I actually just agreed to take on my neighborhood association out here in Gresham. It's been inactive for quite some time.

It's an odd neighborhood, because more than half our area is taken up by Mt. Hood Community College, Mt. Hood Hospital and the clinics, Hall Elementary, Hall Park, and the Golf Course. Since it's small in land mass already, that's a lot of area taken up that's not residential or commercial.

Then there are tons of apartments and condos. We have more rental units than any other neighborhood in the city, apparently.

So obviously we're going to need to look at creative solutions for the issues here. I've already seen one issue come up -- the lack of recycling opportunities.

I already started a web site to get my neighborhood association online, and am hoping to get the others on there as well. Since summer's coming, it's going to be hard to set up a meeting right away, but we were looking at just before school starts as a kick off meeting.

The city of Gresham has been great in helping out, since they'd like to see us reactivated as well. I'd hoped to just get involved, but since it's not active and I have organizing experience and some free time, it only made sense for me to take it on.

I'd love to hear any ideas, suggestions, etc. you have. Since I grew up in the unincorporated rural area surrounding a small town in Texas, I don't exactly know a lot about neighborhood associations.

In the last year I've become even more convinced that it's time for everyone to rip out their lawns and plant vegetable gardens and fruit trees.

I can't take credit --my wife is the Master Gardener-- but all our lawn is virtually gone. Our small inner-SE lot now produces not just tomatoes, my favorite thing to grow. but apples, pears, grapes, figs, veggies, salad fixings and olives. Not to mention the native plants and 30plus varieties of roses. It is such a wonderful thing to sit in our garden, surrounded by the cycle of growth.

No pesticides, no lawn chemicals, no barkdust...but "volunteers" spreading out all over, mint and thyme and lavender, and busy, busy bees, friendly ones, just hard at work. So much more interesting than grass, and so much fun to pick some mint for a mojito, or some asian pears for dessert. And our three olive trees...who'd have thought you could grow olives in Portland?

I'd love to hear any ideas, suggestions, etc. you have...I don't exactly know a lot about neighborhood associations.

Come to a meeting, Jenni. Our Hosford-Abernethy Neighborhood Association (HAND), which includes the Central Eastside Industrial District, is in the thick of issues: East Side Streetcar, condo developments gone wild, Milwaukie MAX line, Hawthorne and Powell street issues. I'm the Land Use and Transportation Chair and on the agenda Tuesday is how best to support the City in demanding Springwater Trail connectivity for some new proposed development on the River. The streetcar is also on this agenda, as is our annual elections.

The neighborhood association "system" really is an important way citizens get to have an impact on policy-making. Email me if you want details.

I'd love to come to a meeting, but right now until my leg heals I am trying to limit the number of meetings I attend. Sitting or standing for any length of time can make my leg swell up, which becomes quite uncomfortable. It's meant missing a lot of meetings lately, but the less often it swells, the quicker it'll heal. And I really would like it healed by the end of summer, which is when our Neighborhood Assoc. meetings will start as well as PTA meetings and the like.

If I can fit it in, I'll definitely come. I'm trying to do no more than a meeting or two a week, which means I skip a lot of general meetings and go to planning type meetings.

I think it's going to be interesting doing the neighborhood association here, since things are so different here than many neighborhoods.

I wish we could grow more edible foods. But most of us have no control over the landscaping and grounds. Plus there needs to be room for the dogs (last thing we need is them going on the vegetables -- people don't pick up as it is) as well as all the kids here in the complex.

I do have multiple containers, though, which have strawberries, tomatoes, and various herbs in them. I usually grow a few flowers, too, which makes Abby happy. I can't wait to have a yard of my own where I can have a real garden and some fruit tress.

For anyone who lives in Portland, keep the community garden program in mind. You can rent a garden plot at a very reasonable cost. Great for apartment dwellers or those with very shady yards like mine. Plots are in high demand so you might have to get on a waiting list in your neighborhood.

The parks department sponsors a tour every summer through a number of gardens around the city if you are interested in seeing how it works. I went last year and it was very impressive what people were doing with their gardens.

The tomato plants I planted a week ago are looking good, with any luck I'll be supplying quite a few households with fresh tomatoes again this summer.

I can't take credit --my wife is the Master Gardener-- but all our lawn is virtually gone. Our small inner-SE lot now produces not just tomatoes, my favorite thing to grow. but apples, pears, grapes, figs, veggies, salad fixings and olives.

Olives? Really? I wasn't aware they grew here. Cool.

I love this food not lawns thing. Slowly but surely (slowly because we still have three kids who are using our small patch of backyard grass to kick a ball around), we are also adding food-producing plants to our yard. Last weekend we put in an apple tree. I can't wait until the kids are hungry and I can say "Go outside and pick yourself an apple," instead of opening the fridge.

Nice sentiments, but it conflicts directly with the new urbanism / density movement.

I have a nicely sized garden, but feeding even a tiny portion of my family of six on our 50x100 lot is simply impossible.

I have a nicely sized garden, but feeding even a tiny portion of my family of six on our 50x100 lot is simply impossible.

Well, we certainly don't graze cattle on our 5,000 sq ft lot --that includes our house and detached garage-- but I'm amazed at how much stuff you can fit in, and how productive a garden you can create with such a relatively small amount of land. And I don't see that this conflicts at all with the "new urbanism/density" ethos, at least as we define it.

As Doretta points out, community gardens are a great adjunct for condo and apartment dwellers, and we need to support creating more of them. In the meantime, we can use whatever available spaces we have, to create not just productive, but beautiful landscaping.

And, yeah, we seem too far north to imagine olives, but we've now three very productive trees that have made it through 4 seasons, and they're a heck of a lot more interesting in our yard then the hedge they replaced.

Growing food in the city is not an all-or-nothing proposition. The suggestion wasn't that we can all be self-sufficient on a 5000 foot lot, just that it makes sense to grow food where you can. I've seen the Dufay's garden and it is truly amazing.

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