Day 13 - Step Into My Garden

It might seem like growing your own vegetables takes a lot of time, and that may be true in the beginning when you are setting up your garden.  But, once you do that and have the basic tools you need, it will get easier and easier.

My garden is not even in my backyard.  I live in a town home complex with a small deck.   To grow vegetables, I need a small plot of land with plenty of sun.   Luckily, my city has a community garden and I can garden there.  It is convenient for me because I have to drive that way a few times a week anyway. 

I don't have the prettiest garden there.  Far from it.  In fact, I may only spend 15 minutes there at a time.  Just enough time to water, harvest and pull a weed or two.  There's plenty of work if I wanted to put the time into it and the time would be pure pleasure.  But I don't have the time for that right now.

So, although I have a request to see more photos of the garden, I hesitate to show my semi-neglected plot.  Even so, it provides more than enough vegetables for me and my husband.

the main gate

central walkway

There are about 125 plots in this community garden which sits in a small public park.  Walk through the main gate and down a wide and clean central walkway.  There are 2 rows of plots on either side of the walkway.

This is my plot, #33.  It is 20 x 20 feet.  My husband built the wind break in the front and the wooden planter boxes to my specifications.  In the corner near the plot number are water spigots and my storage box.  I also have a shade umbrella to rest under on super hot days.

I only have two zucchini plants, but they produce more than I can eat.

I have a tiered planter box for my strawberries which used to fill up these boxes.  Now I just have a few surviving plants that produce enough to top my oatmeal. 

And I have a few broccoli plants that will produce side shoots like these for a few more months.

There's also green beans, daikon, New Zealand spinach, and in a month or so, cucumbers, Japanese eggplant, honeydew melons and corn.

If you live in an apartment and want to grow your own vegetables, look to see where you might find your little plot.  It can be in a community garden, or a relative or friend's back yard.  Work a barter system where you grow the vegetables and pay the land owner with fresh organic vegetables right outside their door. 

Day 13

Breakfast:

Miltons' Squaw Bread and Peanut Butter

Tennis:

Orange Juice

Lunch:

Fried Brown Rice with Egg and Zucchini

Loquats

2 Chocolate Peanut Bars

Dinner:

Chicken Red Bean Soup

Orange

Calories: 1453

Cost: 97 cents

Weight:  XXX - 3.5 pounds

Cheers for Volunteers!

The volunteers I am referring to are the ones growing in my garden.  That's right.  I didn't plant them, but they volunteered to grow.  They are usually seeds that got blown around from last years plants, or maybe a bird carried it over and dropped it in the garden.  However they got there, once they start growing, they end up growing healthier than if I planted them myself.  I wondered about that at first.  Why do weeds, for instance grow better than the plants I sowed?  Well, they're growing because they happen to be in the idea environment.  They were just sitting in a pinch of rich soil with the right amount of moisture and sunlight.  Out of a million seeds, maybe only a few take off because they happened to be in the right place at the right time. 

And these happy coincidences become garden "volunteers".  When I first heard that term from a fellow gardener, I understood it instantly.  Oh yes, I do have volunteers and I am happy when they show up. 

Actually, weeds are unwanted volunteers.  We don't plant them but they show up.  And to make things even more complicated, any plant that's not where you want it to be can be considered a "weed".  What's a weed to one person is a prized plant to another.

But I'm going on a tangent.

I wanted to talk about the volunteers that are growing in my garden that are going to feed me in June.  These are the plants that I welcome.

I found this runner bean growing on the side of my FIL's house (garden #2).  I'm surprised it's growing there because there's hardly any sun there this time of year.  But, look how healthy it is and it already has harvestable beans growing on it.  Runner beans can grow up to 15 inches long, so you don't need a lot of them to make a meal.  After I took this photo, I staked it up off the ground so it can start climbing.
 

This is Italian Dandelion, and to be honest, I've been trying to get rid of it, so theoretically, it's a weed.  I planted it a few years ago, but thought it was too bitter, so I pulled it out.  But no matter how I try, it keeps coming back.  Now that I have this challenge, I'm thankful to have it.  If may to too bitter to eat in a salad, but maybe it'll be okay stirfried.  I was hoping it would taste like arugula, but it's more bitter than that.  Speaking of dandelion, the common dandelion weed we all have with the yellow flower is also edible and actually delicious. 

