Hermitage Triangle Community Garden

With the help of NeighborSpace, a few of my neighbors and I turned a vacant city lot into a small community garden. 


There have been several stops and starts in the lengthy planning process; we finally got our donated topsoil at the end of May. Then the work began: Soil testing, water issues, fertilizer, dodging "free" compost, mulch, and finally, planting.

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From a pile of old 2x12 Douglas Fir joists donated from a building renovation project, we marked out the plots and turned them over to our enthusiastic gardeners.

[Click on any of the images for a larger view]

I built a couple A-frame tomato trellises out of a few of the old Douglas Fir joists.

The community garden, as seen from my rooftop garden, the first week in June, 2010.

We built a short fence around the backside of the garden with some of the Douglas Fir joists and rolls of donated willow screening. In the background you can see my rooftop garden.

From the old joists, Art and I are holding pieces, I also made a picnic table and two benches that will go under the tree at the north end of the garden.

This is the first of a series of rain barrels that will collect, then distribute, rooftop water for the garden.


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[As usual, all photos, as well as the conversion of the plot plan image from a pdf to a jpg file, done by H2. Thanks!]

Early Rooftop Eggplant and Tomatoes

Black Cherry are the first tomatoes to ripen on my roof.

Tomatillos will be ready soon.

I've also had a handful of eggplant ripen. Not having a camera handy, I cut and pasted these pics from google images.

Udumalapet

Ping tung long

and Diamond.

Learning to cook what you grow is part of gardening. It's not that hard; like anything, it's practice, practice, practice. When I want to do more than simply sauté (blah!) eggplant, I usually reach for one of my Indian cookbooks. Though in this case, it's an Americanized version of an Indian recipe.

Hot, Sweet, and Sour Chickpeas with Eggplant

(Slightly adapted from Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything Vegetarian.)

Serves 4. Cooking time 45 min.
Ingredients:

• 1 or 2 medium eggplant, peeled and then shredded on box grater (This is key: the small pieces of eggplant melt into the liquid, forming a delicious, almost unidentifiable, sauce.)
• 1 or more cups of water
  
• 1 tablespoon peeled & grated ginger (or 1 tsp dried ginger)
  
• 1 or 2 hot fresh chilies, seeded and minced (or substitute red pepper flakes)
• 1 sprig fresh curry leaves, or a few dried (optional)
• 3 cups cooked chickpeas, with about 2 cups of cooking liquid (Or if you're desperate, two cans of chickpeas + 2 cups water).
• 1 tablespoon Sambar Powder (2 tsp ground coriander, 1/2 tsp ground fenugreek, 1/2 tsp mustard seeds) or curry powder
  
• 1 teaspoon ground turmeric
• Pinch of asafetida (optional)
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon tamarind paste or freshly squeezed lime juice to taste
• 8 oz. frozen peas (optional)
  
• salt and pepper to taste
• Chopped cilantro (for garnish)
• Chopped roasted peanuts (for garnish)

1. Put eggplant, ginger, curry leaves (if using) and 1 cup of water in 4 quart saucepot and cook/simmer for 20-30 minutes, until eggplant is almost tender.
   
2. Add the chickpeas with liquid, Samba/curry powder, turmeric, brown sugar, asafetia if you’re using, and lime juice/tamarind. Add enough water to make it slightly "soupy". Sprinkle with salt & pepper.
   
3. Bring to a boil, and then reduce heat and simmer for about 15 minutes until thickened. Add peas, stir, cook for 4 min more. Taste and adjust seasoning/liquid.
   
4. Garnish with cilantro and peanuts.

I served it over short grain brown rice.

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It wasn't pretty, but Spain won the World Cup. Nicely done!

Behind the flag, and looking down from my roof, is a tiny triangular piece of land owned by the city that's has been turned into a community garden; a process that I've been working on for the past 3 years. We just started planting 2 months ago, and now there are 13 individual plots as well as a common herb area, picnic table, and (future) compost bin.





[Click on image to enlarge.]


More on the community garden in another post.