#Gardening

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The made me consider the imbalance in my practice. We neglected our garden last year and it took us a long time to spring back from that. So I think I’ve overcorrected by succession planting ad infinitum because my goal is to always have something to eat in the garden. But rest is important. Fallow periods are important. In temperate climates, ppl rest in the winter. Here, the summer is a time when gardeners take a break. I need to find a middle ground. @gardening

I'm installing a native plant pollinator garden for my neighbors, at the end of our street's back alley. Here's the first photo of my progress in implementing my sketched-out plan.

A key part of this design was choosing plants happy in the shade, since this is under large mature trees, and I've had some conflicting opinions on shade tolerance from different sources. I don't have much experience with shade gardening, since my yard is in full sun.

The garden plan drawn in pencil on graph paper. It shows three plots on either side of a sidewalk next to the ramp to the alley. It includes a key for interpreting the letters representing the following plants on the map: Eurybia macrophylla - bigleaf aster Heuchera villosa - hairy alumroot Eurybia divaricata - white wood aster Packera aurea - golden ragwort Solidago flexicaulis - zigzag goldenrod Conoclinium coelestinum - blue mistflower
The first triangle-shaped plot, with plants planted IRL. The blue mistflower is blooming, and I've used rice hulls as a sort of mulch.

Seeing a video of a grocery shopper grabbing a single green pepper for $2, caused me to ponder the value of I've always looked at it as therapeutic, and a way to guarantee freshness and variety in our diets. But to think of it as a way to save money? Apparently so. Here's just a couple of plates, pulled from the refrigerator, holding some of what we've harvested in the last week.

Two large plates, resting on a black electric stovetop, both filled with vegetables, including orange, red, green and black peppers of various shapes and sizes, okra pods and a large, black eggplant. Pepper varieties include bell, jalapeno, poblano, banana, and Anaheim.