If you're a gardener in Colorado, you know it's not for the faint of heart. So far this year our Pere-Green Wildcat gardeners have faced gale force winds, record-setting temperatures, and an infestation of flea beetles. None of us would have guessed that our nascent community garden's next challenge would be wildfire.
I'm sure most Peregrine residents had a sleepless night on Tuesday, the first day of the evacuation. Seeing flames on the hill above us as we left our home, I thought there was no way it could be standing in the morning. At 2 a.m., when my racing thoughts turned to the community garden, it was almost too much to bear. This garden had been a testament to the power of community - our successful building day, our learning to build hoop tunnels to insulate our raised beds, attending gardening classes together, helping each other out with watering duties.
The next morning I was stunned to look through binoculars from the Best Buy parking lot and see Peregrine homes still standing - miraculous indeed. As our evacuation days mounted, however, I thought there was no way the garden could survive such intense temperatures without water. Finally on Monday I was able to visit the garden to survey the damage. I expected to find beds of browned, half-grown veggies. As I pulled into the south parking lot at Woodmen-Roberts Elementary it was full of disaster relief vehicles, and helicopters were still dumping water on a stubborn blaze on Blodgett. Walking up the steps from the parking lot I saw green! Upon closer inspection I found almost everything was still alive, the only damage being a few wilted plants. I was witnessing another miracle - this garden survived 6 days without water.
We are so grateful for our garden but more importantly for our friends and neighbors in Peregrine who weathered the storm together and came through unharmed.
