Community Gardening With Tainted Plot: Becoming one of the Flower-People

by Natasha Henderson, Montreal

Community Garden. Plot. Allotment. A piece of earth, a bit of land. One can tend plants, care for the soil and those plants, and?áharvest the spoils as they happen. For several years IÔÇÖve known people who have had these little bits of land to grow vegetables, fruits and herbs. Beets, peppers, lettuce, tomatoes (oh so many tomatoes) zucchini, squash, beans, Brussels sprouts, carrots, garlic, chives, basilÔǪ asperagus, raspberries, eggplant, peas. All types and varieties. So when I?áwas offered the chance to get in on one of these plots earlier this summer, I jumped right on board.

I live in the heart of Montreal. My home is more than adequate in most regardsÔǪ except that?áI have no outdoor space. I donÔÇÖt have even a balcony. I?áhave a cat, and he loves to eat plants, so?áhome gardening was never?áreally an option for me. I did try a basil plant once, but?áit didnÔÇÖt last long between the efforts of the cat and myself.

To gain entrance?áinto the Community Garden right away, rather than go through the processes of a waiting-list, I took on a contaminated plot.

I will make a long story short as to WHY this plot (and a few others) had been contaminated.?áThe neighbouring parking-lot for a large building had hired snow-removal to clear snow off their parking lot. Unfortunately, they managed to push all the oily, salted, gritty, chemical-laden parking-lot-snow right onto the Community Gardens. The tainted snow created tainted earth. The City came to test this earth, and lo and behold found it too toxic to allow edibles to grow in it. The land was not fit for human consumption.

The city did allow, however, that people could grow flowers in this land. ThatÔÇÖs when, where, why and how I got my plot. I went about buying my three packets of seeds pronto.

The good thing about this experience (besides getting my hands nice and dirty again; I come from a smaller town, originally, and have always had a bit of land to call my own) was in seeing the reactions of my fellow gardeners to the flower-plots.

We Flower-People were treated a little differently. The rules of the garden were slackened for us if our flowers were to drape over into the pathways in between the plots, no one put up any signs requesting that we tidy our garden. If the flowers were to go to seed before being picked, no-one was there to tsk-tsk and shake their fingers at us, to gossip about us behind our backs.

I would chat with people in the garden, and when they realised I was one of the Flower-People, they would break into a smile, and remark on how happier those plots of flowers made the place feel. Several months had gone by with the land laying covered in straw, nothing was allowed to grow in it. There were bitter feelings and anger surrounding this loss of about a quarter to a third of this precious garden, due to?áa distasteful combination of pollution and negligence.

Once the jardins du fleurs were established, people stopped looking away, and started to look. It felt very good to have been a part of this. I do look forward to having a real vegetable garden next year, though!