Community Garden:

1. sense of community


2. finally a space of land for me to do as I please


3. friendly neighbours that speak extremely fast French on one side and extremely fast Arabic on the other


4. some excellent gardeners to learn from and talk to about our climate


5. free tools and unlimited use

Private Garden Space (a.k.a. a backyard)

1. privacy to garden in your bikini


2. variety of space and design


3. ease to work whenever you please - such as at 6am when you look out the window and realize that a cat had tried to sleep on your seedlings and you need to do some rescue work


4. NO ONE STEALS YOUR PLANTS

Yes, the community garden is great - and I realize it's the only way for me to garden until we decide to live off potatoes, carrots and cheese in order to jump into mortgage hell. However, stealing my strawberry plants? That's cold.

My space was clearly occupied. I had done work on it. There is no excuse to think that no one was going to use the fruit. The only thing we concluded (me and the two equally insulted and sympathetic sisters on my right) was that perhaps the old owners came to claim them. That, and since I didn't buy them myself, they were never really mine in the first place.

My friend Missey came to the plot with me today, to help me face the scene of the crime once more, and we decided those strawberry plants are bad news. They're diseased, yes... that's it. They are going to release vermin all over your illegitimate, traitorous, underhanded crop... you.... you strawberry stealer, you!

Argh.