Cultivating relationships, responsibility, and raspberries
Our harvest celebration...
When I was in elementary school, one of my favorite assignments was writing a recap like, My Weekend Story, or What I Did Last Summer. This feels like that, with snapshots.
Last spring I posted a story on Garden Rant about Beyers’ Bulldog Garden, a property in my neighborhood that’s been gardened for generations that was transitioning into a community garden just a few doors down from my house. It’s hard to believe that it’s only been seven months since we began digging through weeds, establishing beds, and wrangling out of control berry vines. Seeing how much a willing group of volunteers can accomplish has been revelatory to this gardener who’s more accustomed to solitary tending.
Bulldog Garden has approximately 30 members under the direction and governance of a leadership team made up of a half dozen or so of us who are making things up as we go along. Decisions ranging from what we should grow to where we should plant it are settled collectively. We don’t tend individual beds — the Garden is “ours” and everything is generously shared on a loosely defined but respected honor system.
In every way, our harvest has been abundant. We’ve enjoyed raspberries (!!), hardy greens, herbs, and zucchini—soooo much zucchini. Our tomato crop was extraordinary, including a glorious giant beefsteak variety that no serious Pacific Northwest gardener has any business growing in our notoriously mild climate.
From the beginning, one of our garden goals was to support our local food pantry with weekly deliveries of fresh produce. Just in the past month, Bulldog donated more than 56 pounds of tomatoes—and that’s in addition to all the gorgeous fruit we’ve hauled to our own kitchens.
We range in age from 7 to young adult to busy parents to gardeners with decades (*cough*cough*) of experience. A lively What’sApp channel keeps us up to date on what’s ripe for picking, work party priorities, recipes, and the status of various grant applications.
In addition to everything coming out of the garden, we all agree that the harvest that we are the most pleased with is the community that’s grown among us. A harvest celebration dinner held in the garden was delicious, an echo of long ago summer picnics once held in the garden when it was it was under the care of Bill, Sr.
Other than those beds that are filled with sturdy greens, hardy root crops and numerous rows of garlic, summer plants have all been cleaned up and composted. Cover crops are sown, and everything has been tucked in with a generous layer of mulch. We’re already dreaming about what we’ll grow next year, when the seasons roll over and everything begins again.
This essay first appeared on Garden Rant in October, 2025.
What a great project with a plethora of beautiful rewards including community!
This story makes me so happy.