Tuesday, July 18, 2017

The full bloom of summer

Isn't it wonderful, what a little love can do?

The before and after pictures of my little community garden plot never cease to amaze me. It has already gone through many iterations since becoming mine last November, and I'm blown away by the amount of produce that can come out of just a 5-by-10 plot. I've grown Brussels sprouts, lettuces, potatoes, garlic, cabbages and broccolini. Currently, it's pushing up tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and strawberries. There are herbs, too... far more than I can possibly use: parsley, three kinds of basil, fennel, dill, thyme, lemon thyme (my favorite), garlic chives, rosemary, tarragon, purple sage, pineapple sage and even shiso. I've added a few flowers too, namely dahlias, foxgloves and petunias, for color and attracting the good bugs. "Guests, not pests," is my new motto.




If you live in a city and are without access to your own immediate gardening space, I really can't encourage you enough to join up with your local community garden. The reward is equal to your commitment, and I'm fortunate to be able to get there nearly every other day.

In the words of British garden writer Penelope Hobhouse, "I feel protected from the world by my plants." She's absolutely right, a garden is a place of respite, even though my attempt at videoing the bees joyously buzzing around my African blue basil implies otherwise...







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