When this whole community-garden thing started, I had absolutely no interest in gardening. I’ve never grown an edible thing in my life, unless you count the sickly handful of tomato plants my husband, John, and I planted 10 years ago that eventually were consumed by tomato blight. But in the past three weeks, things have changed dramatically in my life. My mother moved in with us.

“I want to plant a tomato plant,” Mom says one day. “Where can I throw a tomato plant in your yard?”

Steve Abrams admires his just-planted broccoli. He is experimenting with square black plastic sheets under each plant to discourage broccoli-loving grubs. (Courtesy photo by Katy Sharko)

John and I look at each other and look out the window at our expansive Harvard-style front lawn, and walk to the back to look at the mossy back yard. We try to tell my mother that in Harvard you don’t plant a vegetable garden in your front lawn. You plant trees—and more trees. And then you plant shade-loving grass in between the trees.

She looks at us, her 83-year-old eye asking, “So, did you decide where I can plant my tomato plant?”

We do our due diligence and visit nurseries, talk to people, and consult with our sprinkler-system man to determine the possible locations for a vegetable garden. We discuss building a raised platform somewhere with a fence—or maybe just fence in a spot somewhere. We go to Home Depot and look at fencing material.

I think gardening is a fantastic idea—not for me, but for my mother. I want her to fall in love with Harvard as much as I have in the five years that I’ve lived here. I want her to see that happiness doesn’t come from the California strip malls and concrete yards, but from the crunching of fallen leaves underfoot and the sight of deer in the fields and the fresh farm produce bought at local farm stands. I want her to fall in love with the Harvard people who never fail to smile and always seem to have time for a chat, no matter where I happen to be, whether at the Farmers’ Market, the General Store, or out hiking with the pups.

I want Mom to be so compelled by Harvard and all of the beauty and peace that consumes it that she would never ever think to live anywhere else again.

Still, the fact remains that there is no good place on the property where we could easily have a vegetable garden.

One day I receive an e-mail from John. The title of the e-mail is “We’re Now Tenant Farmers.” He explains how he was bicycling that morning on Littleton Road, and passed the Harvard community garden. I had actually seen an article in the paper indicating they had available plots. I had shown it to Mom, who informed me she wanted a tomato plant in our yard, not in someone else’s yard. “Interested?” he ends his e-mail.

“Sure, but I don’t think Mom will be,” I reply.

“I just talked to her, and she seems interested,” he replies back.

“Great!” I’m surprised, but pleased that John’s gotten a hint of interest from Mom.

John has always had an interest in gardening, and he pursues the idea of having a plot in the community garden. I like the idea because, well, I’m intrigued by the “community” aspect of it, and I might actually be interested in the gardening aspect if I thought I had even the vaguest hope of successfully growing something edible.

On Saturday we meet Carolena, who is registering people for plots.

The garden consists of about 22 plots, 20 feet by 20 feet in size and situated about 30 yards from the road, behind a clump of trees. The trees obscure a sign that says “Harvard Conservation Land,” as well as an old metal gate that appears to connect nothing to nothing.

Carolena gives us a tour of the plots that are available, and after about half an hour we find ourselves standing in front of the plot we’ve declared as ours. It has a handful of weeds, so we decide to come back the next day and weed it in preparation for planting ... well, stuff. We’ll need to decide exactly what.

I look around. The plots are all in varying degrees of cultivation—some look uncultivated, some are covered with tarp, and some seem to have plants already popping their heads out. I find myself filled with wonder at who the other tenant farmers are. I have a nagging suspicion that we’ll be the only ones who know next to nothing about gardening.

It’s strange thinking about myself as a gardener. Gardeners are men with Farmer-John overalls or ladies with wide hats and flowered dresses who wave their fingers and the world blossoms all around them, not Korean-Hawaiian-American software engineers who spend their days tapping out computer programs, dressed in blue jeans and T-shirts that say “I love Unix.”

A couple of other farmers show up, and Carolena introduces us to Joe. Joe definitely looks like a farmer. He has an expression that reminds me of my favorite uncle, a warm and kindly soul. “Why is it that gardeners seem like such happy people,” I wonder. Joe has huge trellises on his plot, and you can almost see the plants rising up to greet him. “Hi Daddy!”

He gives us a tour of the land. At the far end of a large field behind the gardens is what he calls the “Swansea muck,” which is apparently the site of the original community garden that existed here in the 1970s. I look toward the muck and see the spirits of the original gardeners moving about. I can feel that they are still very much alive within the garden. It has an air of tranquility, and the land is sprinkled with edibles—chives, wild carrots, dandelions, and wintercress, also known as wild broccoli.

Joe and Carolena take us to a somewhat oversized puddle that they call a spring, which is the sole source of water for the gardens. Watercress grows in the damp soil of the spring, and I pick some sprigs and eat them. My mouth and my body do a jig at the idea of eating fresh wild greens, and I’m finding my soul being lifted.

“At the bottom of this spring is a lawnmower grass-catcher,” Joe tells us, “which filters water into a rigid poly pipe that runs to just inside the electric fence where the gardens are.” At the other end of the pipe he is going to install a hand pump, he says. He takes us to his car and shows us the pump. It looks like an overgrown switch plate. The idea is that water will flow through the hand pump into your bucket, and then you will carry your bucket to your plot to water the plants. I wonder how many buckets it will take to grow a garden for a season, and he assures us that if this year is like last year we’ll only need to water the plot once or twice.

“Anyway, we do have a bucket carrier,” he says as he points, smiling, to a baby carriage with a faded, dirt-covered seat.

I smile and look around. The air is filled with the scent of freshly cultivated soil, which marries us to the ground we’re standing on. I sense invisible spirits of fertility floating through the fields, blessing the soil and the people working it. I’m filled with a sense of excitement at the prospect of communing with the earth in this place and with these spirits of fertility.

Learn more about Katy’s gardening adventures on her blog.