Poised to Be the Best Tomato Harvest Yet

Aside from several handfuls of ‘Whippersnapper’ tomatoes that started ripening over a month ago there have been tomatoes here and there but not in the numbers we’re starting to see on the roof and over at the community garden plot. Despite a tray-full like this I am still eying clusters of green tomatoes dripping off

Food That Hardly Travels at All

A friend pointed me to this opinion piece in the New York Times that looks at the Eat Local concept as a way to mark environmental impact in food production. The article describes a New Zealand study that challenges the assumption that distance traveled automatically means higher fossil fuel consumption. The study doesn’t undermine the

Mexican Sour Gherkin

Adorably teeny tiny Mexican Sour Gherkins (Melothria scabra) are starting to pop up all over the vines I’ve got growing at my community garden plot. The fruit in the picture is about half and inch or so and should be approximately 1-2″ when fully ripe however I am extremely impatient and picked a few for

Monster Vegetables

I made a quick trip to my community garden plot yesterday where several large zucchinis and cucumbers were quickly expanding into over-sized monster vegetables. I had been gone for 6 days and Davin was unable to get into the garden with a poorly copied key. There are more cucumbers on the way and little scalloped

‘Miniature White’ Cucumber & Pink Zinnias

…Because I had to post something a little more optimistic. Both of these Polaroids were taken this morning on my rooftop. The ‘Miniature White‘ cucumber variety is a lot less yellow then as seen in this photo as the Polaroid film has a yellow cast. It is the largest of a bunch of cucumbers that

Operation Garden Terrorism

The epic saga of sadness and destruction now dubbed Operation Garden Terrorism continues. Today I went outside to discover a patch of plants had been crushed along with two sections of the bamboo fence that we built in the early spring. The fence had been kicked in and broken in two spots. What is going

Please Don’t Destroy My Garden No More

I really need to make a sign like this for my street garden. Except mine would include an assortment of choice words and threats… all the things I want to say to the various offenders but can’t because I never catch them in the act. Threats such as, “If I ever catch you urinating in

First Zucchini

I had big plans, HUGE PLANS, to use this post to write about exciting topics that were guaranteed to delight and amuse, but then we popped over to the community garden this evening to check on the first zucchini — which you can guess by now began as a simple task but quickly turned into

Harvested: Borage, Onions, Garlic

I just returned from my community garden plot where I harvested a ton of onions, garlic, and borage. They were all overflowing in the plot and some needed to be sacrificed for the good of the garden and future harvests. The garlic had already formed a few cloves each. I left plenty more that will

Fingering the Pea Vines

The Scene: The sun is about to disappear entirely and my rooftop is now mostly illuminated by the painfully bright and orange security light next door. I am still outside moving pots around and pinching back basil flowers. My neighbor steps outside. Me: I have been gardening for 7 or 8 hours straight. It started

Veggie Gardening: The Next Big Thing

Quite simply, the Next Big Thing is going to be veggies. Lots and lots of veggies. Heirloom tomatoes, offbeat salad greens and stuff like that. All organically grown, of course. By us. – from Toronto Star “Urban Gardeners Are Growing Local” (July 7, 2007.) Many of us have known it all along by I am

An Abundance of Mints

There are roughly five mint varieties in this bouquet including clockwise from top right: Chocolate mint, Pear mint, Ginger mint, Lemon Mint (with the crazy flowers), and Mojito mint (not seen). Mint has got to be the most abundant herb in the garden and as this year’s mint harvest picks up speed I’ve been trying