tastes of america

The Relish Garden in All Its Glory

by Jill Melton, Editor

The Relish garden is planted at the George Washington Carver Food Park, featured in our May issue. The park is located in Nashville and is adjacent to a highway that runs through the city-a spot where community gardens are frequently positioned. The mantra of the garden is "community," and the main focus of it is composting-organically.

Our plot is fairly small as are all of the garden plots at the park. We named it the Relish Ratatouille garden as we're growing all the makings for the classic dish-eggplant, zucchini, basil, tomatoes, onions, green beans and peppers. We're also growing okra, peas, butternut squash and other herbs.

At this point, the Relish garden is in full swing. In fact, it's pretty close to being a jungle. How exciting it is to pick okra, green beans, eggplant, zucchini and basil. The tomatoes are taking their time, but there are plenty to be had from the neighboring plots. The motto of the garden is one of fellowship and community, so if you see produce that needs to be picked, you pick it. If a garden needs to be watered, you do that, too. As a result, the garden thrived while I was in Israel for 10 days. And there's an abundance of veggies there all the time.

One of the most delightful things about the garden has been all the beautiful squash blossoms.

Unfortunately, I waited much too long to pick some of the squash and now have two 4-pound monster zucchinis on my kitchen counter. What do you do with those? Anyone got any ideas?