These days the topic of gardening keeps coming up, and I keep having to reveal that I have a horribly black thumb. I have repeatedly decimated succulents and philodendrons — plants supposedly un-killable — and even cut flowers seem to immediately wilt at my touch.
My neighbor B, however, is blessed with the gardening gene and under his gentle hands, flora explode in lushness and ripeness. So when he knocked on my door asking if I’d like some of his lettuce, I swiftly took me and my black thumb to our little community garden to gather up some beautiful leaves (our section is sad and dilapidated as you’ll see).
We live in a rather unique situation which I’ll tell you about one day, but it’s a long story so suffice it to say that we live in a mid-century townhouse (of which there are four in a row) and share a gigantic front yard, backyard and community garden with three other families and they are the best neighbors. We jokingly call it the “compound” and even have a Google email group by the same name as cookouts and gatherings are frequent. I love that all the kids in the families are close in age and are, in fact, like siblings. Just this past weekend, neighbor V built water bottle launch rockets with the kids in the backyard, and I listened to their squeals of joy as I sewed (and sewed and sewed…lately I think this is all I do. I don’t get sick of it – such a strange and exhilarating thing).
With the amazingly fresh lettuce from the garden, I made a salad with white nectarines, blueberries, cucumber and avocado. It was delicious and evoked the tastes of summer. Above is a shot of B’s side of the garden – so full of life and edible plants.
And here’s our side, full of weeds and tarps from winter. Don’t judge…it’s not too late to start gardening, right? Maybe there’s hope for me yet.
Do you garden? What’s your plantable of choice? I can’t leave you with that sad image, so here’s another shot of our yummy salad:
Fun! We just got our garden planted this weekend and I was thinking how late our harvest would be this year… I love planting beans and peas and encouraging the kids to eat them right off the vines. This year I even planted some watermelon. We’ll see how that goes…
Watermelon is my favorite fruit! I eat it almost daily once they’re in season — hope they do well, Marjie!
I love to garden, but didn’t have a chance to get any vegetables in this year. Herbs grow like weeds in our soil (I did get those in), and I’ve had good luck with greens like lettuce and chard. One of my goals for next year is to plant a small strawberry patch!
Herbs from the garden are the best! I always lament how expensive those small packs of grocery store herbs are and they rarely seem fresh. Maybe that’s what I’ll start planting…
That salad looks amazing! Three cheers for green-thumb neighbors who generously share:) I attempt a small veggie patch in our backyard and actually really enjoy gardening, but I get continually discouraged when the groundhogs (yes, plural) and deer eat my produce before I can harvest it. So this year I joined a CSA and will let others do the hard work for me:)
Whoa, groundhogs? I had no idea Michigan was a hotbed of groundhogs! We have some vicious raccoons that like to forage our trash cans, and they’re huge! I think CSA is a brilliant idea 🙂
what a beautiful salad! i too have a black thumb (apparently, green ones skip a generation since my mom is prolific in her greenness). however, part of why we relocated to n. ca from the midwest was to be able to grow our own food year round. we finally got planters in and filled them with our own hand selected soil/compost/pete mix a few weeks ago, and our garden has in the last few days exploded into a jurassic park looking phenomenon. i swear, all i did was water it. that has never worked for me before. i am about to email our neighbors to pawn off all the sunflower seedlings i started in cups thinking they all would die, but all the plants are fighting for space now. i suppose there’s a reason this is the fertile valley… btw, your living situation sounds charming. communities are so hard to cultivate with the existence of air conditioning and social media, eh?
My mom is a genius gardener too! Davis is so renowned for agriculture, how lucky for you to be surrounded by such fertile land, Ashley! And yes, our living situation is quite charming and we were so fortunate to have found our house.
Mmm… salad. Who needs a green thumb when you got awesome neighbors?!
Exactly! But it would be nice to upgrade my black thumb to something less planticidal…
In our climate, kale is pretty foolproof. And hey, it makes a great salad!
I love kale! Have you ever had homemade kale chips? SO yummy.
Your ‘compound’ sounds idyllic! At the moment I have broccoli, leeks, kale, snow peas, sugar snap peas and garlic growing, as well as various herbs, lettuces, rocket etc. But for low-maintenance gardening I recommend spring onions. No insects seem to want to eat them, and they can sit there happily for months and months, ready to be picked whenever you want one. If you cut them at the base instead of uprooting them, they will even grow back all by themselves!
You sound like the consummate gardener, Marisa 🙂 I’ll have to give the spring onions a go. If I could get herbs, kale and apring onions to grow this summer, I’ll consider this a spectacularly successful homesteading experiment 🙂
I’m just learning as I go – it’s my first time growing broccoli, kale and leeks, so who knows how they’ll work out!
Oh I would love to here more about the compound, how cool! As for the garden, it is never too late to start planting :). I love to garden and have no formal training. In my opinion plants need three things: good soil, regular water, and attention. Yep, if you want you garden to grow simply hang it with your plants. As for what to plant, start with some Swiss chard, it is so very simple and delicious!
I think the compound sounds dreamy, too! We have something like that, living in an apartment in the city, but at times when I crave a little more space, I’d love to find a place like you described and move in with all my friends.
We have a p-patch, and with an early start things are looking great. But with this NW climate, I think there are things we can plant now to replace the lettuce and spinach that come in spring. I’m not sure what those things are so I should look into that soon!