Not in my backyard

Community gardens at Bill Duncan Park

The other day I was bragging to a friend in Columbus about how fortunate we are in Yellow Springs to have so many choices for locally produced food. Depending on how you look at it, we have 3 farmers markets in the summer and one in the winter, 3 CSAs nearby, lots of fresh backyard eggs and a growing interest in community garden plots. His response was “Do you have a league?”

I started to tell him about the Perry League but he cut me off with “No, I’m talking about competitive gardening.” I’m thinking surely you have to be kidding, but for the next 15 minutes he was non-stop with some secrets for what it takes to have the best community garden plot.

He mentioned the obvious things like planting heirloom seeds, being weed-free, and labeling plants with both the common and the Latin names. Then he asked if people placed tomato stakes exactly at the same height, in perfectly straight lines and precisely 19 inches apart. And another feature is to make sure that if your tomatoes are tied they have the same knot type that is aligned with the others. Orientation is also a feature - the garden should run true north and south and when you divide the length of your garden by the width, the ratio should be 1.618033 – ideally, the most aesthetically pleasing plot size.

After I finally got him stopped, I told him we were just interested in having healthy, fresh food on the table. The anticipation of home grown tomatoes and basil with a little olive oil and some fresh mozzarella – that’s what gardening is supposed to be about.

“Well if you’re not going to take it seriously, don’t even think about starting a competitive gardening league”.

You know, this could be another reason why I’m happy we live in Yellow Springs.

A. Reader