Enjoying the Splendors of Summer

Summer is officially here in Oakland and as its been said, "the livin's easy" (I guess it has been summer here for a while now, but we haven't really been home enough to enjoy it). And now that we've finally arrived at the point in the season when all the hard work and preparations we made throughout the spring have come into fruition, I don't mind giving myself a pat on the back for going through all the trouble. The real reward of course is what is gathered on an almost daily basis - as shown in the picture above, and if you happen to have your own garden (no matter what size), I'm sure you know exactly what I am talking about.


And since this is the time of year in which we all delight in the affirmation of our work, understanding more than ever why it is we planted a garden in the first place, I suggest that we all seize the moment by spreading the gospel a bit. After all, can anyone think of a better advertisement for home gardening than a vine-ripened, heirloom tomato in August? (Let's face it, that ad writes itself). So please bring a friend over in order to show off a bit, or even better, give some of your freshly picked green beans to a neighbor. I promise that next summer they will be more than happy to return the favor.

A Bit of Nostalgia

To anyone out there who actually follows this blog, I'm sorry for the absence of postings in the last month or so, but things have been pretty busy for me lately. So busy in fact, that I have hardly been able to spend much time in my backyard at all. Of course, this is quite unfortunate seeing as we have recently arrived at the sweet spot of summer when there are new things to be discovered every day. So with that said, I expect to have a lot more to write about in the near future when I am actually back in Oakland for more than a few days at a time.

However, in the meantime I figured I would use the opportunity of my extended visit back home to Chicago to get a little nostalgic on everyone, and show off my favorite part of my parents' backyard. I created the small veggie garden shown in the picture below all the way back in high school, and looking back on it now I realize that it represented one of my very first dabbles into landscape architecture.

The design and construction is pretty simple, with the main vegetable bed being somewhat "protected" by the raised wood (I use the word protected very loosely since my mother is on the verge of an all out war against the rabbits this summer), and an herb garden bordering it on one side. The general list of crops tends to be the same from year to year, making me question the generally agreed upon notion that tomatoes (or any other crop in the nightshade family) should not be planted in the same place from one year to the next. And while some of the herbs are a recent addition, the pineapple mint, lemon grass, and chives seen in the foreground are the same specimens that I originally planted over a decade ago. In fact, the mint is now growing so vigorously that it is beginning to spread through the rest of the garden - something I didn't think could be possible with the horrific winters they get here in Chicago. The mint and lemon grass is doing so well in fact, that last summer I actually brought a rather large cutting of each back with me to plant in our garden in Oakland when I was unable to find either at any of the local nurseries.
And while I always try to do so, I'm not exactly sure what lessons can be learned from this event other than the remarkable tenacity of plants when wrapped in a moist paper towel, and perhaps that you would be surprised at what can make it through the security check at the airport without requiring a closer examination - I could have sworn I was in for an odd conversation.....

"sir, would you like to explain what you have in your bag.."
"uhhhh.... some bomb-ass pineapple mint"
"?"
"its from my parents' garden"
"?"
"do you have any idea how hard it is to find pineapple mint in Oakland right now?!"

Examining Space Through the Context of Time

It is now June in my backyard, and the burgeoning promise of fruit borne of hard work and careful planning is almost impossible to tolerate any longer. Somehow unobserved by the watchful eyes of my neighbors and I, our plants have gone from puny seedlings to thriving shrubs, now climbing up trellises and spilling over cages. Their flowers are perhaps the most difficult to stand. Seemingly everywhere, they shout for our attention, but upon closer examination remind us that they are only a teaser for what lies ahead.

And while the agony of waiting for seeds to turn back into fruit is something that I’m confident even the most novice of gardeners has experienced; I write this post not to empathize, but to point out how this patient optimism illustrates the abstract nature of time. Think about it, why would we even bother planting a vegetable garden at all if it weren’t for the basic assumption that our efforts in the present will result in an actualized harvest in the future? After all, gardening is not an exercise in immediate gratification – a tomato seed does not seem to be the same as a tomato – and if it is tomatoes we crave in April, why the hell are we wasting our time planting seeds when we could be at the market buying them all along?! Instead, I believe we go through the act of gardening precisely because as gardeners we are inherently aware of this abstraction (whether you know it or not), and it is for this reason that we plan out our gardens in view of fruit-laden shrubs.


This is the notion that occurs to me while puttering around sparsely planted beds throughout the spring. However, I prefer to take this course of thought a step further and not just stop at the logical considerations of how large or bountiful my plants will be at the height of the growing season, but to the experiential results as well. When I observe my garden in May and June, I not only see vibrant green foliage that will soon hold tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers, but also imagine fresh Salad Caprese and roasted sweet peppers. I smell the charcoal smoke of backyard barbeques and imagine the excitement of a grand harvest dinner.

