Some history to get started

Four and a half years ago I bought my little house in the Oakley area of downtown Asheville, North Carolina (photo is of front yard of my place just before I purchased it in August 2003). The house is small but the lot is immense by urban standards, just shy of a half-acre! And what a lot of lawn to mow... I immediately saw in my minds eye the potential to make my place an amazing eden of edible delights! But alas, as the solo parent of Rebecca Grace, professional 2 year old.. it was a daunting task to think about making this dream a reality.
So I paid a guy to come and mow every other week and every time I wrote that check for lawn care I wished for a way, the energy mostly, to get my dream going...
Well, 2 years later, a friend moved to Asheville from Atlanta.. and as we sipped tea in the height of the winter season we hatched a plan to garden together.. It did not seem so impossible now with the promise of help!
And so began the conversion of the unwanted lawn into a bountiful edible landscape. For the first two years of this garden adventure we operated loosely as a community garden. We invited other friends to participate and all shared in the work and the bounty. We had 3 committed partners the first year and it all worked pretty well... it was my land so I was the lead gardener and planner. In the second year, well the amount of time the other partners had to share diminished greatly and I found myself without help. It was more work for me but the rewards were great and oh so satisfying!
I wish that I had started a blog in the beginning of this project to really tell the story as it unfolded.. but better now than never!