The Secret Garden: Beauty in a Hidden Vegetable Patch  Late last
summer my brother and I pulled into the parking lot of a gas
station in East Knoxville and parked by the chain-link fence.
The fence had a hole in it so we ducked through. We stepped over
broken glass, fast food wrappers, stained towels, and
underclothes—trash I didn't want to look at too closely. A foot
path led down the hill and entered a little tunnel in the kudzu.
"Do you see it?" Daniel asked, pointing beyond the kudzu.  He
had brought me to this desolate spot to show me "something
great." At first I could only see a blur of green.  I saw the
tomatoes first, bright red fruit popping out against the tangle
of vegetation. Then, everything emerged into focus: the beds of
okra and bush beans terraced into the steep hillside, squash and
climbing beans with delicate white blossoms covering the
fence—even a couple of rose bushes. It was a hidden garden
tucked into a gravelly hillside between a concrete drainage
ditch of a creek and a gas station.