If within our gardens we can come to accept that time is abstract – that not only the present is a reality but also the future – why shouldn’t we carry this notion over to the world at large? We get so hung up on how things appear to us today, that we forget to imagine the reality of what lies ahead. Where a person can see only the existing blight of urban decay, I suggest considering the potential that such places might have with just a bit of hope and planning. It seems far too valuable a lesson not to be extruded, but all too often even the most thoughtful gardeners look at the world around them and see nothing but despair. This is precisely why it is so important we remember what we have been taught by nature, that regardless of the subject matter, we must plant today’s seeds with tomorrow’s harvest in mind.

I say weeds, you say salad

There's no major purpose for this post other than to point out the tenacity of Radicchio. The seeds of this particular specimen somehow found their way into the cracks of our patio, and oddly enough it is thriving there (its been cut back 3 times). This isn't the first time I've seen this either, last year we had 2 "volunteer" tomato plants..... you have to be pleased with your garden when even the weeds are crops.



There is a bit of sad irony in this of course, we really dont even like to eat raddichio.... why oh why couldn't it have been rocket or chard?!

A Basic Summary....

This being my first formal blog post, I figure it makes sense to simply provide a general description of what I consider to be my “backyard”….

I currently live in a small 4-unit apartment building in the Temescal neighborhood of North Oakland. The ~700 sq.ft. patio behind our building is completely paved-over and is surrounded on all four sides by either structures or fencing. Fortunately though, the lot has an ideal solar orientation, giving us an entire day’s worth of strong California sun, which I admit is the key factor in allowing my neighbors and I to use the space as intensively as we do.

Being a relative newcomer to the building (I’ve only lived there a year), I can’t account for much of the lot’s history, but have gotten the impression that the space has been used in roughly the same capacity for many years (although definitely not as efficiently, as I will discuss later). Perhaps the most fortuitous development in that time though, was the introduction by a previous resident of a large quantity of reclaimed bricks, and terra cotta pipes and planters. Over time, the pipes have been scattered throughout the space and summarily filled-in with an amalgamation of different perennial plants. This has enabled a most wonderful aesthetic of controlled chaos, and creates the unique sensation of discovery at every turn. The bricks have also been used and reused numerous times, and are now employed throughout the patio as a series of quasi-permanent planters, which serve as much needed homes for some of our long-established flowering shrubs and perennial herbs.

Here's a photo of how my backyard looked before adding new planter boxes.


This brings us up to the present, and the recent addition of several large wooden planter boxes in place of a previously haphazard collection of small individual containers. By adding these boxes we have significantly increased the amount and diversity of produce we can grow (see the list below). This of course has been a major enabler of my compulsion for growing as many different varieties of produce as possible; but also serves as an important resource for my neighbor’s organic catering business as she tries to source her food as locally and sustainably as possible (check out SOL Catering in my links section). For the sake of time I won’t go into additional detail on this matter now, but please check back in the future for a further examination of the methodology and use of planter boxes as a resource for backyard gardening and urban agriculture.

Here's a photo of what the backyard looks like now.


In the future I plan to explore the contents of my backyard a bit more thoroughly as well (and creatively, I swear), but for now I hope I’ve left enough info to provide a little background on the subject of my blog.

Take care everyone and good gardening.

-Mike


This Summer’s Crop List (a long, but rough approximation):

- Beans: Tricolor Bush, Tricolor Pole
- Beets: Chiogga, Golden
- Carrots
- Cucumber: Lemon, Armenian
- Eggplant: Long Purple (Japanese), Listada de Gandia, Rosa Bianca
- Fruit Trees (dwarf): Seedless Lime, Lemon, Pineapple Guava, Kaffir Lime
- Greens: Arugula, Kale, Chard, Sorrel, Salad Mix (3 varieties)
- Herbs: the list of herbs we have growing is far too long to mention in detail, but it includes almost anything commonly used for cooking.
- Okra: Clemson Spineless
- Onions: Yellow Cippollini, Shallot
- Pepper: Corno del Toro, Healthy (gypsy), Roumanian Rainbow (bell), Jalapeno ‘Tam’, Serrano, Padron, Cubanelle, Piquillo, Friggitelo
- Potato: La Ratte (fingerling)
- Radish: Easter Egg, French Breakfast
- Strawberries
- Summer Squash: Romanesco, Raven (zucchini), Patty Pan Blend
- Tomatillo
- Tomato: Sugary (cherry), Gold Rush Currant (cherry), Isis Candy (cherry), Marizol, Pineapple, Early Wonder, Early Cascade, Marmande, San Marzano, Martino's Roma