Gardening wherever

You know how sometimes you'll be in the car listening to the radio when a song like, say, The Pretender's My City was Gone comes on, a song you've probably heard a hundred times, but this particular day you'll really be listening to it and be so gobsmacked by how brilliant it is that not even two bickering children in the backseat can ruin your delirious, revelatory state? I'm just saying. I had a gardening moment like that recently.

You know I have a challenging, shady, slope-y yard -- I've whined about it enough. I can grow some things, like cucumbers, greens and berries. Other hot-loving veggies, like tomatoes and peppers have proved futile. They mock me. So summer after summer I study the sun -- where is it spending the most time in my yard? Renee, like an endearing broken record, has repeatedly said, "the front yard already!" I have resisted because our front yard is heavily landscaped with established shrubs and small trees. Moving them around to find room for a few tomato plants is not appealing. And then I took a good look at our gravel path. The wide gravel path that I've walked down every day for the past nine years...

If I cut away all that miserable ivy and transplant the ground cover, I can carve out a wide enough space up against the stone wall for about three tomato plants, and still have enough room for the path. The fountain, which we never use, already has water piped to it...there's my irrigation. That spot is in the sun all day. Hello? Could it be more perfect? And it was there all the time.

I was so happy to read this morning that Seattle is allowing residents to garden their sidewalk parking strips without needing permits now. Now there is a city that understands the importance of local food and growing your own. Portland might get there one day...and maybe your city, too? If a weedy, parched parking strip is your only sunny piece of real estate (much like a stone wall) then it's just begging for vegetables, doncha think?

Happy weekending!