How Is Your Garden Growing?

I figured that a lot of folks are in the gardening/planting mode (or in the last month or so), of prettying their yards, and perhaps starting and taking care of a vegetable garden during these tumultuous times. It feels good to dig in the dirt with our hands and let Mother Nature take care of the rest. Our yard in Maryland is quite sandy for a vegetable garden (I've tried multiple times and maybe need to get a few raised beds), but the flowers and shrubs are showing off their stuff right now.

Back in elementary school at Benjamin Franklin, a Cleveland Public School, they had a summer garden program for all their students, if they wished, and depending on your grade, determined the size plot you had. I believe we had to show up two times a week, and needed to find "substitute" should your family go on a vacation. The garden program continues to this day, though maybe not with students from the school, but rather a community endeavor no matter where you live. I have a couple of friends who decided to join in the fun as an adult this summer. Check out their program here: http://benfranklincommunitygarden.org/

It's the largest community garden in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, and it's thriving much to my delight (and, I bet, a bunch of other folks too). My photo below is when I was 10 years old and near my garden plot. A reporter from the Cleveland Plain Dealer came out to showcase and highlight the gardens during the summer of 1972 and took my photo for his article. 

I am thankful I held a garden there for about 10 years, and learned so much from the horticulturalist about plants, flowers and taking care of something from a tiny seed. And if the "powers that be" thought our vegetables were good enough, and even our flowers, we were allowed to enter them in the Cuyahoga County Fair in late summer. 

BSoleille! The bright side of any garden; flowers or vegetables, it's all good for the soul.

Terri