Neighborhood Pea Patch

We're lucky to have a really nice community garden that is run by our neighbor, Priscilla, who is a Master Gardener.  She and her husband and some other neighbors have done a lot of work to create little "pea patches" of beautiful rich soil for anyone who would like to garden.  Priscilla also grows herbs and flowers that are available for anyone to take as needed.  If we're giving a dinner party, we can get some last-minute parsley and mint for garnishes, and a bouquet of spectacular dahlias for the table.

We have a lovely pond in our backyard built by Stan, so he was the one asked to create a water feature for the "relaxing area" of the garden.  Here it is in progress - he has to mount a solar panel for the pump, as there's no electricity there. He says it's not arranged yet - I'll post a photo later when it's completed.

While it was raining yesterday, we went to Lowes to buy some plants.  They come in convenient compostable pots now, so instead of having plastic pots to recycle, you just plant the whole thing.  Of course, it was after planting that I read the fine print, and had to dig them back up to tear the bottoms off the pots.  Later we'll add carrot seeds and a couple of tomato plants.

Up until this year, Stan has been the gardener in our family, and I have just enjoyed harvesting as needed.  This year I'll help too, as I'm retired now and have no excuse.

Here's our plot, before and after the work we did today.  We just moved to this plot this year, as it is sunnier than our old one that was in the shade on the other side.  The prior gardener left some rhubarb, so maybe we'll get a pie later in the year  : )

 I also planted a few primroses in the pot by our front door for some spring color.

Remember the Aerogardens I wrote about earlier?  Here they are at 5 weeks.  The tomatoes have been pruned and are doing great.  The herbs are slower.  Both of the light bulbs in the older garden went out at the same time, and we only had one replacement bulb.  I was unwilling to pay for overnight shipping, so the herbs on one side had to wait for the new bulb to arrive.  Basil is hard to grow outdoors, but it is the best herb in the Aerogarden - we pruned it the other night and put it in our spaghetti sauce.  That scraggley one at the right is dill - it grew very long stems before getting any leaves, but seems to be perking up.

I'll make progress reports on the pea patch and the Aerogardens later in the season.