[Community_garden] Shade Structures in Community Gardens

[yarrow at sfo.com]

As a community structure, or in individual gardens?

One of the gardeners at my community garden has a plot in the center 
of the hot sunny area, and he has chosen to grow grapevines that are 
now so rampant that, underneath the vines, his garden is a secluded 
island of shade. His garden is so interesting, with blackberry vines 
winding among the grapes, pansies growing 2-3 ft. high to reach some 
light, and other edibles tucked into every possible space as well as 
garden art, that no one complains about any shade cast on their 
plots, though I think only the path gets significant shade. The vines 
are supported by a series of arbors.

Our other shade structure is the stone pines at one corner of the 
garden. Someday they'll come down (one fell down on its own last 
year), but that's where we put the sign-in table on work days, and 
where we do things like shelling fava beans on work days when it's 
too hot to be out in the sun.

I've seen shade structures in a few other gardens, mostly small areas 
for eating or teaching. Usually no more elaborate than a slat-roofed 
open structure.

If it were up to me, I'd plant a few fast-growing, drought-tolerant 
native trees/shrubs along one edge of the community garden to provide 
shade and also to feed the birds so that they don't have to rely so 
much on what's in the gardens. Here in California, my top choices 
would be elderberry (for the flowers and berries) and coyote brush 
(for the insects it supports, and because the shrubs can be sculpted 
into a small shade structure). OK, if it were really up to me, I'd go 
all out and plant a multispecies hedgerow of 5 or 10 native shrubs.

At 8:58 PM -0700 7/21/08, KBR wrote:
>Does anyone have any experience with community gardens installing 
>shade structures in their gardens? I'd like to hear the pros and 
>cons. 
> 
>Kate, Wisconsin"If at first the idea is not absurd, there is no hope for it."