At 10:19 AM 05/08/2003 -0500, Neil Johnson wrote:
The community gardens near where my folks live are an excellent example of socialism.
Gardners spend hours all spring and summer tending their plants, hauling water in old milk jugs, weeding and fertilizing, just have the "fruits" of their labor stolen by freeloaders or smashed by vandals.
And the saddest lesson is the fact that the garderners come back year after year.
Gardening is emotionally rewarding in its own right, as well as getting you food. Lots of people also grow flowers they don't eat... Back when I lived in New Jersey, the Bell Labs plant where I worked had a garden area out back that employees could use, and it was somewhat popular with apartment dwellers who worked there. Given the quasi-rural area and the local population, there wasn't much theft problem, but there was some; a friend of mine said his technique for avoiding theft was to grow kohlrabi "for some reason nobody ever steals it :-)". Occasionally other people used other parts of the back pasture to grow dope, and I've never heard it confirmed or denied whether the official building maintenance policy was to smoke any that they confiscated.