It has been a glorious summer for the garden. Buckets of multicolor tomatoes including lumpy heirlooms and sugar sweet ones shaped liked plums and cherries. Monstrous zucchini, glossy eggplants, tangles of nasturtium, and bouquets of collards, lettuces, and Russian kale. The pepper maggot attack in early August was an unexpected crisis, but once averted, we had two full months of daily bounty and then some.
Alumnuts and his baby
The community areas gave us pints of red and gold raspberries, tart blackberries, sour cherries, and crisp apples. I didn’t get a chance to capture any fresh figs yet but I may still have another week or so to give it a try.
Last week the gardeners celebrated the end of the season with a harvest celebration. Heyy, an Irish and bluegrass trio (fiddle, guitar, bouran) played first followed by a Balkan trio (accordion, fiddle, bass). I toted Moonbrine Pickles to the potluck and more ambitious folks contributed garden inspired pesto lasagna, stuffed cabbage, black sesame slaw and cinnamon applesauce cake.
Tessah preparing a plate
Fruits of our labor
As part of as assignment for Summer Community Arts Symposium I researched the significant history of the garden and its place role as a venue for public art. It was terrific to see today’s gardeners carrying on the community spirit that gave the garden its start.
My ambitions for next summer are to grow more varieties of tomatoes, rainbow chard (as I had been envying my neighbors’ plot all summer), more colors of zinnia, and more eggplant. Moussaka, anyone?
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