Featured Garden: 63-OG

It was a weekend in early March about 4 years ago. I looked outside and there were weeds up to my knees in the front yard. Sometimes I have moments where I itch to see an idea come alive. This was one such day. Idea: grow an edible jungle to the sky--a burgeoning green oasis in a concrete desert.

How could I possibly pick a favorite when the form, structure, symmetry and beauty in the plant kingdom is nearly limitless? Looking around me, I'd have to say I love my Asparagus Fern as it reaches to the light with such elegant curves, gentle foliage and countless bifurcations. But I'm a HUGE fan of cacti and succulents as well. They're like creatures from a whole 'nother world. ALIENS! My Orbea semota bloomed for the first time this spring and it was incredible! Remarkable colors and a fragrance of putrid rotting meat! Crazy plants!

My soil. Each year I watch the texture, composition and fertility evolve and change. It is such a dynamic world of life filled with complexity and intricate structure. Life abounds in but a single teaspoon of such loam. As Wendell Berry puts in his poem "The Man Born to Farming": "The grower of trees, the gardener, the man born to farming, / whose hands reach into the ground and sprout, / to him the soil is a divine drug. He enters into death / yearly, and comes back rejoicing."

I struggle to balance my desire to pack as many vegetables in a small space as possible with the fundamental spacing requirements of my plants. I make things work in the 300 square feet of space I have out front, but it leaves me longing for an acre or five of my own. Mark my words, one day I'll have a venerable Garden of Eden big enough to grow at least 5 percent of all the plants I'd actually like to grow. :)

Experiment, observe and record. Never be afraid to try and fail. Grow things just to grow them. Listen to your plants and they'll tell their story. That, and make as much gosh-darn compost as you can! Can't get enough of that gardener's gold.