Grace's Favorite "Vegetable"

Grace was finally rewarded for her work in the corn bed - preparing the soil, planting the corn shoots, and posing for weekly photos with the growing corn.  I thought it might be too early to harvest, but it was perfect. Grace's favorite vegetable is technically a grain, but that's okay. This week it was everybody's favorite!

Corn's not an efficient crop to grow in a small garden like ours since it takes up so much space for the amount of food it produces.  But we're really growing primarily for taste and beauty (and happiness), and Grace loves corn, so corn's gotta be in there someplace.  As do cherry tomatoes for John, broccoli and  basil for me (and Steven across the street who loves pesto)... you see how it goes.  I long for a real working garden, planted for sustaining my family, but I feel lucky to have this one.  Lucky because it provides beautiful, tasty food to supplement our meals, lucky that a crop failure (like the bean sprouts that were pecked out by the chickens (yes, we experimented with letting them run freely again...) isn't a big deal to us nutrition-wise, and lucky because the fact that we are moving is settling in and I am going to miss it. 

We'll have another garden - a small one in our tiny front yard and possibly a few random things growing in the back in the spots of sun available (buildings all around).  Once we get there, we'll also find other places to grow things - a home for elders has contacted me about helping them grow a fall garden, the after-school center at the police station would like us to garden with the children, and there are some other areas in which we could develop a community garden.  So we'll have a garden; it just won't be this one.

Ugh, moving.  This is a good move for all kinds of reasons, but it's still hard. The next few weeks are going to be so full of packing and cleaning here and painting and organizing there!  I need a good attitude!  I need some coffee.  And a few more tasty, beautiful meals made from the fruits and grains of our labor here.