Notes from the Kitchen Counter

Here’s a recent picture of The Garden, also known as What Were You Thinking Putting So Many Plants in There? When I read the cantaloupe seed package it said to space them five feet apart. But that seemed silly, because I only had twelve feet of raised garden bed, and we really love cantaloupe. So I planted 4 seedlings right next to each other. Now I have cantaloupe vines snaking in and out of the fence, up and around its neighbor, two corn stalks, and all the way down the length of the whole bed. Tomorrow I will wake up to find that it has climbed up the back of the house, and is reaching toward the window to choke us while we sleep.

And that’s just the cantaloupe. I also jammed in cucumbers, tomatoes, beans, yellow squash, basil, peppers and zucchini. Now that everything is full-grown, we have to dig through the canopy to the jungle floor to pick whatever’s ripe. It’s like a treasure hunt.

But what amazes me is how much food you can grow in such a small space, even if you do follow the directions on the packet. Imagine how much food an entire neighborhood could generate if each house had a small garden. I don’t want to get into a big lecture about local food and saving the planet because you’ve already heard that whole story. I just think it’s fun to grow something other than grass and weeds and perennials for a change. Something that looks nice on a dinner plate.