On the Garden

This is my second year growing a garden with vegetables. We decided to grow a salsa garden + herbs. We have blighted tomatoes (sad, but that seem to be flourishing nonetheless), poblano peppers, jalapeno peppers, green peppers. We have herbs: parsley (curly and flat), rosemary, sage, thyme, basil (traditional, Thai, purple), marjoram, oregano, cilantro. Some of our basil returned from the window box of herbs we grew last year.

We are growing it in containers on top of the defunct hot tub that our landlords have promised to take away for the last 3 summers. Last year, we tried to use the hot tub for summer water fun, but it has a leak and needs some restorative work, so it was basically a money suck.

I love the garden. I love it more with a partner. I love especially how the tiny, tiny jalapenos grow up into the large, hot ones; how the tomatoes swell a bit more each day; how the purple basil--the only thing we grew from seeds--has risen and flourished and gets more beautiful each day. I love looking at it three times a day, recycling the fish tank or beer ice water into water for our plants. It makes me feel maternal (without the adverse effects on my body) and like our household is more efficient.

Our rosemary is so giant, it tripled in size, we are going to try to get it big enough to make our Christmas tree.

Another nice thing about growing a garden on an elevated space is that the pest issues are diminished significantly. We have had a few beetles on our basil, but besides that, we have been pest and weed lucky.