Our backyard is surrounded by trees, creating shade so complete that to grow anything , I need to beg and plead. Even hostas think this deep shade too unwelcoming, and refuse to grow. Painting vegetables and flowers is so much easier than growing them!So when the grass next to our driveway (in the front of our home) died from too much sun and a lack of water, I began to plan our container vegetable garden.
I found concrete planter blocks at a garden supply store which I used to create raised containers, hoping that passing canine friends would leave their messages elsewhere. These were placed directly on the soil, and surrounded by rocks. I chose a pattern of fibonacci numbers, placing the blocks in groups of 1, 2, 3, 5, and 8 - although the store ran out of my blocks and I'll need to wait a few more weeks to complete the "8" group.
Fibonacci numeric sequences are found in so many growing things, from cactae, artichokes and sunflowers to the human body. The golden ratio of 1 to 1.618, from which the fibonacci sequence derives, is the beauty defining ratio in the history of art, and both have frequently inspired my paintings. What better design inspiration for my first vegetable growing endeavor in many years?
So now the plants are in the ground, the seeds sewn, and I'm crossing my fingers that all is not washed away by the rain that has been a constant all day.
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