08/14/2026
This week I get the opportunity to garden-sit the Gearity Elementary school garden. This is the garden I spearheaded the restoration of and then handed it off to the amazing Paul Gustafson, retired science teacher.
This place has lots of memories.
The first year I came to volunteer, the garden was waste high, solid, with w**ds. Many of them Canadian thistle. I asked my husband at the time to watch my baby while I worked with staff to string an extension cord out of a pre-K class for me to w**d wack it into submission. Slowly it looked more like a garden, but the w**d seed bank was still super heavy.
Year 2 I broke my foot, so I would sit in the garden on a mat with my toddler eating dandelions while I was pulling w**ds for hours. I handed him off to friends to play on the playground when the opportunity arose. By then we had a small CSA with the PTA to help buy supplies for the garden.
Year 3 was Covid. The PTA said the garden wasn't needed that year, but I convinced them it was and we continued growing with a bigger CSA and functional irrigation.
Year 4 I was going through divorce, Covid was still finishing, and I began night school. Still the CSA kept funding the garden and covered a few of my hours of work too as I worked to make it a space that could be taken over by someone inspired by it. Paul was already volunteering.
Year 5 it became clear that Paul was the right man for the job and I stepped back in transition so that the garden would be supported by Paul the way that worked for him and the school.
Year 6 and year 7 I moved to being babysitter, random plant-dropper offer, seed collector and supplier, and whatever other odd job is needed to keep the garden growing. And, it looks amazing!
Whew! Quite a journey! When your starting a garden and it seems your working against the odds, just keep this little journey in mind. Hardships don't mean a lack of progress. Persistence is the most important ingredient in solidifying a change.
Oh. And that tree behind me? That's my fig tree I donated about year three, and it grows a huge fig crop every year.
