Why I like summer

I'm heat-intolerant and have a sun allergy (really!), so summer could be just a so-so experience for me -- a few months of sunscreen and sweat. But in fact I love the summer, and this is entirely because of the garden. Yes, despite living in a small apartment with a little strip of asphalt for a back yard, we have a garden. Bonnie is the gardener, and she plants a dense container garden every year. By August, the back yard is very green. A razor-thin line of asphalt is visible down the middle, but otherwise the plants spilling over the edges of boxes, planters, pots, and raised beds obscure the ground from sight . . . and do a fair job of hiding fences, walls, neighbors, cats, and so on.

What's especially wonderful is getting tasty produce from the garden. It's truly amazing what one can grow in even a shred of space. It's hard to grasp why people with real yards grow boring grass when they could have tasty herbs and vegetables. (I could go on about how I loathe neighborhood associations that insist on grass lawns in a time of food and water shortages, but I won't.) Anyway, this year brought a respectable crop of basil (standard, bush, and sacred), hard-necked garlic, oregano, thyme, tomatoes, and quite a few other goodies. 

( See the crazy tomatoes . . . )