Archive for June, 2009
the magical garden
homes and habitats
every day i see an artist’s mark being made to our ever growing creative community….. it makes me love athens more and more. last week i stumbled upon a wonderful community garden, i like to call it “the magical garden”.
a local couple with a passion for gardening, found an empty lot with the idea to start a community garden. covered in kudzu vine, they decided to tackle the roots and made place for everyone. after engineering an irrigation and “no- flood” system they began to clean up the land and get it ready for planting. five weeks, lots of rain, and many hours of labor later, the garden is bursting with energy. new vines, fruits, vegetables, and herbs have now rooted and taken over the once kudzu infested area. the space is welcome to all and everyone is encouraged to lend a hand and harvest the goods. it is so inspiring and makes me wonder how many mouths you could feed with a garden in every empty lot…..
the couple is now traveling for the summer, feeling joy, knowing that people are enjoying the magical place that they have created and left for us all to nurture.
an overview of the garden
beans, happily growing up locally harvested bamboo
tomatoes growing in a bed of leaves
some flowering dill
rock found during clean-up line the beds
roots of the kudzu vines that once called this land thier home
a collection of treasures found on the land during clean-up
flowers…soon to be beans
supply storage and tools, made from palates
toscano “dinosaur” kale, ready to eat!
corn growing tall
a magical place!
peach cobbler. the dessert of the south
garden to table
last week georgia peaches started to ripen. i made s quick trip to the country where you can find peach stands by the dozen. i picked up a bucket of peaches that were picked earlier that morning and also walked through thomas orchards to see the lovely trees displaying the season’s bounty.
my visit to the orchard inspired me to make a cobbler, the dessert of the south. you can use whatever fruit is in season and serve it up with some fresh whipped cream or ice cream. some make thier cobblers with a crumb topping, i prefer using a sweet biscuit topping.
an immaculate garden
instant inspiration
our neighbor chatham has a wonderful ‘garden’ in her front yard. not a blade of grass in sight…
to achieve this, cover your yard with heavy-duty black plastic and weight it down with field stones- a way to kill back the weeds and grass without using chemicals. after a few months baking in the summer sun, there will be a blank canvas below.
then, turn the soil good
and start sowing!
