building an urban garden: October 2005

Sunday, October 30, 2005

putting the garden to bed

it's the end of October, and i am still getting fresh tomatoes and peppers....but not much else....the swiss chard is still growing, i've got plenty of collards, and there's one more head of celery....

# posted by Bob Eckhart @ 9:30 PM 0 comments

Saturday, October 29, 2005

a harvest while i was in china

this is a harvest that my parents collected while i was in china....mom canned tomatoes, spaghetti sauce, and salsa from this bounty!!

# posted by Bob Eckhart @ 11:08 PM 0 comments

Thursday, October 27, 2005

my garden gnome....

...presides over my garden!! he was a housewarming present from my friend sue, a tireless realtor, who dragged herself [and me] through about 50 houses over the last 2+ years until we found this one!!

# posted by Bob Eckhart @ 12:55 PM 0 comments

grandpa's garlic

this is the yield from planting a few heads of garlic which has been in my family since the 1920s....i will not eat this year's garlic, instead, i will plant it--each clove will multiply into its own head of garlic and over the next few years, i will exponentially increase my garlic and perhaps start braiding it!!!!!!

# posted by Bob Eckhart @ 12:50 PM 0 comments

Saturday, October 22, 2005

ingredients for vegetable soup

perhaps the most satisfying meal i ate from the garden was vegetable soup, with nothing--other than salt & pepper--that hadn't been grown on site.....carrots, potatoes, celery, tomatoes, peppers, onions, leeks...slow-cooked in a crock-pot overnight......unbelievable goodness!!

# posted by Bob Eckhart @ 2:13 PM 0 comments

the corn!!

all summer long, everyone wanted to know about the corn......here is some photo evidence that some of the ears came out great and were quite tasty!! [other ears were, well, maybe not quite so good....ha!]

# posted by Bob Eckhart @ 2:07 PM 0 comments

harvest photos

such beautiful cabbages--they made a nice salad with oil & vinegar....

there's nothing like homegrown celery....

my carrots weren't pretty and long, but they sure tasted good

# posted by Bob Eckhart @ 1:57 PM 0 comments

the corn is growing--late-july!

more photos while i was gone.....

# posted by Bob Eckhart @ 1:52 PM 0 comments

while i was gone....

you can see how the corn is growing!! also, there's a large eggplant and some bountiful banana pepper plants....

# posted by Bob Eckhart @ 1:47 PM 0 comments

wild sunflowers

when i moved in, the neighbors told me there would be lots of sunflowers by the garage, along the alley...they weren't kidding!

# posted by Bob Eckhart @ 1:29 PM 0 comments

final photos before china

this is how the garden looked when i left.....

# posted by Bob Eckhart @ 1:19 PM 0 comments

photos from july, before i left for china

this is my "pepper patch"....jalapenos, chiles, pimentos, bell peppers, etc

this is garlic that has been in my family since my grandpa brought it from Italy in the 1920s

this is some growth on the tomatoes--i tie them to the sticks every week or two

i planted 8-10 eggplants [purple and white] around the pine tree--they are a beautiful vegetable...

i tried to have a compost pile in the back corner, made out of bricks...it took discipline though to turn it over and keep it wet, to make sure it would get "hot"

# posted by Bob Eckhart @ 12:34 PM 0 comments

photos on july 6th

these are the corn sprouts, which bigmike helped me plant [i failed the first time!]

i planted some more tomatoes on the other side of the walk, too

there are 30 banana/sweet peppers between tomatoes and the walk

this is a brick-lined walk with slate shingle path....those are corno di toro ["horn of the bull"] pepper plants on the right side, by the back porch

# posted by Bob Eckhart @ 12:21 PM 0 comments

the first planting...

here's some photos from june.....i moved into the house on march 18th, finished removing the sod by early-april, and here is what the garden looked like by june:

xuejin, me, and xinying--we had just created "raised beds" by using bricks

what you're seeing are almost all tomatoes. what we did was to plant 4 sticks in the ground in a square, and there is a tomato plant at the base of each stick....the sticks are joined at the top sorta forming a pyramid, and the plants grow up the sticks.....what you see are 4 raised beds, with over 60 tomato plants in them...

# posted by Bob Eckhart @ 11:46 AM 0 comments

topsoil delivery!!

i ordered 2 cubic yards of composted topsoil from Jones Topsoil, who came to my house in a "slinger truck" and shot the soil over the small pine tree, under a wire, and into a nice neat pile....my former students xuejin [pictured in red] and xinying [standing at a very safe distance, up against my neighbor's garage door] helped me spread this soil....