10.18.07 URBAN SUCCESS

Walking across town this morning, I decided to check on the progress of the fall crops at the Friendship Urban Garden. This locally organized community vegetable garden has been built in an empty lot behind a downtown low income housing complex. I know the "farmer" directing the garden is using the latest innovations in vegetable gardening such as row irrigation, cover cloth, green manure crops, etc. But my hat is off to their spinach crop. This single plant was more than a foot in diameter!

06.06.07 SPRING HARVEST!

I return from my trip to find the garden is producing bountiful spring harvests. The spinach is still good enough to pick even as the plants just begin to bolt upward to blossom. Peas, peas, and more peas! The snow peas and sugar snap peas provide enough to start freezing for later. And then of course, the beloved broccoli, begun inside away back in February, is now ready to cut and eat!

04.19.07 SPINACH HARVEST

The garden provides a wonderful supper this evening. Fresh spinach and eggs! Yum.

03.23.07 SPINACH SEEDLINGS

The spinach I planted February 24 is up and growing well. Looks like we'll have a good crop. Needs water!

2.24.07 PLANTING SPINACH

This is quite a big deal this year. Can I use a shovel? Four months since I broke my back in a car crash. Three months solid in a huge plastic brace. One month weaning myself from the brace and the narcotics. Slowly strengthening my chest and back muscles. Lots of naps. Still pain in my back: a sharp knuckle shoved in right next to my back bone. Ouch. But it is time to garden! I MUST garden. And I must slowly and carefully bring my body back into shape. Digging and turning soil with all of its bending and lifting is not going to work. I choose a well-worked bed – not long ago it was the floor of one of the chicken houses. I slowly and vigorously rake off the dead weeds and grass. Then I plant the shovel in the soil and using the handle as a lever pry the soil up to loosen it. After loosening a five-foot row of turves, I use the shovel like a digging bar, letting it fall of its own weight to chop the turves into clods. This works well. No pain! I rake and smooth until I have a nice bed for this year’s spinach. Out pops an early earthworm to check on the commotion. The soil and I, we are ready.