Happy to have bits of good news after such a negative post last time. The meeting we had went well and we are now fully confident in our legal status regarding our ability to stay and open a garden on the plot. With a little work we might even be able to sell a lot of our produce onsite. Unfortunately the Community Gardens area was shut down due to insurance complications.
It’s too bad; I think a lot of community members feel we had something to do with this. If they thought it through a step or two they could see that that would make no sense. It doesn’t help us to not have the community garden there. It means less foot traffic and people coming through to see our garden project. We can’t use the community plot which means it’s not even extra space we could use. There were also some concerns about us using community funds/resources to promote our business. I wish…the cost of the greenhouse and electricity was 100% covered by us, and it wasn’t cheap.
The only physical thing we’ve gotten from the community was ~$40 worth of gravel (the rest of which is still sitting unused) and an hour or two of the bushhog (I also “volunteered” an hour and half of my time on the bushhog to clean community space). They did help paint the building but that was before we had signed a lease on the area, at the time we thought the building would be for communal use. We have been working in good faith with the community this whole time. It’s funny to think that people are attacking us for taking advantage of the community when we’re storing their stuff in our privately leased building free of charge. Does that sound like the kind of thing a greedy, for profit business would do? That’s just like the general public though; getting angry over misinformation.
Anyway, more good news. We finally rebuilt our greenhouse! It’s back and better than the first time. We built it out of 3/4″ EMT pipe instead of PVC which promises to be sturdier. It lifted our spirits on this dark, gloomy day to be able to get that done. Also, we got power turned on in the building! It’s starting to feel like a real building and not just some abandoned dump. I haven’t done the best with pictures but hopefully people can still see the unbelievable turnaround this plot has gone through. We hope to continue the hard work and I’ll try and keep this updated as I’m able.
