The beginning...

I moved to Long Beach a year and a half ago to follow love... only 25 miles from where I'd been for 17 years, but a world apart.  I worried that while my jazz musician "squeeze" was out playing gigs, I'd be left a little lost in our vast loft without local friends.  But, as fate would have it we moved into a fantastic building with very "social" folks (read there is a lot of wine drinking happening in the building!).  And within a month my neighbor Kristin had introduced me to our community garden just three blocks away.  I had a hobby!  I had a friend!  I had a 5x12 plot of dirt!

I'm a country girl.  My friend's families were farmers and while my family wasn't, I had two horses of my own.  Being near nature is essential to my well being.  I hadn't realized after years of city living, though, how essential until I started to dig in the dirt.

Being a country girl, however, doesn't mean I know how to grow anything.  All attempts at our home to have a garden during my childhood only resulted in well fed deer!  But, memories of my Uncle Al's home garden began to take shape as I explored the various plantings: the taste of fresh peas right out of the pod,  red juicy tomatoes off the vine and the smell of marigolds surrounding them came flooding back.

What I didn't expect as I wandered through the other gardeners' plots was that I was being thrust into a full on existential crisis:  who was I?  Was I someone that wanted order: a practical garden with well marked, straight lines of vegetables organized by size and planted as directed for depth and space?  Was I someone that wanted fancy:  things thrown together more for the eye than the table, fanciful plants and flowers pushed willingly or not willingly into a 5x12 plot of dirt?  Was I someone that wanted ease:  cactus that could just be enjoyed on a rest after a bike ride to the garden but no digging or continual planting involved?

Don't ask me the answer... I'm trying to find out.

So, before I begin this blog in earnest, it seems I should get you up to date on the two seasons of "crops" I planted and the changes along the way: