Sun Gold Tomatoes from Patio Pots. (No connection to blog. Just love the photo and wanted to use it :))

Beautiful cool weather, what an amazing change for a hot and humid August. So we headed over to the community garden plot to harvest the green beans that were taking off. They were an unusual crop in that they looked like pirate earrings, curved so perfectly. As I was clipping the beans from the stocks, Patrick remarked that it looked like something was going after the eggplant leaves.  As we inspected the eggplants closely, we discovered that the leaves looked like they had been sprayed by miniature bullets. Then we saw the culprits: teeny tiny little black flying insects. So we drove home to research what we were dealing with and figured out we had flea beetles.  Armed with organic insecticide (composed of carrot juice, soap, soybean oil and a few other natural ingredients) and compost tea (to give the eggplants nutrients to fight the good fight), we headed back to the community garden plot. As we worked quickly to spray the leaves with our  insecticide and nourish the eggplants with the compost tea, a major storm was was on the horizon.

A woman stopped by. She has a community garden plot in another part of our city and she was curious how ours was going. She said many of the “ladies” from her community garden are from West Africa and they share a lot of knowledge from their home countries. She said she was originally from Ghana. The next thing I know, we are deep into “garden talk” and how much we love gardening. Both of us confessed how we started small and now are totally hooked and are looking for more space to plant. She told me how to harvest okra seeds and how quickly peach trees can grown from little seedlings. As we shared stories, I thought that the looming storm be damned.  We had more garden talk to do! Finally we had to stop as the storm was on top of us.  But before we left, she gave to us a few peaches that came from a friend’s garden and off we went.  As we drove away, I was so happy that, once again, the community garden plot brought us together with another plotter who loves the earth and planting. I love these interactions.