Apartment Living: My Little Patch of Paradise

Spearmint gone wild

Turns out the 3' x 5' garden plots in the courtyard are free for the asking. Building management loves residents to grow stuff. Who knew?

Truth to tell, I wasn't up to gardening before now. For one thing, it's so wicked hot and humid here in Baltimore, I spent my first two summers avoiding going outside.

For another, I was still mourning the loss of my gardens in Princeton. That's right, gardens because I eventually claimed all the arable land around my end unit condo. By the time I moved, I'd spent nearly a decade creating perennial gardens that bloomed during Spring, Summer, and Fall. I kept one favorite garden trowel, gave everything else away, and resigned myself to not killing house plants.

Out-of-Control Knock Out rose

Done with gardening? Apparently not.

Two days I ago I claimed two dinky adorable plots and have my eye on a third that no one has claimed.

I've already spent six hours cleaning them out; collected thank yous from neighbors tired of looking at a rosebush that could land the role of Audrey II in a production of The Little Shop of Horrors; gardening muscles and Epsom salts baths rediscovered and celebrated.

What shall I do with my little patch of Paradise? I'm waiting for more to be revealed once I find a good garden store.

One view of the garden I left behind