I recently moved from Chicago to a little town in western Wisconsin. There are still several inches of fresh snow on the ground up here, but my yearning for spring is alive and well. And I’m missing my little garden patch.
Gardening with Nuns
Having been an apartment dweller for the past umpteen years, I got my gardening fix through community gardening. My most recent patch was behind a Catholic girls high school in Chicago. (It was an endless source of amusement to me that I, a one-time out-of-control juvenile delinquent was now gardening among nuns.) The nuns, particularly Sister Mary Alice, were a hoot. Their flower gardens are beautiful and blooming from late March to November, which is really a feat in zone 5.
It was a peaceful location and I was grateful for the space to be able to grow fresh strawberries and veggies and to be able to play in the dirt. A statue of Jesus blesses all who enter the grounds. On the other side of the gardens was a labyrinth people would come and walk through on occasion.
An Amazing Urban Oasis
Those gardens are an amazing urban oasis. With a beautiful stand of pine trees blocking the view to adjacent townhomes, the fragrant lilac bushes lining the parking lot and the expanse of athletic field taking up the west end of the property, the city always felt far away when I was there.
The city melts away when you're here.
In the four seasons I was there, I
- resurrected two flower beds: moved some perennials, planted some more and added annuals – mostly zinnias – to fill the holes.
- built a VERY rudimentary compost bin with metal stakes and chicken wire. I let a couple of climbing weeds camouflage it.
- added a strawberry patch to one end of a flower bed.
- got to know some of my gardening neighbors; a couple of them were nuns or worked for the school, most of us were from around the community.
- grew enough veggies to feed myself and many of my friends and neighbors: lots of greens, tomatoes, beans, lettuce, carrots, squash, cucumbers, etc.
- made catmint mice for my kitties.
- created an aesthetic space out of a pile of weeds.
- meditated and communed with my higher power regularly.
It’s Tough Letting Go
But now I’m in Wisconsin and get to start the process all over again. Thing is, I was still holding on to my old patch emotionally. I hadn’t called Sister Rita yet to let her know I wouldn’t be back this spring; I hadn’t called my neighbor Curtis, who let me store my wheelbarrow in his fenced-in patch, to tell him he could have the barrow. I was still working out plans in my head for where the tomatoes should go this year.
How Twitter Saved the Day
And then I met @jenofchicago. On Twitter. (If you don’t know what Twitter is, Google it and then come join us.) I checked out her profile and saw that she had tweeted only three times in almost 3 years! I’m not sure how to go about verifying this, but I think it must be some kind of Twitter record! She tweeted once in July ’07, once in July ’08 and not again until Feb. 9 this year. And she was asking for help.
Because I’m a strong believer in paying it forward in all things Twitter (I have gotten a LOT of help from peeps when I was floundering around in the tweetstream of this exciting new social medium), I sent her some links and made a few suggestions of people to follow and figured that would be it.
Making a Personal Connection
Next thing I know, Jen sent me a personal e-mail thanking me for my help and asking me if my garden patch was behind a particular school (which it was). She mentioned that she sometimes walks the labyrinth there and had always wondered about the gardens.
I was floored! I mean, I’ve tweeted with people from all walks of life living all over the world – but this was the first time I met somebody on Twitter who had actually been to my garden patch (or at least to the same location). How cool is that?!
We e-mailed back and forth a couple of times and now – voila! – @jenofchicago is the proud mama of my strawberry patch – and perennials and anything else she wants to grow there!
Although she and I have never met face to face, because we met on Twitter it almost feels as if my beloved patch is staying in the family. Weird, maybe, but it’s how I feel. Like, we made this connection at a very real and human level through cyberspace, so she’s no longer some complete stranger who may go and and undo all the work I’ve done just ’cause she doesn’t know any better. I will actually be able to tell Jen what’s planted where (the daffodils should start sprouting by the end of March, but the stargazer lilies won’t make their presence known until late April or May) and she won’t have to start from scratch!
The Power of Twitter
Anybody who follows me on Twitter knows by now that I am a huge fan. If I could make a living on Twitter, I’d be tweeting my little heart out all day! Suffice it to say that I have met the most wonderfully diverse bunch of gardeners on Twitter through my @FamerPhoebe account. I learn something new every day and always find something to laugh about. I’ve even met another organic gardener named Phoebe on Twitter! (She’s in New York.) But serendipitously finding on Twitter such a wonderful new caretaker for my little garden patch I’d worked so hard on and with such love for the past four seasons – well, that’s just plain special.
I hope you will follow my new Twitter buddy @jenofchicago and congratulate her on her new garden patch!
Wow! What an amazing coincidence! I’m glad your garden has a new mom.
Hi! Thanks for stopping by.
For the record, I don’t believe in coincidences. Sometimes they’re just too, shall I say, coincidental! I see occurrences like this as serendipity, which is a gift. And when I pay attention, these sorts of “coincidences” happen all the time!