How does your garden grow, Dennis Nugent?

Since moving back to his hometown of Menlo Park in 2014, Dennis Nugent has had a vegetable garden of one kind or another. “It was easy because there was already a designated space in the back yard,” he says.

But with the pandemic closing golf courses and cancelling art classes – his usual weekday activities – he had more time to devote to it. “There are eight planter boxes and I took out most of the dirt and removed the roots in six of them,” he says. “I got rid of the grubs, too. Then I put the soil back in with added compost and fertilizer.”

Over the years, tomatoes have been successful with plants purchased from Tony Cozzolino at the Menlo Park Farmers Market. That was true this year, too.” “Romaine lettuce, radishes, lemon cucumbers and green pole beans were all particularly good this season,” he says.

“The strawberries didn’t do as well but they were in a box where I didn’t replenish the soil. And, as usual, the birds got the blueberries.”

Dennis says he enjoys the challenge of figuring out what to put where, particularly given the limitation of a lot of shade due to an adjacent redwood tree.

“And, of course, it’s great to enjoy the bounty,” he adds. “We’ve have garden salads all summer.”

Photos by Linda Hubbard (c) 2020