Oh, the joy of gardening. This week I was all over manure and straw from head to toe, and I was glorying in all of the muck. This is because I now have a little bit of land to play on, and I’m so grateful!
For many years, I’ve been looking for land that is sunnier and larger than my own. We live in a townhouse, which means that our yard space is somewhat limited. We also have a lovely Japanese maple in the yard. While lovely, the tree brings an unfortunate amount of shade to the garden.
Enter the Sharing Backyards web site. This site is terribly simple, and it’s built around a basic concept: there are people who want to garden but have no space, and there are people with gardens who don’t want to use them. The site links gardeners and gardens in informal yard sharing arrangements.
For years I’ve looked at this site every spring, and sometimes during the rest of the year as well. I’ve replied to people about their yards, with no response. I had a potential yard share a couple of years ago, but for various reasons it wasn’t going to work.
This year, I came back from vacation to discover a new posting on the yard share site. It’s a garden right up the street from my house, a mere 10 minute walk away. It has full sun all day, and it has loads of land to play on. I was hooked. I’m a pretty easy sell, apparently.
After a few meetings to lay out the ground rules of our yard share, I got started on the soil-building early this week. There’s still a lot of work to do, and the garden will be a work in progress for several years, but it’s amazing to have a sunny space where I can grow food. I’m eager to see what will happen now that the challenge of partial shade is one that I no longer need to contend with!
I’m setting up the garden beds. This summer, we’ll be sharing the watering duties and the produce. It’s a wonderful match, and we’re even talking bees in the future.
Do you have yard sharing programs in your area? How do they work?
Image Credit: sparkules