Looking for backyard gardens to tour in the Hampton Roads area

13 years ago

My garden group, Grownups Playing in the Dirt

(http://groupspaces.com/GrownupsPlayingintheDirt/)

is looking to tour other backyard gardens in the area. Members are mostly beginning and intermediate gardeners and really get inspired by seeing what other people are able to do in their spaces. Whether it's a half acre or 0.09 acres, we'd love to see how you do it! It can be a 15 minute adult only walk through with questions and answers or we can do something a little longer. Group attendance ranges from 3 to 10 adults (usually equal amount of kids but we will drop the kids from a tour). I'm also working on trying to get some veggie swaps going within cities.

If either of these ideas interest you, please let me know.

Thanks for reading!

Melissa

Comments (3)

yorktownpatty
13 years ago
Hi,
I might be interested in offering a garden tour. However I cannot read very much about your group without joining. Please let me know more. I live in Yorktown.

Patty
s.hamptongardener
Original Author
13 years ago
Hi Patty! I keep the group private because there are some addresses and pictures of our kids up on the site or in profiles. Anyone can join but it makes me feel like I'm trying to protect the members. We have about 30 members - 10 active. Most are women with husbands and kids of school age, a few men. Most members are not originally from the area, often military transplants, with 1 - 3 years of active gardening experience in this area. I drop members who have not visited the site for over two months so there is not a huge list of members. Most active members try to follow organic gardening methods and buy non-gmo seeds.

In the past we have had pot lucks to swap seeds (just had this in Jan), swap seedling in April, and one or two harvest parties in the summer or fall. I have met most of the active members and hosted a large party last summer before I took over the group. I had never met anyone from the group at that point in time. It was really odd to invite a bunch of people I had never met to my house. It worked out fine but I am surprised I did that sometimes.

The garden tours will be a new addition to our activities and I'm not entirely sure how to best work it. The idea was original part of the group but because we have so many beginning gardeners, people are often shy about their gardens. My sister lives in Oakland CA where they have a large back yard garden tour every year - it's an all day affair of people walking through your yard. While that's great for the people who go on the tour, it's hard on the garden. I was thinking of coming up with a size and tour length that was very easy on the host and garden yet showed our members what people can do with a normal yard and some hard work.

If you'd like some more info, please email me from my page - I think that is set up properly. We could also meet in a public place for a cup of coffee to make sure everyone is on the up and up.

Thanks,

Melissa
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vaplantman
13 years ago
Melissa,
Good to hear that Grownups Playing in the Dirt is alive and well. Depending on when you schedule garden tours, I might be interested in having visitors in my yard too. I'm not going to be around much of March, but April or May would work well. I'll sign up at your website or you can send me an e-mail. Hope all is well.
Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: .09 Acres