Put a Fork in It

I went to the Sharing Garden, yet again, at the community garden for refugees-of-war in the most diverse square mile in the USA. I had created it a year and a half ago when my scheduled departure for Peace Corps Uganda as an Agribusiness Specialist (with a secondary project working with women and girls on…

“Good, right?”

I was leaving when I saw them. The cinderblocks. It was Bob again, I knew. I had carried a dozen or so of them up a little hill to create my first community garden bed way back in 2009 when where he lived (and I still do) became the newest city in the United States…

God’s Work (or Bob’s Work)

It’s a very specific feeling, and I recognize it.  It feels like God’s work. Or Bob’s work.  Bob was my friend with whom I created or rejuvenated about a dozen food-growing gardens in Metro Atlanta. We built a pilot garden for the first school for refugee-children-of-war in the United States, which was gonna be a…

Bed Springs

“Bed springs,” I would have texted. Just that. And my friend Bob would have replied, “Bed springs?” And then I would have added, “The refugees use old bed springs as fences around their gardens at the Jolly Avenue Community Garden in Clarkston. Imagine what is possible.” And he would have answered, “Well, they ARE garden…

“Manly Gardening”

My friend Bob died a year ago. The seeds he planted continue to grow.

Missing Bob

I chop down local bamboo each year and use it to build what I call a Rube Goldberg Crop Machine, where vining and rambling crops in my home garden can cascade and tumble all summer-into-fall. When the day comes when I decide the beans, tomatoes, and bottle gourds have slowed down enough to remove them…