Gardening: I’ve got a plot!

I now have a gardening plot in the local community garden! Woot! I had been on the waiting list for over a year. Turnover is pretty low as there are quite a few folks that have lived in the neighborhood for decades.

However, the family that had the plot ran afoul of the community garden police back in late June. In particular, the extended family showed up, stripped the fruit trees and let their kids run wild through the garden.

So, they got tossed. Now, I took possession of the plot on Sunday. The plot has had nearly zero care beyond watering since late June. If you are familiar with the Northern Californian climate, stuff grows incredibly well. Supremely well. Unfortunately, that includes both desirable plants and weeds (some of which are desirable).

More pictures of the plot and more info follows. The gardening feed will contain updates to my great garden adventure. In particular, it’ll contain my efforts to document the rather odd collection of stuff (like that orange thing pictured above) that I have inherited in the plot.

I added notes to the picture at left and the photo from the previous page that give an idea of what I have discovered so far.

The family that planted the plot was hindu and, so I have been told, the vegetables were largely selected based upon their point of origin.

There is one pepper plant that is totally loaded with these amazingly flavorful, and hot, red peppers. Look like Thai hots, but don’t taste like it and are a little larger. When I started weeding around that plant, I discovered at least a dozen additional plants, all different. Unfortunately, most of the peppers have rotted from being shaded by weeds, but there are some plants that look like they will recover.

The weeds are out of control. The amaranth like weed is, literally, 20 feet tall.

Pictured on the right is another view of the mystery fruit or vegetable that I found while hunting through one of the fences full of vegetables. I have no idea what it is or how to prepare it for consumption. On the same fence is a bunch of really long — 12 to 18 inches — beans. They are the kind commonly found in stir fry style preparations.

I haven’t really delved into the other two fences, but one does look to have some kind of a funky cucumber. Mottled brown/green cukes (or whatever). There are also absolutely gigantic zucchini of some sort. I have been told it is some kind of Russian zuke that is commonly stuffed and baked.

There might be a watermelon in the middle, but I haven’t gotten there yet.

As soon as I figure out what can be saved from what is there, I will plant the remainder of the plot with fava beans. This will renew the nitrogen in the soil, provide excellent “green manure” when turned into the soil, and will keep the weeds down.

This should be fun.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 19th, 2005 at 11:51 pm and is filed under Gardening, Life, Nature, Photography. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.