The Garden in My Grandmother's Bathtub

My grandmother lives in a tiny city apartment with no yard, but she has the most beautiful garden I've ever seen. It's in her bathtub.

She stopped using the bathtub for baths in 1995 and started filling it with soil. Now it's full of herbs, tomatoes, a little lemon tree and geraniums trailing over the edge. There's a grow light hanging from the shower rod. She takes showers at the gym.

She has also filled her windowsills, her fire escape and the top of her refrigerator with pots. Her apartment smells like basil and earth. Every visitor leaves with a handful of mint.

When I asked her why, she said, "A home should have something alive in it besides me." She's eighty-nine and still adding new plants. Last week, she bought a fig tree. I don't know where it's going to go. She says she'll figure it out.