Being Social
Yesterday evening, the community garden hosted its largest potluck event. Fliers were distributed throughout the neighborhood, artists were asked to bring their artwork to display, and gardeners made fabulous dishes with their garden produce. I made a pasta salad with more veggies than pasta, and a batch of coleslaw with homemade creamy dressing. I also supervised the grilling of massive amounts of brats, hot dogs, and slider-size burgers. I had some great grilling partners, all men. The youngest of them, one of our gardeners who is as cute as he is smart, asked me if I’d teach him how to grill better for next year. I’m always willing to share what I’ve learned from my dad. August and his wife Marion are about the cutest things. She’s from France and has a sweet accent, and the two of them came to the garden the same time I did. They have two plots and some amazing production, including the kind of tomatoes I can only dream about. And this year, they have grown some squash that are as big as bushel baskets.
We had over a hundred people attend our event, noshing on wonderful food, sitting around folding tables laden with jelly jars and juice glasses filled with sunflowers. Tater and I made the bouquets, using sunflowers from all around the garden. Earlier in the day, I had visited the Goodwill’s half-price sale. For $5, I had two dozen little jars and glasses to fill with flowers. They looked so cheerful running down the center of the tables. At the end of the event, I told people to take a vase with them. There was no way I needed 24 little vases of flowers in my house. Besides, there are still plenty of sunflowers in the garden. If I want some, I’ll just go cut some! 
An event like this takes a ton of hard work, usually spread over just a handful of people. There were perhaps a dozen people in all, getting things ready. There were canopies to put up, tables to put out and layer with tablecloths, chairs to set up, barbecue pits to roll out and get fired up. There were tiki torches to fill and place in buckets of sand, painstakingly filled by hauling sand from the kids’ sandboxes.
This morning, there were four of us breaking things down and putting them away. The canopies had been broken down last night and moved inside the garden from the street. The tables and chairs made it inside the fence as well, before dark. This morning, four of us plus Tater packed up all the canopies into their zipper bags, repacked all of the paper/plastic products, rearranged the shed so we could get things back in, emptied the fuel out of the tiki torches, picked up trash, etc. It would have been easier with more people, but we managed it in 90 minutes or so. And surprisingly, we didn’t find too many “lost and found” things. I have a set of children’s glasses and someone’s red silverware, but that was about it. Not too bad for such a big event!
This is the first time I’ve participated in a large event for the garden. I enjoyed myself very much, although I’m exhausted from a weekend of cooking, setup, and teardown, in addition to my regular chores. A woman’s work is never done!
Pretty flowers all in a row…
Entertainment. This guy was right next to where we were grilling, so I got to hear it all.
Grillmasters. August is on the left, and the guy on the right was named Joe. The guy trying to duck the camera on the left was also grilling with us.
Artwork on the fence.
Garden visitors – people taking a look a the garden plots and what was growing. The sunflowers on the right side of the photo are in my garden.
Plenty of bike parking…
Eating in the shade, enjoying the artwork.
