed we were pulling up the right plants. It took an hour because we were so thorough. After about 30 minutes we began wondering if everyone else was so thorough. We were hot, sore, and covered in dirt (which I particularly like, although Russ remains true to his inner self--he hates physical labor and the heat). We also decided we need to pull our weight and have discussed this with our co-family. We're taking a row for ourselves (and, no, the other gardeners apparently don't spend as much time weeding the community garden as they do their own personal gardens).
It is fun to be a part of "something" and to now be committed to participate. Hopefully, we'll learn a lot for that "someday" when we have our own lawn and maybe a little flower garden and a small vegetable garden. Of course, this experience may also help us decide to just buy our veggies at the supermarket.
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