95 degrees with 100 percent humidity might be hyperbole but not much. Sweat combines with talcum powder to make human cupcakes just as Harper Lee mentioned in To Kill A Mockingbird. Still the farmers toil. I've taken to taking all of the tomatoes off the vine and putting them in the window sill. So much for vine ripeness after all. The arugula keeps popping up. It is a good sub for spinach. The New Zealand Spinach does not suit my palate. It tastes slimy somehow. The white criniums are about to put on their blossoms. They are the southern grande dames afterall. Go natives!!

Mid summer is a Fla. gardeners equivalent of winter in the North. The squash acquired borers. The kale died of heat stroke. Tomatoes got blossom end rot which resembles cradle cap on babies.Still, there are the edible roses, the collards and the ARUGULA. Despite its foodie facade, the arugula has become the workhorse of the jardin.

I gather the seeds from the old plants and sprinkle them in the half filled drums. The babies are ready to eat in three to four weeks. I like to eat them with roasted sesame oil and rice wine vinegar. YUM.

The first UrbFeast was a gourmet delight. The guidelines were simple: bring food that was at least partially grown in your urban plot. The menu was dazzling: lemon grass chicken, dill eggs, pork loin in arugula pesto, mozzarella tomatoes, lemon thyme tea, strawberry icecream, dill beans, brocoli salad. And to think , all of it was grown where St. Augustine grass had reigned supreme only a year before.

Over homemade strawberry icecream and lemon thyme tea, the urbfarmers traded stories of transporting lion poo, planting guerilla tomatoes and finding great grandmother's recipe for fried green tomatoes. We will try to have a feast per quarter. Eating builds community better than anything we've done. The food is outward and visible sign that hands in the dirt equals delight on the table.

40 meals later the Swiss chard still seems untouched. I've done chard and garlic pizza a la Rachel Ray, chard soup, chard salad. Now I'm really ready for it to fade away. I need the box to grow something else in it. I can't bring myself to pull up the chard as it waves its healthy green leaves in front of my puzzled face, but I can't even give it away. My neighbors locks their doors when they see me coming up the sidewalk chard in hand.

The strawberries have white flowers, so does the arugula. One is coming, one is going. J. said the arugula flowers are edible. I might try them. I've collected tons of arugula seed and now the seeds are blossoming. This is the first full cycle I've participated in...seed to plant to seed. It's a miracle.

The Earth Box tomatoes have a terrible case of blossom end rot. I wonder what I did wrong on that? A calcium deficiency is what the books say. Does the tomato plant need Tums?

S., the newest tennant farmer, is wonderful. She has been here almost every day and her plot looks like something out of Southern Living. I love her energy.

The statue of " Thankfulness Rising Over Chaos" looks splendid silouetted as she is against the azure N.Florida sky. Her feet are in the wildflower bed, the burnt orange Gallardia and the black eyed Susans entwine around her ankles. Her wild hair flows backward and r wings protrude on both side of her svelt torso. To her left the blueberry bushes are festooned with ripening blueberries. the lemon tree has 30 baby lemons; the loquats stand sentinel framing the old hurricane wounded mother tree. The peaceable kingdom is broken only when the assault squad of mockingbirds lines up for a bombing run on the neighbors' cat.