Garden In The City

When we think of gardens we usually think of farms or little towns where nice big gardens are planted. There will be enough yield for snacking, meals, and canning. That is because there is plenty of room.

However there are often gardens in the city.

Community gardens are becoming more and more popular. Using a vacant lot (with permission from the city of course) people of the neighborhood get together to plant a garden and tend  to it. It does not take much land to yield enough for a lot of people. All it takes is a little planning.

Balconies and patios can house a small garden. A tomato plant or two in a pot, green and hot peppers in other pots will produce more than one family can eat. There will also be room for a few plants.

Herb gardens can be grown on a patio or even inside with a comfy place near a sunny window.

My parents always had a graden. Whether we lived on the farm, in town, or even in the big city there was always a garden.

Each and every garden had the usual edibles. there were tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and green beans. If there was a large enough space they also grew peas, carrots, corn, and various squash. Sometimes there were even a few pumpkins.

Also in each garden was space set aside for Mom's flowers. She always grew zinnias. Some other flowers were sweet peas, snap dragons, four o'clocks, cox combs, petunias, or whatever else caught her fancy.

Daddy had his roses. There were also grape vines even in the city. They do not need much room if they are allowed to climb instead of spread.

They usually had strawberries too. In the city they took a small space and built tiers to plant strawberries. They got a lot of berries from a small space.

I know it sounds like a massive garden but it really took so little space. There was still room for kids to play and family barbecues. City gardens are not as rare as you might think.

My husband and I did not always have gardens but we often did. Tomatoes were a must. I like cucumbers too My husband always said you cannot plant tomatoes and cucumbers together because the tomatoes will taste like cucumbers. But I would get my way and the tomatoes always tasted like tomatoes.

I like green beans a lot. So green beans were planted.My husband liked potatoes so we planted them if there was enough room. Peppers both green and hot grew well for us.

One year we planted some pumpkins along the fence. Squirrels ate most of them but we had one that was growing nicely. We planned on using it for Halloween and then in cooking.

My husband went out one day to stand with pride over his garden. He was providing good fresh food for his family.

That was when he noticed that the pumpkin was gone!

It had not been attacked by any animals. The pumpkin had been neatly cut from the vine.

My husband blamed a neighbor. I do not think it was that neighbor but try to convince my husband. He was having none of it.

We lived in the city. I believe some of the older kids used that cute little pumkin for some sort of nefarious deed. But I had no proof either. Maybe the squirrels had a sharp knife?