Median Garden Update

As you may recall, a few months ago I hassled the City of Richmond into allowing me to plant a garden in the median of the road where we live. I tilled up the dirt and planted a variety of veggies and a few ornamental plants. As you may recall, my garden looked like this the day I planted it:


Well, I am pleased to report that, so far, my garden has been an amazing success. I applied a bit of organic fertilizer, mulched with compost, watered regularly, and gave it lots of love; now it looks like this:


My dad was kind enough to help me build the lovely 2-foot high fence, which has succeeded in keeping out rabbits and other small animals, which I believe were eating the leaves off my vines and some of the flowers. My climbing beans have taken over the cast iron pillar, and peppers, tomatoes and eggplant are all upcoming. In fact, I just picked my first 'Lavender Touch' eggplant today:


I am happy to report that this garden has been amazingly easy to grow. I attribute my success to the full-sun location and the fair quality of the base soil, but I also want to remind all of you interested in urban greening projects that anyone with an interest can successfully grow plants.


While I am not living off this garden, I have certainly been cooking out of it -- so far, I have used home-grown kale, basil and lettuce, and I'm looking forward to ripe tomatoes and peppers. I definitely have plans to expand my gardening space next year, and I know I should already be looking into the next crop I'm going to plant at the end of the summer. I'll probably consult the book How to Grow More Vegetables by John Jeavons, which is a great resource on small-scale, biointensive gardening that I highly recommend.