My Far Away Garden

Here are a few pictures of my far away garden. It really only takes a few minutes to walk to my plot in the community gardens, but since it's not one of the gardens in my yard, I call it the Far Away Garden. Strider likes to come with me when it's not too hot:

This is my plot, such as it is. It needs another good weeding. The lush plants to the upper left, alas, are not mine:

In my plot I have sunflowers, corn, tomatoes, peppers, okra, beets, marigolds, and a handful of cosmos flowers. I also have beans, peas, squash, and watermelon planted among the sunflowers and corn. I'm sorry to report that it looks like the squash vine borer has already begun to decimate my squash plants.

Here are some tomatoes beginning to show on one of the plants. The tomatoes I have here are heirloom varieties left-over from the veg. garden in my back yard. They stayed a little too long in their starter pots and are a bit stunted compared to the ones in my yard. I started them from seed:

Beets. What a lovely color:

Okra, I believe this is a variety called Silver Queen:

One of my three cosmos flowers:

A neighboring gardener in the community plots last year gave me some of the seed heads from the flowers in her garden. I planted two rows, but only three plants came up (actually, I think four came up, but I accidentally pulled one while weeding).

Those lush tomatoes in the neighboring garden are always the talk of the community plots. They are all heirloom varieties, and there are many varieties present. The reason they are so lush is because they are planted with Tomato-tone, an organic kind of fertilizer:

Only organic practices are allowed in the community plots. I added compost to my garden before planting, but I have come to realize how important manure is, too. I neglected to blend it in this year, and I can see the difference. I won't forget it next year.

There is one particular wild apple tree in the park in which the community plots are located. It always has the richest, reddest-looking apples of all. They're already beginning to ripen:

At least I think it's a wild apple. It may have been part of the farmhouse garden of the old farm that used to be on this land. In any case, it's wild now. The fruit is too buggy to eat, but it's always tempting because it's usually a gorgeous color.

I'll show more pics when things are bigger and beginning to produce.