Asparagus...February 28, 2008. The first one of the season.

Plum cutting...February 28, 2008. I'm trying to root a cutting I took from the old plum tree at the back of our community garden. I stuck this one right in the ground, and I'm trying to root others in a bucket of water.

How hot is your pile? February 28, 2008. Just a few days ago, my compost pile was only at an internal temperature of 50 degrees. Since then, the weather has warmed up, and I added some poopy straw --now the pile consistently reads at 60 degrees. In the warmer, drier months, the pile usually maintains an internal temperature of 80 degrees --still considered a COLD compost pile.

Seedling shelf...February 28, 2008. I started these seeds a few days ago.

Mustard...February 28, 2008. I believe this is the Osaka Purple variety of mustard.

The squash that became ravioli...January 23, 2008. This is the same dakota dessert squash pictured below (that I harvested in October). I took its picture again before I cut it up, cooked it, and made ravioli out of it. My ravioli technique has room for improvement (next time I'll roll the pasta out thinner), but the squash tastes good. I served it with sage butter and grated parmesan.

Potato...November 28. This potato was actually growing underneath one of the boards that frames out my garden bed. It must have sprouted from a piece left in the ground from 2006, because I did not plant this variety in 2007. It's a large, red potato --Reddale, I think.

Calendula seeds...November 15. These plants re-seed readily once you have them. I had plenty in my old garden near Potrero and the freeway, but I had to bring seed into the garden I have now; one of my fellow gardeners was happy to let me collect seed from some of her plants.

Dakota dessert squash...November 1. I grew this squash from seed (see it's picture below in May) and harvested it on October 24. One nice thing about squash is that you can use it as a decoration and then cook it and eat it later. One of the tricky things about photographing my garden produce is that sometimes I eat it before I get a chance to take a picture of it --carrots, for instance, rarely make it past the garden gate and are usually enjoyed in situ. I also sometimes refrain from eating something so that I can take a picture of it, but then wait too long, and the item becomes less appetizing --this can happen with strawberries. The consolation, of course, is that even if something gets rotten or soft, I can always put it in the compost pile, and it will do plenty of good there.

Cippolini Onion ...October 8. I grew these onions from seed. They are small --the kind you can roast whole mixed in with a pan full of cut up root vegetables.

Lemon cucumber ...September 26. This is a small but very handsome lemon cucumber. I had one of these plants in my garden this year and it produced a total of two fruits --of which this is one --the other was smaller. These are a nice addition to salads. A friend who gardens in the East Bay reports that they are great when pickled.

Strawberries ...September 26. My strawberry plant is in the midst of a new flush of production; these strawberries were sweet. I have noticed that October in San Francisco often brings this type of abundance. The beans too seem to slow down for awhile and then kick into high gear again around this time.

Carrots ...September 6. Three different varieties of carrots. All delicious. The white one is Kuttinger, the red is, I believe, Scarlet Chantenay, and the Orange is, I believe, Nantes.

Garlic ...September 6. I actually harvested this head of garlic in June or July. But I am using it today to make pickled green beans.

Strawberry ...September 2. This is what a strawberry looks like before it has matured and ripened.

Grape vine cutting ...August 11. When I pruned my grape vine last winter, I put some of the wood in a bucket. Because it was the rainy season, the bucket filled with water, and after awhile the cuttings started to leaf out. I potted up four of them; this one is one foot tall and under-nourished because I left it in a shady spot for a couple months, but the others are three feet tall and leafy.

Brussels sprout ...August 5. Red rubine brussels sprout. Beautiful and delicious.

Maxibel haricots vertes ...July 26. These are long and thin, French-style green beans. Right now, I get a handful or two every couple of days, and it can be hard to keep up with the plant's ability to produce. This year, I hope to pickle some beans, but it's also fun to give some away fresh to a friend.

Bean flower ...July 26 A bean plant flowers and then develops a bean pod where the flower was. A plant will usually flower and fruit in different places at the same time.

