Waiting for my tomatoes to grow in summer 2020.
Being fortunate enough to outdoor space in New York City, my first attempts at balcony gardening was in 2018. When you love fresh food, growing some kind of food is a no-brainer. When you’re limited to smallish containers, the smaller root systems will limit the size of your yields. Do no not expect large veggies. Choose tiny crops, like cherry tomatoes, baby eggplant, any variety of tiny hot peppers, or just be okay with harvesting small crops.
Even though I live in the one of the most urban cities in the world, really I’m a country boy at heart. Rustic environments are where I feel most comfortable, not the slick and modern. I love nature, not afraid of a little dirt, and need to be around water and trees. The scent of grass and sound of birds chirping puts me at such ease. For this reason, when I moved to Astoria I chose an area that could get me closest to this Zen feeling far from the sound of the subway. A quaint area near Astoria Park is where I landed.
Having grown up with my father gardening in the back yard, I wanted to introduce homegrown food into my cooking during the growing seasons. I don’t always know what I’m doing. But its fun figuring it out!
My dad got me curious about gardening at a young age and nowadays I call him frequently to ask random questions.
Apple picking somewhere in Rhode Island, circa 1985.
Stopping by my bio-dad’s job to check out his landscaping work, circa 2002.
Summer 2020
Summer 2020 was certainly difficult as NYC was shut down beginning in March. Not being able to go to Home Depot to buy seedlings meant that I had to get creative. I ended up extracting some seeds from store bought tomatoes and planting them indoors. Yup, it was a good indoor pandemic activity. Someone told me that store bought tomatoes would not work out. I was told they wouldn’t produce fruits and they were completely wrong. Maybe it depends on the type of tomatoes you choose? Who knows. I chose to extract from a cute brand of heirloom cherry tomatoes, can’t remember the name.
Extracting seeds from a brand of heirloom cherry tomatoes. Dried them on paper towels.
A weird thing that happened in the 2020 growing season was a ripening problem. Very few tomatoes ripened. I thought I was doing something wrong, but tomato growers I know from all parts of the country (as far as Seattle) had the same problem. So, decided it was time to make Fried Green Tomato Bites.
Made these Fried Green Tomato Bites with all the unripened tomatoes.
Summer 2019
Garden salad with homegrown kale, yellow cherry tomatoes, thai basil, Shishito peppers, and a vinaigrette laced with Tabasco peppers.
Harvest time … one of many!
Freshly harvested spicy yellow cherry tomato salad with sautéed Shishito peppers, Thai basil, and tabasco peppers.
My 4th and final harvest in early September.
Growing yellow cherry tomatoes. Always wondering why they’re called “yellow” when they are clearly orange. Hmmmm.
Growing kale (or anything) in small containers means a smaller crop. Big, leafy kale requires more space for the roots to grow. So so mini-kale was the result, which is perfectly fine. It was delicious.
My Shishito pepper plant was quite successful.
Tabasco pepper harvest. Used these bad boys to make Tabasco vinegar.
Grew these from seedlings brought home from Home Depot.
Trouble in paradise … (left) forgot a morning watering on a day when an extreme heatwave swept across New York City but they made a miraculous recovery after a healthy dose of water; (right) learning about pesticides – or lack thereof – the hard way.
Harvest time.
My sautéed collard greens, click to view my full recipe.
Lesson learned … many turned over-ripened as I kept waiting for them to get bigger. Using smaller containers means that they will never grow big.
Baby eggplants simply roasted in olive oil with kosher salt and black pepper.