A Real Garden Party

What a smart idea to bring along a chair and attached table.


It’s not all veggies and fruits. The bees love the nectar and the gardeners love the bees.

Lucy Lange

If there ever was an event that epitomized the name, the first community garden party fits the bill. The event, held June 4, was organized by a group of SaddleBrooke Ranch community gardeners who thought that getting together as a group would be enjoyable. About 45 members attended a perfect evening of great fun, with a cool breeze blowing.

I am borrowing some lyrics from Tommy Thumb’s Pretty Song Book, published in 1744, to share with everyone about the great first-ever Community Garden twilight soiree.

“Mary Mary, quite contrary

“How does your garden grow?”

To answer your question, Mary, it grows with tomatoes, squash, mild and hot peppers, lettuces, kale (lots of kale), green beans, green onions, beets, carrots, herbs, and flowers, to name a few. There are some 90 garden plots bursting at the seams with a bounty of summer veggies and fruits. There is even a sparrow nest hiding in a patch of very productive tomato plants. It was a wonderful shindig—get it? Dig—with the like-minded growers who took a chance on the desert being a great garden paradise. Everyone brought an appetizer, something to drink, and stories to share about bugs, water, best shade cloth, and soil. We will be doing it again when the veggies are ripe, so we can bring something from the garden. The only items not growing were the “silver bells, and cockle shells, and pretty maids all in a row.”

Thank you to the group of organizers, and we look forward to another garden gathering in the not-too-distant future.

Kudos again to Gretchen Malaski for pursuing the concept of a community garden and bringing it to reality.

If you would like to lease a box (6.3 feet by 3.4 feet) for $50 a year, visit the SBR HOA website saddlebrookeranchhoa.org/group/saddle/community-garden.