Russian fingerling potatoes ...June 24. These potatoes grew from the stock harvested in 2006 (see the picture from March below). I planted three or four starts in a five gallon bucket. When they were ready to harvest, I dumped the whole pot of soil out onto a couple sheets of newspaper; that made the potatoes very easy to find. I re-used the soil right away too.

Potatoes ...June 10. This was a mixed harvest of Carola, Butte, and Caribe potatoes. The Buttes were my surprise favorites.

Lettuce....May 27 This lettuce came to me as a seedling from a fellow gardener who had a surplus.

Honey from my neighbors My neighbors are bicycle-powered, urban beekeepers. The bees are based in a mixed-use residential and industrial area; their honey tastes good.

Honey mead in the making...mid April When I realized that my neighbors were harvesting honey, I decided to try a recipe I had read in Sandor Ellix Katz's book WILD FERMENTATIONS. The earliest stage of honey mead is just honey and water mixed together in a four to one ratio.

Bean seedling...March 22nd Bean seedling emerging on March 22nd. The beans that came up around this time were directly seeded in the ground, and were denuded by snails or slugs soon after they emerged. I pulled out their stems, added them to the compost pile, and started another batch of seeds in flats.

Grape vine...March 22 On March 22nd, this grape vine had just begun to bud.

Potato starts...March I saved these Russian Fingerling potatoes from my 2006 harvests. You can see that they have already sprouted; the potatoes in the background have sprouts that are about 4" long. I planted them shortly after I took this picture; they're in two gallon black plastic pots on the back stairs of my apartment building. I usually steam these and eat them with butter.

Brussel sprout...late February As of March 15, this plant is about 20" tall. It is a red rubine (same plant as pictured from January), and has kept the purple color in the stem, the veins, and on the underside of the leaf. Otherwise, it's taken on a more green appearance than a month or two ago.

Asparagus....February Asparagus grows up out of the ground looking just like itself. I harvested this right after I took its picture; it was tender and delicious.

A note on my methods: I grow most of my plants from seed, which is cheaper than buying young plants, but requires more time and more labor. Once in awhile I will buy a bag of seedling mix; otherwise, I try not to purchase soil, amendments, or fertilizers. I seek out free sources of straw and animal manure (chicken, sheep, or horse) --which are easier to find than you might imagine --and incorporate these materials into the compost pile in my garden plot. It takes two to three months for me to get a finished batch of compost. I use it to pot up seedlings or as a top-dress fertilizer for plants that are already growing in the ground.

Use what's available: You do not need to buy a lot of stuff to start growing a garden. Plastic six-packs (for starting seeds) and pots are easy to come by for free; many professional landscapers or gardeners would rather give you their used plastic pots than throw them in the garbage. This has the additional advantage of keeping a manufactured item in continued use rather than adding it to the landfill. This concept has been called "interrupting the waste stream."

How much space does it take? The statistics I've read say that it currently takes commercial agriculture 15,000 to 30,000 square feet to raise all the food for one person for a year. In his book "How to Grow More Vegetables," John Jeavons details techniques that may allow a gardener to grow their years' supply of food on the equivalent of 3403 square feet. (Jeavons, 1974, 2002)

An all-garden meal: I don't grow nearly all of my food in the garden. There are some times during the year when I can eat a few all-garden meals. July is one of those times. If you read seed catalogs enough, you'll notice that they will often bring up the idea of adding variety to the crops that you plant. This is because some of the most successful crops are so productive that you might even get tired of them. I expect that this is why somebody came up with the idea of stuffing squash blossoms and making bread out of zucchinis. Pickling is also a way of dealing with seasonal surpluses, and ensures that you will have some vegetables to eat during the winter.

Less space than it takes to park a car: My garden measures about 7' x 14' (98 square feet). The standard metered on-street parking space in San Francisco measures 7'x20'.