52 Weeks of Neighboring - Week 9

/
52 Weeks of-logo.png

Neighboring Tip of the Week - Plant a garden in your FRONT yard.

Happy Easter! We hope this neighboring tip finds you full of joy!

This week, we’re continuing our series of neighboring tips that directly address how we can keep fostering relationships with our neighbors in the time of coronavirus. 

We know that this pandemic has probably changed a lot of Spring plans for all of us, but one activity we can all continue to do throughout this time is gardening! In SoCe, our neighborhood, we think being home more has given a lot of our neighbors the desire to garden even more and the time to do so, as well; our neighbors are gardening like crazy!

Most of the time, folks plant gardens in their backyards because this offers more privacy. With this neighboring experiment, we’re turning that idea upside down. We propose you plant a garden in your FRONT yard! Planting a garden in your front yard is awesome for neighboring in the time of coronavirus for a variety of different reasons. Here are a few:

  • If your neighbors are also outside, you can interact with them from a distance! Gardening in your front yard gives you the perfect opportunity to talk to any neighbors that are out and about while also being mindful of social distancing. As we have said in previous tips, we can still have in-person conversations with our neighbors, but we should be mindful of keeping a good distance between each of us. If a neighbor approaches you, you might have to kindly ask them if they would be willing to keep at least six feet between you and them. Again, we want to do everything we can to not potentially expose our neighbors or ourselves to the virus. 

  • You can be visible to your neighbors whether they are inside or out! Even if your neighbors are inside while you are gardening, they might still look out a window and see you. This lets them know you are healthy and well, and hopefully, simply seeing you gardening in your front yard will brighten their day!

  • You can get some fresh air while enjoying the environmental assets of your neighborhood, block, or yard! We all have probably been in our homes a lot more than we are used to, so gardening is the perfect opportunity to be outside and enjoy the gifts of nature in our neighborhoods.

  • You can grow things to share with your neighbors! If you choose to grow flowers, you can add fantastic aesthetic to your street and both you and your neighbors can enjoy them. If you decide to grow produce, you will eventually get food that you can share with your neighbors and also enjoy for yourself! We all know that getting what we want from the grocery store is a little bit more difficult these days...

Let's plant those gardens in our front yards and, in doing so, continue fostering relationships with our neighbors!

Happy neighboring!

P.S. We are continuing to point people to our podcast, The Neighbor Next Door, where we release episodes every Tuesday, many of which discuss how we can be good neighbors in the midst of this pandemic. That being said, the episodes from the past two weeks, and the episode for this week, do not directly address coronavirus. However, in them, hosts Adam and Matt sit down with, quite literally, the founder of asset-based community development, John McKnight. John began community organizing when he was in his early twenties, and since then, he has done everything from training Barack Obama in community organizing to developing an entirely new model of community development: asset-based community development. As asset-based community developers, John has always been a hero of ours, and over the years, we have followed his work closely and been deeply inspired and influenced by his practices. He is incredibly kind, absolutely brilliant, and a gifted teacher who always tells the perfect story in order to illustrate a point. You are not going to want to miss these episodes! You can find The Neighbor Next Door on any podcast medium, but here are links to some of the most popular ones.