Our Garden: Join the newspaper in growing a community garden

A lot more goes into gardening these days, and I'm not talking about compost.

While gardeners around the globe share a love for growing things and for attempting to recreate a corner of Eden in our yards, it just doesn't seem that simple any more. More and more of us are thinking about gardens as a way to save the planet and to trim some green off our grocery bills.

Gardens are becoming integral parts of our lives, places for us to escape the many worries and woes of our worlds; places to meet friends and share good times; places to gather the family and strengthen bonds; places to grow food that will sustain us, reasonably assured that the food we eat is also the food we know — no hidden pesticides or salmonella.

Gardens are bringing us together, and we hope you'll join us in "Our Garden," a new venture being established by the Bay Area News Group-East Bay papers, at our headquarters, 2640 Shadelands, Walnut Creek.

On Friday, we will break ground on a community garden. Throughout the spring and summer, the Contra Costa County Master Gardeners will present demonstrations on a variety of topics that will teach novice and experienced gardens alike ways to garden more in harmony with nature, and how to start from the ground up, so to speak.

We'll be focusing on vegetables, but the techniques demonstrated will apply to just about any type of gardening. Wondering how you can grow vegetables under watering

restrictions? We've got some ideas for you. Curious about how to get the most from your soil? We've got some thoughts on that, too.


If you can't make it out to the scheduled demonstrations, don't worry. We'll keep track of what's going on in Our Garden and share it on the pages of your Home & Garden section and on our online.

The goal of the garden is to share knowledge and ultimately, to share the bounty. When our vegetables are ready to harvest, we'll be donating food to area food banks and organizations. And we ask that you take what you'll learn and plant a row for the hungry in your own garden.