botanical backyard

Berkeley feels like a botanical garden year round. And through no effort of my own, our backyard is abloom with color...in NOVEMBER?!?! How is this possible? Ridiculous, I know.

We even have blackberries pouring through the foliage and a Meyer lemon tree pumping out lemons year round! The lemons look like green limes when they are young, then they turn plump and yellow...and super juicy.

white peach tree

A friend had given me a small potted white peach tree before she left town in August. I watered the fledgling tree on occasion, but I knew that it really belonged in the ground. As the months passed, the tree lost many of its leaves and the ones tat remained were droopy. By the end of October, I felt so sorry for the tree and I began to worry that it would die under my care. I dug a hole in the ground and planted the tree. It was very satisfying. Given how much carbon I use, the least I could do was plant a tree. Keeping my fingers crossed, I hoped the tree would recover.

pedro the rabbit

Alas, my own backyard garden was simply too good to be true. Within days, the neighborhood menace (aka Pedro the Rabbit) had decided to indulge himself at the expense of my garden. He tore through one vegetable per day. He devoured the lettuce and kale first and eventually made his way through the flowers as well. My pathetic green wire fence was no match for his fat hungry self. I'm not sure who his owner is, or where he calls home, but he left me devastated. I tried to chase him away, but he wasn't afraid at all. He just sat there, licking himself, or hanging out in the shade. I couldn't help myself but put a cage around him occasionally as punishment. After a short while, I'd let him go. Darn rabbit!!!


Pedro was considerate enough to leave the onions and tomatoes. I eventually harvested and ate the onions. The tomato plants grew modestly (although much bigger than the fire escape tomato plants) and produced a handful of average tomatoes. My first backyard garden was certainly not as big a success as I had hoped.

berkeley, ca: finally a plot of my own

Graduate school has brought me back to paradise, also known as Berkeley, California. As soon as we saw the huge backyard, we knew we had to rent the apartment in a four-plex house on Vine St. As soon as we moved in, I immediately staked claim to a 4x8 patch of grass up against the bushes. I figured this patch would be out of the way and it seemed like someone had gardened there at one point in the past. I was so excited, finally a patch of land to grow food! I turned over the soil with a shovel and added some bagged organic potting soil with fertilizer from the local horticulture shop (only 3 blocks away!).

I immediately set about planting a variety of starts: onions, leeks, kale, lettuce, strawberries, beets, tomatoes, lavender and some flowers for decoration. I was so proud of my new garden.

carroll gardens, brooklyn

Eager to escape the noise and crowds of "The City," we landed in Carroll Gardens, a peaceful neighborhood in Brooklyn on the F line. We found an apartment on the second floor of a brownstone on Carroll Street. While we didn't have access to the backyard, we did have a fire escape. That meant I could have another potted herb garden. I could see the backyard from the window, and this helped me feel that much closer to having my own backyard. Here are some of the herbs I that grew.

We were fortunate to be able to take frequent trips to northwestern Connecticut. On the edge of the house where we stayed, I found a cluster of chives. I picked a few chive plants and carried them back with me to New York. I was surprised to see a small purple bud, shaped like the tip of a wet paintbrush. Eventually, the bud bloomed into a beautiful purple flower. The flower is edible (it has a faint chive taste) as are all flowers that grow on plants with edible leaves. This chive plant survived the winter and blossomed again the following spring.

first vegetable, first flower (from seed!)

In my second year in the East Village, I expanded my
fire escape garden. This time I grew cherry tomatoes and beets in addition to my herb staples. The cherry tomatoes and their burst of juicy tartness were particularly delightful. Growing my own food feels so good. Beets didn't do so well, I think the container was way too small. Plant growth is proportional to root growth, and small pots limit root growth.

I also planted a sunflower seed. Miraculously, the seed turned into a sunflower! Seeds are wondrous things. A plant devotes so much energy to growing fruit and vegetables just to convince an animal to spread the plant's seed. And the flower? A brilliant creation to attract bees and insects to help the plant pollinate...again, to create a fruit to spread its seed. The sunflowers grew surprisingly tall, given the small pots I put them in.

Here's the view of my bedroom windowsill. I bought an old wooden box to store my gardening supplies. Years later, it still houses my garden supplies.

east village, nyc: my first plants

As an urban dweller, outdoor space is precious. Living in the East Village of Manhattan, the best I could do was to make the most of my fire escape. At least my herbs had a nice view, six floors above 12th Street.

A nice woman behind the herb stall at the Union Square Farmers Market gave me a few pointers and the worm man sold me some soil enhanced by worm castings (aka worm poop or vermicompost.) The worms decomposed New Yorker food waste turning it into rich fertilizer. Desperate to grow food, I started with herb starts in pots...rosemary, sage, mint, thyme, basil and a little lavender.

Colonel Kentucky mint grew wildly and tasted yummy in mint juleps. Mint is a beginning gardener's friend: it grows quickly and vigorously, offering a sense of proud satisfaction that at least one of your herbs are doing well. However, mint spreads easily, sending roots out laterally to colonize its container. As you can see, it took over the purple sage. From now on, I only plant mint in pots by itself.