The best thing that’s happened at our place this growing season is that the garden is back under Leah’s attentive and creative care.
Last year I staged a bit of a strong-arm takeover of that piece of earth. I’d read a story in an organic gardening magazine about how mulching could make for an efficient, fairly weed-free, low-maintenance garden, and mine was all of those things, but also boring.
Leah is much more thoughtful in the way she gardens, treating the space as a kind of living, evolving art project. Her garden--not large at all, maybe 15-feet square--contains a sweet little do-dad here, a whimsical knickknack there--interesting and decorative touches that make her garden the most welcoming and peaceful place this side of Frodo and Sam's beloved Shire.
Leah's garden is planted with chard, green beans, onions, broccoli, peppers, summer squash...this list goes on and on. Strawberry plants are giving us more tasty treats than even the hungriest of Hobbits could probably eat. Leah brought a bowl of berries into the kitchen yesterday morning and I placed them in a spot where there was nice light for a photograph. By the end of the day, the strawberries were gone...and the photographer had red teeth.
