Havana Community Garden

While driving to visit daddy last year, I passed a community garden in Havana, Georgia. I had to get out and snoop. By far the cleanest, most successful community garden I’d seen yet, I had to ask, “How and who runs it?”

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Marigold seed pods

The plot we inherited at the community garden boasted lovely golden and orange marigolds taking up 1/4 of the plot. We left them as they deter bugs, but then they started dropping seed pods.

Seed pod.

Fall garden 2011

We planted today, returning home exhausted, and covered in dirt….

My new life.

Norfolk, VA Farmer’s Market

We hadn’t been to the Five Points Community Farmer’s Market in Norfolk for a full year. Realizing that not every town has  a huge farmer’s market like the one I grew up with in south Georgia, I decided to revisit it with a fresh attitude and stop being prejudiced against small, overpriced markets that are doing the best they can. After venting in the organic food post about what Norfolk didn’t have, I decided to write about what they do have.

Gardening

Gardening.

Zucchini for zucchini bread!

Our first garden together was last year. As children we watched our parents garden, but neither of us had ever tried a garden ourselves.

When you rent, you must ask permission. Some owners are more open than others. We’ve been lucky. Not wanting to destroy the yard, however, we took up only a small space. We bought two raised bed sets  so that we could break them down and take them with us when we moved. We didn’t harvest much food. The cherry tomatoes did okay. We had cucumbers out our ears. We had one tiny cantaloupe and a few jalapeno peppers. We planted the seedlings in the peat pots, which didn’t break down and caused the plants to grow root bound. And apparently, you need two of most plants to cross-pollinate. Now we know.