This is my favorite pole bean, called the "Rattlesnake Bean".  I plant these every year, but this one is a volunteer plant.  It's growing next to a tomato plant and using the tomato plant to climb up on.  One of the reasons I like this bean is because of it's purple striping.  It's easy to see when you are picking them.  If you've ever harvested green beans you will know that it's really hard to find them when they are the same color as the plant. 

So cheers for the volunteers!  I am thankful to them.

P.S.  Hi Tammy!  I hope you will enjoy my blog.  If you want to start from the beginning and know my "challenge rules"  go here:  THE CHALLENGE

Garden #2

This is the other garden I have growing in my FIL's backyard.  There's several varieties of tomatoes that I hope will be ready in June.  There's also some green beans and Anaheim peppers coming up. 

I've been growing flowers in this garden and especially love sweet peas.  They are in full bloom right now and fill the garden with fragrance.

It really doesn't take that much to grow vegetables.  Seriously.  You do need to have some ground space that gets a lot of sunlight.  The more the better but 6 hours of direct sunlight a day is the minimum requirement.  You can also grow in pots on your patio, but your yield won't be as good.

I've tried all kinds of ways to grow plants, from pots to poor clay soil so let me tell you the minimum you can do to grow vegetables with the least amount of investment.

1. Find a sunny spot.
2. Build a small raised bed (3 ft x 6 ft x 8 inches high) out of wood scraps.
3. Fill it with soil and free mulch.
4. Add a couple of bags of steer manure @ .99 a bag.
5. If this is your first time gardening, go to your local Home Depot and buy some tomato plants and some cucumber and bean seeds.  They will have the varieties that grow well in your area.  You won't be able to grow a lot in this one box, but it'll be enough space for a couple of tomatoes, cukes and pole beans.  You can add more boxes as you go.
6. For fertilizer, start collecting your kitchen scraps, especially coffee grounds and vegetable and fruit peels.  No meat products, just plant products.  Also, collect garden waste like leaves.  You can make a compost pile which is great stuff but takes some doing, so for this exercise, just start burying it in your soil around but away from your plants.  The worms will come and when you've got worms you've got good soil.
7. If things start eating your seedlings, go out early in the morning and check the plants for small green caterpillars, snails or slugs and pull them off and dispose of them.

There you go.  You have an organic vegetable garden! 

So between the two gardens, I expect to have the following harvest able vegetables in June:  zucchini (the plant that can end world hunger), broccoli, cauliflower, daikon, stir fry greens (collard and kale), pole and bush beans, tomatoes and some strawberries.

It's just a fraction of what I used to grow, but the point is that I've done the minimum of garden work this year and will gain a lot of vegetables.  So get started.  Gardening is the most rewarding hobby on this planet.

Garden #1

Checking in at the community garden:

For those of you still concerned about my health, check out my harvest today.

Some overgrown zucchini, a head of broccoli, strawberries and onions I bartered from my gardening friend.

And just so you know, I am not gardening much these days.  This has been a busy year and I haven't had the time to get out there much so I will have much less to harvest in June.  Still, I think it'll be enough.

In the community garden I have zucchini, broccoli, cauliflower, daikon, stirfry greens and strawberries growing.  I lost the cucumber seedlings I planted to snails.  There are a lot of them out this year. 

I don't buy vegetable seedlings anymore. They are started at home from old seeds (some from 2008), or seeds that I have propagated from previous crops. Sometimes I'll get seeds from gardening friends at the community garden.   Seriously, I don't know why people buy seeds every year.  The strawberry plants are from 3 years ago and although they have been neglected, they still produce enough small berries for my cereal or yogurt.  My expenses this year in the garden have been $0.

I have another garden in my father-in-law's back yard.  Over there I've got tomatoes, green beans and peppers.  My cucumber and eggplant seedlings got eaten up there too.  It's been a bad year for me with my seedlings.     Nothing is ready to harvest yet, but I hope to have some tomatoes and beans in June.

It occurred to me as I was driving home with my harvest that if I eat and depend on all these vegetables instead of my usual junk food, my body is going to go through a detox.  And that is a good thing.