Barbara Stecker joined AVCG five years ago, first as a helper to a friend, and now with her own plot, No. 86 along the central walkway at Tulip Lane. As an apartment dweller, she longed for a sunny space to grow flowers and heirloom vegetables. So the idea of a community garden appealed.
With a plot of her own, Barbara opted against putting in permanent raised beds in favor of a flexible arrangement that could be easily reconfigured with stepping stones to suit the planting. Growing up Barbara’s mother started her off planting Bachelor buttons and other wildflowers at an early age and she continues the tradition now growing sunflowers, foxglove, dahlias, and morning glories along with the standard warm season crops like tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, Swiss chard and herbs.
She finds gardening “a real mood enhancer.” She says, “Often I’ll come to do some ‘work’ and can be really cranky but when I settle into it, my mood changes as I breathe in the green world, the golden sunlight.” She enjoys asking Master Gardeners for advice or simply observes how they water and prepare the soil. She also has fun just walking through the garden to see what is growing.
In future, she’d like to grow more plants from seeds, including heirloom vegetable varieties, fun plants such as purple tomato and spherical zucchini, and nutritious dark leafy greens like mustard greens and collards. “These last,” she says with her characteristic good humor, “fall in the category of what I think would be good for me and might end up not eating.”
Besides keeping in sync with the monthly inspection calendar, her biggest challenge as a gardener is controlling an invasive weed she inherited in her plot. The perennial nut sedge spreads rapidly by a deep underground network of roots and “nutlets” which makes it difficult to get rid of.
Barbara serves on the Admin Crew assisting crew leader Char Bradley with club membership details and, most recently, with the launch of our new, updated website. Barbara is also on the Steering Committee as a Member-at-Large. She makes informational signs for the club and volunteers at our annual enrollment fairs.
Barbara taught philosophy at Golden West College for many years, and now, outside of gardening, devotes considerable time to the study and translation of ancient Greek texts. You may notice the legend on her favorite T-shirt is a famous quote from Plato, “The Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living.”
Nov 2020