Just as your home and family centers around the kitchen, a community often centers around a garden.  This year, residents established a community garden.  Its bounty fed the members who worked in it, but also neighbors who couldn’t work but who gladly shared the harvest.

Park management found the perfect spot at the far end of the interior meadow on the western half of the park property.  This location provided adequate sun, access to water, and good rich earth cultivated by decades of river deposit.  Members of the Delta Bay Community Garden group chose to plant in beds.  The park provided lumber for the builds; and heavy labor and equipment to level the spots selected.

The Garden started with one large bed, 6 x 12, built by one of the park employees.  Later sites would be halved in depth for easier access.  The season ended with a total of three beds.  Vegetables and herbs secured in nearby shops or started from seeds provided ample yield.  The lettuce and shard crops wildly exceeded expectations.  At several potluck gatherings here at the park, members prepared and served dishes completely comprised of garden vegetables, herbs, and tomatoes.  Scrumptious!

The residents who started and worked the Garden hope to recruit others who live at the park to help revamp and increase the planting area.  Plans for the 2019 growing season include devising a method of more widely sharing the bountiful harvest.  Evening walks for “garden time” provided an unexpected benefit:  Community, something many of those who live at Park Delta Bay yearn to enjoy and will again experience as the rainy season ends and planting begins.

The Delta Bay Community Garden will continue to flourish.  What’s growing where you live?