I chat with the guards, who are my friends for so many years now as I've been walking and biking and driving to this place for camps and classes and book fairs. I swing past the main building. I hear the blue gravel crunch as I leave the main road and swirl around the lake, herrons and geese and snapping turtles possibly watching me, sweet gum balls and tennis balls mingling on the road's edge. And then I come upon it, an oasis, a summer garden usually abandoned at this time of year, now productive with lettuces and cilantro and mixed cooking greens, and completely reliant on harvested rain after the recent installation of four rain barrels, thanks to the tireless support of my friend Bob, who responds to any of my emails for help with, "Sure. Where and when?" 
Most recently, three of my best friends helped me thin and transplant (a tedious job made much easier by conversation and somehow a collective agreement to spend a night this June at a monastery with Trappist monks). These unassuming women also happen to be major players in metro-Atlanta sustainability:* Judy Knight, marketing director for the Southface Energy Institute;
* Robin Montri, writer for various publications including one in what is soon to be the newest city in the United States (Peachtree Corners), which will take the title that Dunwoody has been holding for over two years now (click her name above to read my fave article of hers yet);
* Rebecca Barria, chairperson of Dunwoody's first community garden who has done an outstanding job of advocating for the garden's location stability in the new master plan (which will be voted on tomorrow, and includes the recommendation for the garden to not just stay where it is but to expand).
Joe Hirsch, producer of Youth Radio Atlanta (which "promotes young people's intellectual, creative, and professional growth through education and access to media"--find out more here), and an outspoken citizen activist locally, waters on Tuesdays. Marilyn, who helped at the new Decatur urban farm with Tomas and me one Saturday, waters on Friday. And popular FoodShed Planet celebrity, Richard of the Worms, waters on Sundays.
No water is needed today, however. It rained and raged all night, and while I tossed and turned, the lightning illuminating my room, the thunder rocking the walls, I thought of those rain barrels filling and nitrogen from the air being converted into a form the plants can use, and the harvest we'll have in a few weeks, when I'll email all the hands and hearts that have helped and ask them to come again. And I'll surely get back replies that say, "Sure. Where and when?"
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1 comments:
Pattie, my goal is to integrate harvested rain into my gravity feed automated watering system for the garden. I figure that I can harvest about 60 gallons from a one inch rain from the roof of my house. The barrels are free but I will have to replace my gutters which need replacing anyway and come up with a way to keep tree debris out of the system. All are challenges but not impossible solutions.
I'm a little envious that you have lettuce almost ready to use as we here in Nebraska just had our late March wet sloppy snow of four inches. I count it as a blessing because it contains lots of nitrogen for the spring boost of the beginning of the growing season and it soaks into the soil as opposed to run off from a rain. We will be into gardening soon enough as Spring is officially here even if it doesn't look like it yet.
Have a great Atlanta gardening day. Keep up the good work with the public gardens.
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