I'm having a Blanche DuBois moment. My son's pre-school garden - a tiny space less than four metres square - is nearly ready to be planted up and it has been made possible, almost entirely, by the kindness of strangers (and the Internet - although that featured less prominently in A Streetcar Named Desire...)
Despite the fact we are all supposed to be on the verge of financial collapse and a post-apocalyptic Mad Max style world is just around the corner, I have been amazed by the generosity of so many people.
The sleepers for the raised bed have come from the Perfumed Garden. Simon, the landscaping side of the partnership, apparently spent a dissolute youth in this very village and having read about my travails on Landscape Juice, decided to make amends for former behaviour and donated enough wooden sleepers to make the main raised bed. Karma is a wonderful thing.
Today I took delivery of a package of delightful promise from Victoriana Nursery Gardens containing a wonderful range of seeds (particularly excited about the Cosmic coloured carrots) as well as some apple mint and a blueberry plant.
Stephen from Victoriana is turning into kind of springtime Santa as he's already helped Mrs Be with her school gardening club. He offered to come to our aid as well when I congratulated her on these fab freebies (just one of the many reasons to love the blogoshpere). Now I just need to make sure that the kids and I grow a harvest to be proud of so I can report back on the trial.
I've even received strawberry plants, seeds and a huge number of pots through Freecycle (surely one of the most useful grassroots organisations ever formed on the web) and a dump sack of spent mushroom compost from my local landscape supplier, Bannolds (although this may be part of their 'buy 20 sacks - get one free' promotion as my own garden does tend to swallow up the stuff at a frightening rate).
Sometimes it can seem a struggle creating a garden almost money, but it will be a better place for the fact so many have contributed to it. Plus, it's great to be able to tell the children about all those who have helped to make it possible.
Dominic Murphy wrote on the Guardian blog this week urging government initiatives and funding for school gardens but I think this misses the point. The joy of creating something from nothing is far closer to the true nature of gardening and a better lesson to learn.
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