The Garden

Disclaimer: I just want to state I did not purposely choose to write about my garden as my first post to "compete" with Lila because, come on, we have been friends since like 1st grade, but I did notice my tomato plants are like twice the size of hers. ;)

I have a garden too. It consists of a menagerie of pots with plants named "Husky" and "Homestead" (those are my pretty tomatoes), a variety of herbs: sage, rosemary, cilantro, oregano, sweet basil and thai basil; as well as serrano peppers and a dwarf tangerine tree that is just flowering and smells so sweet! We also had a super cool hummingbird nest a branch away, but I will save that story for another post.

Le jardin has been in full force for about a month now (I live in SoCal and it was a balmy 90 degrees last week) and the bf and I shared our first "Husky" cherry tomato last week. Yes, we cut the 1in. circumference tomato in half and thoroughly enjoyed the juicy, sugary fruit. It was the best tomato we have tasted of the season. :) The thai basil is growing taller every day just so it can fulfill it's destiny of properly flavoring our delicious yellow thai curry recipe and the sweet basil has already been denuded a couple times to make an amazing fennel and tomato pasta.

I love sitting out on our plot of porch and admiring the growing plants, but often I yearn for a plot of land so I could grow a dozen tomato plants or even a small fruit tree orchard with the goal of being self-sustainable. So, a few weeks ago the bf and I attended a free screening of the Oscar nominated documentary, "The Garden." It intrigued me because I read it was about a 14 acre community garden in the middle of LA! I (was jealous) couldn't believe how large the plot of land was and I needed to find out what they grew! The lush community garden was divided into dozens of family plots that provided food to many impoverished residents of the neighborhood. And the drama begins when the property owner wants to sell the land the garden is on. The community togetherness and love for the garden was real and this film really shows the positive impact a garden/food source can have on a community. I recommend renting the movie, if you can, and I will also update y'all on the talk I am attending tonight regarding the movie, with the actual farmers from the LA garden on the panel! San Diego Food Not Lawns is sponsoring the event.

Peas