Show Off Your Garden in “View From Your Garden” Series
Someone over at the sister site at Down to Earth NW asked recently if the "View From Your Garden" Series is still on. Here's the proposal I made last Spring:
Andrew Sullivan the uber-blogger has a series on his site called “The View From Your Window” where he invites readers of the blog to send in pictures of their view from a window. It has become a staple of his blog and provides a fascinating perspective of people’s lives from around the world. I’d like to propose a much more humble version of this concept, called “The View From Your Garden.” I spent a good bit of blog space last year sharing about our journey of tearing up our lawn and putting in a vegetable garden. I’d like to open it up for the readers of Year of Plenty and the DTE series of blogs to submit photos of the view from your garden. Show us your veggies and flowers as they evolve through the growing season. Send your pictures via the "email me" link listed to the right.
Since Sullivan started his series it has evolved into a reader favorite on his site and has been made into a book. The picture that I submitted to his site as part of the series was even included in the book.
I had a decent response to the garden invitation last summer but I'm hoping that we can really ramp it up this summer and possibly even make it a daily feature. The reach of the blog has expanded quite a bit over the last year so I'm certainly open to gardens beyond the Inland Northwest region. In fact we've got another 2 months before our gardens start to take shape in our northern climate so those of you in the southern climes give us some inspiration by chiming in. If you're tearing out your lawn and putting in veggies send me a couple of pics to show the progression. I'd also love to hear the story of what compels you to garden but pictures and basic location of the garden (city, state) are also fine too.
Click through to see one of the fun submissions from last summer.
Picture: The view from Aylia's garden plot at the Pumpkin Patch community garden work day last Saturday.
Even
better than the pictures are the emails;
I’m currently growing heirloom tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, beans, zucchini, potatoes, basil, squash and pumpkins. I’m really hoping someone can tell me why I insisted on planting so many tomatoes, zucchini and potatoes in my garden? I’m a one person household, why would I need 7 tomato plants? I’m bracing myself for harvest and gathering up recipes as fast as I can. I guess if it comes down to it, I’ll just leave a handful of zucchini on the doorsteps of my neighbors in the middle of the night. :)
By far the pride and joy of my garden has to be the pumpkins. During a pumpkin carving get together with my friends last October, I came up with the idea to have a pumpkin growing contest. There is money on the line for the biggest pumpkin and we have a group of about 10 families with plants in the ground. There has even been some pretty nasty trash talking so far! I can’t think of a better way to celebrate the end of the harvest than with a get together with friends and family to determine who is the 2009 Fat Pumpkin Contest winner.
I love it. Trash talking, subverting the landlord and zucchini hooliganism. Foodie Revolutionaries unite!
