Many moons ago, in the thriving hippie metropolis of Eugene, OR, a good friend and I shared a communal garden plot for two years. I loved it. We had fresh produce all summer, which seemed to thrive on our shared negligence. Hauling compost to the garden (on a golf club cart rigged to the back of a bike via bungee cords), weeding, and finally harvesting. Oodles of fun. The veggie grilled cheeses and fried green tomatoes that came from the garden were so good.
After I moved to Portland, I missed it. In my first apartment, I grew a little container garden on the fire escape. Mostly flowers gotten as starts from the Walgreens across Burnside. This drew many hummingbirds, but not any produce. I then moved across the river, and immediately signed up to be on the (notoriously long) community garden waitlist for two (very popular) gardens. Which never panned out. Sigh.
So, when I moved into Clementine, one of the first orders of business was to plant a garden. And I did. Then, several weeks later, I planted garden two. And ended up with TONS of zucchini starts (most of which later were pulled) and ELEVEN tomato plants. Which took off like mad.
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| I do not claim that I, or my similarly sized tomato plants, are solid, tall, and Amazonian. But I feel even my diminutive 63-inch tall tomatoes are still an impressive agricultural feat. |
2 pounds of snap peas
3 sizable bunches of kale
2 heads of lettuce
10 green tomatoes (which were later pickled)
broccoli leaves (used for lasagne in place of pasta)
13 oblong zucchini
9 globe zucchini
1 jalapeno
A small handful of baby carrots
8 cucumbers
1 very large, very green tomato (currently ripening on the kitchen counter)
1 scarlet carrot, plus two other, less impressive carrots
3 gold beets
Bon appetit!
