The Plot Thickens

One of the things I like best about the community gardens is the way people recycle. This photo represents an item we examined yesterday, and ultimately rejected:  a miniature Eiffel Tower inspired trellis.  Our heirloom tomato plant has outgrown the largest tomato cage we could find, and I thought this abandoned work of art could give it some support, while adding a bit of continental flair to our plot.

In the end, its horizontal footprint was too big—about 4’, which would prevent us getting in between planter boxes.  I was sad to let it go, but I can assure you, this treasure will be put to use in someone else’s plot.  Nothing in the gardens ever goes to waste.

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We did walk out with one dumpster save yesterday; a plastic bench just big enough for two, with a removable seat, perfect for hiding miscellaneous garden supplies.  Someone had left the bench beside the Eiffel sculpture. After dumping off a bucket of weeds, I’d stopped to examine it.  A Buick pulled up and idled, and a man in his 80s opened the door and leaned out, grinning.

“That’s a good bench. A real good bench. It was mine.”

“You don’t want it anymore?”

“Nah, nah.  You take it.”

I’d been on the fence until then—I’m a wood and metal furniture gal, not the biggest fan of plastic—but how could I turn down such a generous offer?  I plunked the bench into a wheelbarrow, lugged it back to our plot, hosed it down, and placed it in the shady corner where we can’t get anything to grow.  The space underneath the seat is now hiding our Carnation Non-Dairy Dry Creamer bucket full of seed packets, our sawed off soda containers, our strawberry baskets, and some rope and twine; the hideous detritus of the serious urban gardener, now neatly tucked away beneath our butts.  I’m much happier.

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Reusing and recycling is everywhere in our community garden center.  Our neighbor told us that someone donated a suite of gardening tools to her by leaving them outside her fence for weeks on end. Our other neighbor offered us some giant pieces of scrap wood she’d found that we couldn’t use or store, and was genuinely befuddled when we turned her offer down (“You can use it someday, for something… It’s called ‘recycling,’ you know!”)  When we loaned our saw to an elderly, Latino stroke survivor in a cowboy hat, he gave us about a dozen pieces of strong, slatted wood as a thank you.  They now take up residence in our little condo storage unit until we can decide how to make use of them.

Everywhere you look in the gardens, there are reused materials: vintage metal clam shell chairs, covered in patches of rust; re-purposed wood and wire; everyday kitchen plastic, turned into plant protectors instead of landing in the landfill.  Half of our fence is made with free scrap wood from Home Depot, the other half, an abandoned pallet we found outside of Target and took apart by hand.

Urban community gardens are cool because they’re a place where nothing goes to waste. You see a lot of items passing through multiple sets of hands, but very few people (except for our indignant neighbor, who has a leaning Port-a-Potty in her jungle plot) are actual hoarders.  Everything gets applied or donated back to the pavement next to the green waste dumpster.

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All this talk of re-using leads me to a movie recommendation:  the documentary Waste Land, by Lucy Walker.  Waste Land is the story of Brazilian-born artist Vik Muniz, who travels to the world’s largest landfill near Rio to create an art project with its catadores (“trash pickers”), who make a living pulling and selling recyclable items from the dump.  It’s a beautiful film, a moving testament to the power of art to lift people out of their lives for an instant or a lifetime, and it deserves your support.  So check it out.