I was living in a tiny one bedroom apartment in Northern California. In a land with so many natural wonders and where nature blossoms to the fullest and in great variety, my little home lacked even a potted plant.
Since I didn't have the ownership to create a full on wild flower field of paradise, I enlisted a friend to help me create my own little garden oasis.
I came up with a plan to transform a portion of my backyard (a cement slab and rock covered area) and front yard into a place where I could grow my own herbs and flowers.
I dutifully filled buckets of rocks that were filling my garden space (see rocks in picture above) and even asked friends daily if they wanted to come help me "pick rocks" as I called it. What seemed like tons of pebble picking later, I had an adequate space and took what little money I had to buy bags and bags of dirt and fertilizer.
Through my gardening endeavors I had endless amounts of kale to feed my friends, herbs to make foccacia bread, flowers to sniff and pick for people, chamomile for tea, and one 8 foot high poppy flower (no joke, I think I had great fertilizer.)
I can't say my garden was ideal (living around other college students, I was prone to drunk people wanting to wander through my tiny garden. One Halloween night I even had to stop a guy, with his pants dropped, wearing a priest costume, from "blessing the garden." His exact words before I told him to go fertilize some other area).
Even with people trying to disgrace my little garden and knowing I'd have to leave it someday, I never once regretted the time, energy, and money I put into it. To this day, when I travel back to California, I'll check up on my little garden because I truly love what I created.
“Flowers are reincarnation. They come out of the earth of our ashes. Nothing else looks so soul-like.”
― Francesca Lia Block, Echo
Peonies- The petals are edible and the flowers smell sweet and luxurious. I have fond memories of running past peony plants during early summer.
Basil- I could eat basil like lettuce. This is my favorite herb. There are so many varieties, I can't imagine how anyone wouldn't like basil.