Still Life With Tomatoes 

My first crop of tomatoes have been picked and photographed with great pride. Last night they were sliced and eaten naked and unadorned. 

Today I may give them a drizzle of olive oil.  

This was my first year as a gardener. My garden has been my solace, my sanctuary and my hide-out. 

It has also been a place of community. I have met people who are deeply concerned about helping to end hunger in our city by donating surplus vegetables. I wrote an entire post about Bea, the community activist I am proud to work with every two weeks gathering vegetables, flowers and herbs for the local homeless shelter.

I have met people like Mary who gave me all her extra basil and her recipe for pesto. 

My neighbor Robyn, in the next plot over, sent me home with bags of tomatoes before mine started growing. She gave me organic tomato fertilizer a few weeks ago and I think that did the trick.

I am still in awe of the peace I feel in my garden plot. I used to hate getting dirty. Now I sit right in the dirt and pull the weeds.

I thought that weeding would be a chore. Weeding is one of the most emotionally cleansing things I've ever done. Pulling out the weeds in the dirt is like pulling out the noise in my head. When I am done, the plot is clear and so is my mind.

There is something undeniably magical about a garden.

 Even a late blooming garden like mine.