Reflections on the Community Garden

Yum! I’ve just returned from working in my community garden bed where I popped a warm, juicy, ripe, red tomato in my mouth as I weeded, watered and planted some new pepper plants. Upon arriving home I enjoyed a glass of mint-flavored tea made from leaves harvested from a friend’s actively growing bed. Lunch included more yellow and red tomatoes, this time icy cold from the fridge. Yea! Summer’s here.

Almost a month ago I finished picking snow peas, sugar snap peas, green beans and lettuce from my same garden bed. All those spent plants were pulled out before I traveled north to celebrate my older granddaughter’s high school graduation and my younger granddaughter’s second birthday. While visiting I noted my son’s 12 raised garden beds in his large backyard, brimming with tomatoes that he won’t be able to start picking before early to mid-July. My daughter’s single raised bed in her much smaller backyard contains tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers. My little granddaughter with her small pink watering can helps her mommy take care of the garden. My son and daughter, like most teens, were not crazy about weeding our family’s raised bed garden in Ohio, but they did enjoy picking and eating the produce. It’s good to now see them value the gardening experience and pass it on to their children.

The tomatoes I’m growing are not as large as those I buy from Dempsey’s to slice for burgers, but they taste wonderful just the same. I think the two folks admiring our community garden this morning (1 renter and 1 part-time resident owner) also appreciated the gift of a few tomatoes for their lunch.

The fellowship enjoyed when working with like-minded folks who don’t mind getting dirt under their fingernails is priceless. We share gardening triumphs, frustrations, and plans for what to try next. We all also enjoy the beauty of the many flowers in the garden. I’m sorry I remember neither the name of the poet nor the whole poem, but I always think of these last two lines when I’m working in the garden:

“You’re nearer God’s heart in a garden
Than anywhere else on earth.”

Sarah Albert

GARDENING IN THE EARLY SUMMER

Vegetables and Herbs

Provide water as needed for cool weather crops that are still hanging on. Harvest them promptly since most will not tolerate the heat that is about to arrive. Set out tomatoes, pepper and eggplant. Stake or cage early tomatoes. Now is the time to direct seed bush & pole beans, cucumbers, melons and squash. Direct seed dill. Basil is best begun indoors and transplanted. Sow a second crop from seeds of these herbs flower.

Flowers

Continue planting hot weather annual favorites such as impatiens, marigolds, portulacas, vincas, sunflowers and zinnias. Pinch back chrysanthemums to make them bushy. Plant dahlias, caladiums and other semitropical bulbs. Now the soil is warm and south-facing walls heat up try fast growing annual vines such as hyacinth bean vines, black-eyed susan vines and morning glories on trellises. If needed prune azaleas, forsythias and other shrubs that bloomed in the spring. Cut back bougainvillea vines that are too big to manage.

Fruits

Thin tree fruits so the green fruits are at least 4 inches apart. Fertilize berries and begin irrigating them. Mulch strawberries heavily.

Source: Warm-Climate Gardening by Barbara Pleasant