It's Time to Start a Garden (Club)

I just came in from my garden carrying a handful of yellow pearshaped cherry tomatoes from a plant which grew out of nowhere and is 4 foot high and loaded with tomatoes. In my other hand was a green Bell pepper from a plant I put in the ground last year and forgot to pull out in the fall when it looked all dead. To my surprise, it started to flower a couple of months ago and has eight or more peppers on it - some ready to eat. 

Before heading out again with my big salad gathering bowl, I thought about how lucky we are to live here in Lemon Grove, in the best growing climate in the world.

My garden, only started a little over a year ago, has given us plenty of greens—Kale, Collard, Sorrel, Dandeloin, Cilantro, Parsley, Fennel and more for our daily green drink and tons of other greens for salads galore.

Fave Beans are growing all over, fixing nitrogen in my soil as well as given me leaves to throw in the salad, green drink or sautee, young beans to eat like green beans and big delicious green favas to steam or stir fry after shelling.

Later, I'll let them dry and have some to plant next year and/or to soak and prepare as one of my favoite simple middle eastern breakfasts: fool. Cooked warm fava beans with lots of garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, salt and cumin, topped with chopped green onions and tomatoes and eaten with pita bread. Yummy!

Did I mention daily fresh strawberrie, creamy guavas and the promise of the first blackberries getting ready to ripen. Goji berries are starting to get ripe and some of the trees we planted last year promise to give us fruit this year.

Thining 30 or more tiny peaches off our small tree was one of the hardest things I have done in the garden—digging up bermuda grass in heavy clay is easy compared to that. But the experts are telling me it has to be done. Otherwise, the branches might break, the peaches will be small and bland instead of big and tasty.

By now, you might be able to tell how much I love my garden. Just this past week, several people have mentioned that it is a shame that we don't have a garden club in Lemon Grove—especially since so many houses have ample growing space and many would like to grow more of their own food, but have no idea how to start.

Even if we don't want to grow that much for ourselves, there are sadly many people in our beautiful town who don't have enough to eat on a daily basis. Wouldn't it be great to be able to share the bounty of our yards? Well, I and a couple of my friends think so.

That is why we decided to start the Lemon Grove Organic Edibles Garden Club. Hope you will join in. Soon, there will be more info on patch and also on meetup.com. Feel free to leave some comments what day and time would work for you.