Vegetable Gardens in the Most Unlikely Places

We lived on Capitol Hill for thirteen years. I worked at the Library of Congress for ten years. Since we moved to northern Virginia five years ago we visit our old neighborhood at least once a week. On Monday we found a place to park near our old condo and started our walk towards the Capitol. It always seems funny to run in to large vegetable gardens outside of the Library of Congress Madison Building. We saw it being planted a couple of weeks ago. Now it’s already sprouting. Another place that has a very large outdoor vegetable garden is Bartholdi Park - a part of the US Botanic Garden. For some reason it just looks odd to see greens and such growing with the US Capitol Building in the background. This year in front of the US Botanic Garden building are raised garden beds contributed by school and other groups. The crops are shared locally at a variety of places for the underserved and otherwise. It’s such a joy to see all of these gardens consistently doing well and cared for by the professional staffs of the architect of the Capitol. We always enjoy our morning walks in the city. And it’s all so familiar!