A Mission

There are no coincidences.

After getting everything tucked into the planter yesterday, I started thinking how nice it would be if I had a little spot to plant some pumpkins. Last fall I had the greatest time cooking pumpkins, and it would be ever-so-much more fun to be able to cook my own. I kept mulling over how it could be done, and gradually it has turned into one of, what Sweet Husband calls, my missions.

On another such mission we spent a perfectly beautiful Saturday going from store to store looking for a mortar and pestle. 3 hours, 7 stores. I take these seriously.

While still thinking, I spent the afternoon reading a book I picked up on a whim when Nice Carpool Gal and I went to the--surprisingly nice--library in Topeka for lunch the other day. The book, "Urban Gardener" is a compilation of newspaper colums written by Elspeth Thompson--isn't that the most wonderful name--for the London Sunday Telegraph in the late '90s.

In her first columns, Elspeth had only a small balcony garden, but she quickly gets an "allotment" and goes to work. It took me a few pages to figure out that an allotment is what we would call a plot in a community garden. As the columns progress Elspeth and her sister transform the allotment from weedy wilderness to a respectable little vegetable garden...complete with pumpkins.

*Light bulb*

Lawrence--this wonderful haven of hippies that it is--has at least two community gardens that I am aware of. One appears to be fairly well kept, but I'm not sure if one can just go in and claim a plot. The other is very overgrown. I've heard from several sources that anyone who wants a plot is free to go in and take it with the caveat that anyone who wants to go in and take vegetables from that plot is free to do so also.

Clearly more research is warranted, but maybe....