Garden Memories

The Foster-Jones household (my sister and her boyfriend Tim) had a garden extraordinaire this summer. Tim built a raised bed in the back yard of their sunny Watertown home, which they filled with soil collected on Cape Cod. In this magical soil, they planted many varieties of tomato, marigolds to keep away the pests, as well as basil, thyme, lemon verbena, peppers, and parsley. When the garden began, it was modest:



However, despite the horrible rainy weather we had, their tomatoes flourished (I really loved the yellow tomatoes):



Susan was forced to combat a small animal who chewed the tomatoes closest to the ground. She placed old windows around the periphery of the raised bed to keep the little animal away, which saved her crop. Sue and Tim were careful not to bring other tomatoes into their house or near their garden to prevent spreading the tomato blight that destroyed New England's tomato crop this year. It was difficult to get good tomatoes, but - thankfully - Sue and Tim were generous with their crops and the rest of us were able to benefit from the fabulous bounty. We enjoyed tomato and basil salad from their garden, with local mozarella.