If you enjoy cocktails, having a garden nearby - whether it’s a window box, a small plot in the backyard or a community garden in the neighborhood - greatly enhances the range of amazing that is available at a moments notice. Here we have a drink that is simple, delicious and quite refreshing, a basil gin fizz: Muddled basil leaves, a bit of raw sugar, Berkshire gin, Cointreau and soda, garnished with basil flowers.

Black farmers and gardeners have been growing and raising food before it was cool, when it was what one did for survival. They were organic before organic–few could afford fertilizers and modern farm equipment; biodynamic before biodynamic–the earth-cosmos-animal-human connection has always been a major tenet of pre-Christianity African-centered spirituality and farming; sustainable before sustainable–can’t misuse what you ain’t got; local before local–black farmers’ had limited local selling power because of few profitable wholesale and retail opportunities and institutionalized racism; and, they are all small family farms.