CHECKING OUT THE COMMUNITY GARDEN

     It seems we just cannot stay away from the outside, what with all kinds of plants and flowers popping up everywhere.
     This morning Elois, our reference librarian, and I walked out to the community garden, which is in the Bert Harsh Park adjacent to the library.  We decided we'd go peek at the garden and see if we could identify what has been planted.  Now, I say "we," but I really meant Elois.  I've been told I can't tell an honest flower from a weed.  I thought if I took Elois with me, maybe she could tell me what is in the garden.
     The community garden is located on the southside of the park with Fifth Street Southeast to the east and Fourth Avenue to the south.  It's a plot of ground that holds seven, long, raised beds.  At the north end of the raised beds are five, huge, black plastic flower pots.  When I looked in the flower pots, I didn't see anything planted, except in one someone had stuck a very large feather.  Elois said it might have been from a buzzard.  Goodness knows, we have lots of those birds around here!
     We decided we'd check each raised bed to see what we (meaning Elois, really) could identify.
     We called the beds by number, with number one being the closest to the west fence, and we started checking bed seven first.
     That bed had been planted much earlier with collards, and it was obvious that someone had already been through and picked off the lower leaves.  We knew it wasn't that Easter bunny that visited us, so we imagined maybe the garden caretakers were involved with harvesting as well as planting.
     Bed six was covered with tiny little green leaves, each plant with one leaf on each side of the stem.  Elois said she thought that was squash, maybe yellow squash.  Down the center of the raised bed we saw, spaced wide apart, taller green plants that Elois said might be eggplant.
     Moving to bed five, Elois said that bed looked like it was planted with squash also, but she wasn't sure what kind.  Or maybe zuchinni, she said.
     Bed four had nothing but long rows dug in the rich, dark dirt.  It was obvious there were plenty of nutrients in the soil.  Even good enough for lovely, long earthworms.  We'll check for them later also.
     We didn't see anything planted in bed three either, but we feel something will be there eventually, unless it's hiding way down deep where we couldn't see it.
     Elois checked bed two and decided that some little green plants she saw had to be volunteer running butter beans from last year.  And she felt they had planted radishes also.
     But when we got to bed one, where wide-square fencing wire hangs on rebar poles, Elois was sure the running butter beans were set to grow and climb.  And she hoped, really hoped, that she saw the beginnings of beets.  Even as we walked away, she said again she sure hoped those were beets.
     Our last effort was to look around the sign on the southside of the fence to read what is printed.  And I quote:  "Community Garden, partnership with Healthy Colquitt Coalition and Moultrie-Colquitt County Library.  Built, planted and cared for by Mike Floyd, Jim Milsap, Charles Sims, Bryan Gordon, David Russell, Doug Turner, Terry Leverton, Jacob Russell, and Mark Wise."
     As Elois and I walked back to the library, we decided that every two or three weeks we are going to come back to the community garden and see how things are growing.  Maybe our puzzle will be solved when tiny little plants are big enough for us to really identify.  And we might take a plastic sack each and see what we can harvest.  Elois said the carrots she harvested last year were the sweetest carrots she'd ever eaten; she put them in her stew, she said. 
     I wonder if I'll harvest something this year.  Just being able to visit the garden will be the highlight of my day.  I bet that's what our little Easter bunny would have said, too.