During the Master Gardener Volunteer training course, each participant completes a Community Action Project, their first act of service in their new role. This post is Michele’s project, and hopefully the first of many Fruition posts from her and her cohort!
Gardening has always been a part of my life in one way or another. As a child I was fascinated by my grandfather’s terraced garden on the hill behind his house in Pennsylvania. It was bursting with vegetables and some flowers and to me it was magical.
Fast forward to my first garden as an adult. Vegetables were planted in straight rows, on their own, each vegetable in a designated area. Flowers and shrubs in a separate area. I recalled my dad telling me about a friend who had a tiny veggie garden at their campsite, where there were always some flowers planted with the veggies “to keep his vegetables happy.” Flowers certainly make me happy and growing my own veggies gives me joy also, so I began to research companion planting.
That was like opening a can of worms – so many complicated lists and dos and don’ts and conflicting views, so I decided to try my own version of “companion” planting. I began with putting in a small cottage style garden full of self seeding flowers, hollyhocks, poppies, rudbeckia, bachelor buttons.
Then my husband built raised beds for me to help make my gardening more manageable. I try to put at least one herb, one type of flower and one or more veggies in each raised bed. I always surround my tomatoes with two or more varieties of basil; they look so pretty together and they are delicious! Now tomatoes are my favorite thing to grow in the summer vegetable garden.
I plant zinnias in almost every bed, they are beautiful and the pollinators love them. Borage volunteers happily throughout the garden, and as long as it isn’t bullying any other plants I leave it to grace my garden with blue star shaped flowers, also keeping the pollinators happy.
Wanting to maximize my growing space I decided to create an arch in my garden. Cattle panels supported by metal t posts work great for this. That first year I planted squash and beans and they quickly covered the arch. My granddaughters loved walking through the tunnel and picking beans. It was fun and I could see it was magical for them.
I started hanging little decorations here and there, wind chimes and suncatchers. I added another garden arch in my cottage garden. And of course every garden needs a place to sit, take a rest, reflect, or just enjoy… a bright blue bistro table and chairs did the trick.
I keep a bird bath in my little herb garden, which is next to the entrance to my main vegetable garden. Each year birds build a nest in the birdhouse on the corner of the garage and we usually we see two or three families come and go throughout the summer. And the hummingbirds! They love visiting the flowers in the garden, as do a variety of butterflies. I love sitting and watching them grab a little something to eat or drink.
In addition to the pleasures of creating and lingering in these spaces, we enjoy the harvest too! Here is a simple recipe that I like to make using my favorite garden veggies and herbs. Feel free to customize it to your own taste.
Summer Tomato and Cucumber Salad
- 2 or 3 tomatoes, whatever color or variety you like, cut in wedges. I like to use red, orange and yellow!
- 1 cucumber, sliced
- ½ sweet onion, thinly sliced
- 1 clove of garlic minced (I add more, we are garlic lovers!)
- Fresh herbs of your choice, chopped. I use basil and oregano.
- Olive oil to taste, and a dash of balsamic vinegar.
- Salt and pepper to taste. Enjoy!
