My mom and I would go to her community garden plot on weekends. She grew flowers, rarely any edibles, save for some occasional snap peas that fruit in early spring. Years later I started my own vegetable garden in buckets on the porch roof outside my bedroom windows in a West Philly collective house, and then graduated to a community garden plot that I still have a few blocks from where I live. I've invested a lot of work in this plot, landscaping it, nurturing the soil, and planting crops strategically so that I can harvest food year round, all earning me compliments from other gardeners.
Gardening isn't easy for me, and because my eyesight is waning, it's gotten harder. Under the sun, down in the soil, I can't really see what's going on, what plants are what, and I get confused in the summer when tomato and squash vines revolt into tangles of wildness. A strategy I've adopted is inviting people to garden with me: Travis one year, Molly and Nick another, and then Alison, all of whom have moved away. Last season I gardened alone, and things went a bit amiss: cucumbers overripened, radishes grew huge and bitter, most of the tomatoes went to seed, and I'm not even sure what happened to the peppers, the garlic, and half the greens. And unlike doing things in my kitchen, I can't just draw the drapes to make the light conducive to work.
Now an email from a fellow gardener asks an important question: Will I keep my plot for the coming season? When I joined a decade ago plots were plentiful, but now we've a waitlist and I'd hate to deprive anyone from growing their own food. But giving up my garden plot would be giving up more than just my green thumbs: it would be me admitting defeat to this eye disease that (as you know if you'd read the rest of this blog) seeps into every facet of my life.
On the other hand, changes in ability are part of life, and accepting and accommodating for those changes is not a defeat but a victory—a triumph of human adaptation. So here's my question: What do I do? Do I pass my garden along to someone else in my community? Do I find another co-gardener to do more than their share of the work for the coming year? Do I try out all sorts of visors, tinted lenses and other assistive devices in hopes that it will make gardening more doable? Or is there some other option that I cannot see? Share your ideas in the comments below!
Have you tried noir lenses before? http://www.noir-medical.com/filters/index.html. You'd probably be eligible to receive a free lens eval and pair through BBVS in Philly. They can help a lot with glare and color correction - they don't always work for everyone, but I've definitely had some people put them on and immediately be able to see a great deal more. If you don't qualify for BBVS or don't want to go that way, I could come out and do a lens eval for you, you'd just have to purchase them on your own. I definitely think a brimmed hat or visor is a good thing to try. Can you ask them about switching plots with someone who might be leaving if there are any plots that have some sort of shade at some point in the day? Obviously you don't want your garden in the shade all day, but if you get a plot that is semi shaded, you can try to make your gardening schedule work around when the plot is shaded.
ReplyDeleteI never heard of these noir lenses. I'm interested in looking through them, as well as those EnChroma lenses that Jenna posted about. And yes, I'm wondering what insurance would cover!
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