Beds take shape

Women who were last at WeMoon when the "gardens" were covered with mulch and a weeds are in for a treat. The beds are set – a crescent moon, a wheel, a spiral, and a gently curving border beda that hugs the main path -- with narrow footpaths winding around throughout. Even at this early stage, the garden is drawing attention. A woman leaving this morning’s yoga class stopped to admire the design – she had a labyrinth in her own backyard, and suggested a few plants that might do well in the spiral. The spiral is nearly half done, and the crescent moon is complete and ready to be planted. Anna said something this morning that really resonated with me: It’s amazing how the land responds to just a little care and attention. And it’s so true. The difference is remarkable.

Below is a working sketch of the gardens, to give you an idea of where we hope to go:

The path emerges

I am behind. Aren't we all behind? So the only hour I had to give to the garden today was early this morning. No so early, but early enough that when I arrived the light was still silver-blue at the edges, the air was wet crisp, and the sun was small. WeMoon was quiet except for the light hum of traffic on Mahan and a few chirping birds. I took in a big, deep breath of some of our first autumn air and felt at once thoughtful and awake. It always feels a little like this to me here -- when I am alone or when there are lawnmowers and women singing and music playing and people laughing, serenity and positive energy seem to be floating about, free for anyone to breath in.

I spent a few minutes stepping lightly around the overturned pots that were marking our tentative path, getting a feel for this garden and what it would soon become, then began raking. Layers of mulch, hay, and newspapers came up, along with the occasional earthworm and even a tiny good luck snake. The snake was only about as long as a finger, and was pink with a cream-colored belly. At first I thought he was the fastest earthworm I'd ever seen, but we soon figured each other out and I took him to a better spot. I raked very carefully after that. Just about when my hour ended, Helen arrived, and dove right in digging the beds. The earth came up dark, with a few ribbons of gray sand. It was beautiful in itself and its potential.

As I drove away I tried to fix that picture in my mind: a gently winding path of dark, loamy soil, not yet a garden exactly, but ready and waiting to receive and nurture seeds and plants. And then I let that image fade, and tried to envision the garden that would emerge after Saturday's "garden pot-luck" gathering. I decided that was a little taxing on the imagination -- who can begin to suppose what can happen when many hands and minds and plants and seeds come together? So I went home to get ready for work, thankful to have started my day with such luxury.

The laying out

Today we had the first garden meeting at WeMoon. The property is huge, and the task of getting any one piece of it cultivated was daunting But there is a beautiful, rounded wedge-shaped area toward the front of the property that gets a lot of sun and is huge -- 42 feet long and from 18 to 30 feet wide -- that seemed like a likely starting place. It would be the first thing that people saw when they pulled into the parking lot, just behind the bottle wall. Logistics put few restrictions on us; aside from making sure we gave the few trees and their roots some breathing room, we had this whole huge area to design a garden.

So we walked around scratching our heads and bouncing ideas, and eventually decided that we wanted to have two seating areas, a small path for walking around and for kneeling while weeding, and an ecclectic mix of flowering plants, herbs, and vegetables. As shapes came to us, we laid out overturned flower pots to get a feel for 4-foot-wide beds (not too big to reach across) and the kinds of pathways that would be the most useful and leave the most space to gardening. There was a lot of sketching and measuring and discussing, and a lot of moving out of the sun and into the shade. Mid-day brought a bright, hot, sun, and the obligations of Saturday afternoons began tugging on our sleeves. We broke for the day without breaking ground, having a loose plan for the layout, and agreeing to meet again Wednesday morning to actually get dirty.