the patio garden that is about to NOT be a patio garden :(

cucumber seedling

pepper plants

pepper plant in foreground... irises in back were transplanted from our old house in Woodstock

Big Boy, tomaters, cucumbers and peppers

So here's the thing about living in a condo. 

One, you gotta get pretty creative if you want to grow stuff. And I have done that. The community, as I have mentioned before, provides a community growing area but it gets terrible sunlight. So this year I planned a very extensive Spring/Summer garden to place on my patio. To be exact I have about thirty plants. Eight pepper, eight tomato and eight - twelve pickling cucumber, some herbs and marigolds to keep them all company. I have scrimped and saved for good potting soil and to start with mostly plants although all my cucumber plants are from seed because I could not find a pickling variety as a plant. Mostly I just wanted a successful garden growing a few things, but many of them, with the intention of learning more about food preservation this year. This is my pride and joy, my baby. 

So imagine my surprise and heartbreak when the president of the HOA showed up at my door to inform me that "you have too many plants" and they will have to be moved down to the community garden or destroyed. Oh and that area leading up to your front door? That is considered "common area" and under the jurisdiction of the HOA. And any "changes" to this area must receive pre-approval from the HOA. These changes include putting plants, yes, plants out. Oh and they especially do not like the fact that they are "food plants". I was told that the wire cages I placed over the plants (though a bit early, but I do not have any other place to put them) looked "trashy". It was the unanimous consensus of the Board that they looked "trashy" and needed to be moved or destroyed.

The last few days I have been trying to be sweet and kind to the person I am working with, and respectful, as I didn't realize that these were "the rules". I am most confronted with the fact that I have very little freedom here to do the very thing I look forward to and love, something so central to our values and I think widely regarded by gardeners and non-gardeners alike as a skill that every human being ought to know - the ability to grow one's own food. It is a learning opportunity for my kids. It is a life enriching activity. It is an investment not just financially but emotionally and spiritually. To think that all that I regard in high value is "trash" to another person, and that person has authority over me in some way, in the place where I live, well, this is very hard for me to digest. But I am trying to not be like everyone else and give them hell... though I want to, I am trying to do right.

So tomorrow, I am moving my plants down to the community garden area. I am going to plop them down in the sunniest spot I can find. I am going to leave my pepper plants on the front patio and propose that since they do not require the "trashy" wire cages that they stay so that I can monitor them, along with my herbs. If they refuse that proposal, I will try putting them on my southeast facing back patio, and use mirrors behind them to try to give them more light... not sure if that will work. Otherwise they all will be down there. The guy I've been talking to said I could leave them in their containers for now but not past fall. Which is not an issue really, since the community garden gets more light come fall than my front patio. I will transplant the cucumber seedlings into a portion of a plot assigned to me and pray that they grow. All of my tomatoes will have to go down there for sure. 

I am pretty much heartbroken. 

I am thankful for the condo. But I am very anxious to be in a house again with a big yard where I can grow whatever I darn well please. 

:(

PS: good news on the composting front... my friend Sarah of Kula Project gave me a patio composter!!! I am so thrilled! It is sitting on my back porch :)