{"id":343,"date":"2010-07-20T17:12:54","date_gmt":"2010-07-21T00:12:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adribarrcrocetti.com\/main\/?p=343"},"modified":"2012-04-15T17:48:02","modified_gmt":"2012-04-16T00:48:02","slug":"my-urban-garden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adribarrcrocetti.com\/main\/my-urban-garden\/","title":{"rendered":"My Urban Garden"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"My<\/a>

...<\/p><\/div>\n

…<\/p>\n

This is just the greatest time of year.\u00a0 My garden is anticipation central – tremendous bounty is about to come.\u00a0 It’s the garden I work in every day.\u00a0 It’s the garden for which my neighbors give thanks.\u00a0 It’s the garden my friends envy.\u00a0 Each morning I go to my backyard to inspect it (one must be vigilant in one’s garden), tend the plants and soil (one must keep one’s garden neat, clean and free of debris), and generally check things out.\u00a0 I see that the tomatoes and vegetables are growing bigger, and many of them are beginning to turn from green to their final glorious hues. Whether they will be striped, gold, yellow, orange, red, lilac, purple, brown, white or almost black, it is now that nature begins to reveal her deft hand.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Down<\/a><\/p>\n

I started gardening thirty years ago, and I never dreamed I would get this much joy out of it.\u00a0 It is not only about the finished result, the vegetables, fruits and herbs, but it is also very much about the process.\u00a0 In late Winter I begin to think about just how big my garden will be.\u00a0 Each year it is bigger than the year before.\u00a0 Next I check to see when our local Tomatomania<\/a> event will be held.\u00a0 Tomatomania<\/a>, for those of you not familiar with it, is a weekend long celebration and sale of tomatoes and items for tomato culture.\u00a0 Literally hundreds of varieties of tomato seedlings are offered for sale along with herbs and some vegetables.\u00a0 Also available are soil, fertilizer, planting forms known as tomato cages along with other necessities for tomato culture.\u00a0 The best thing about Tomatomania<\/a> is the gardeners you meet there.\u00a0 People wonder aloud about varieties they see, and every time, without fail a nearby gardener overhears the musings and weighs in with his experience with the particular cultivar.\u00a0 It is the place to be to find out about tomatoes.\u00a0 Check out their website at Tomatomania.com<\/a>.\u00a0 This year Bart and I left with 19 tomato varieties. Wow.\u00a0 That was all I could say.\u00a0 Well, except that I wanted more. But as with so many things in life, one’s eyes can get bigger than one’s garden plot, so to speak.\u00a0 I practiced restraint.\u00a0 Nothing will ruin a tomato harvest faster than a crowded garden.\u00a0 Those babies need room to breathe.\u00a0 Good ventilation is a must.<\/p>\n

I have my old standbys like Green Zebra, Cuore di Bue, Roma, San Marzano and Black Brandywine.\u00a0 New to my garden this year are cultivars of Black Ethiopian, Pink Oaxacan, Red Fig, Tigerella, Moon Glow, Sungold, Ananas Noire and Giant Syrian along with many others.<\/p>\n

One of my favorite tomatoes is Juliet.\u00a0 And she is just starting to reveal herself.\u00a0 Small, ovoid, firm and packed with tomato flavor, the plant is a huge producer.\u00a0 Juliets are firm, and they cut beautifully.\u00a0 I use Juliets for salads and pasta dishes, and because they hold their shape so well when cooked, I like to use them on the grill.\u00a0 One of my favorite things to do with Juliet tomatoes is “Cheesy Eggs”\u00a0 eggs scrambled with Italian fontina, Juliet tomatoes and basil, finished with Parmigiano Reggiano. For the recipe see my other post for today.<\/p>\n

I tried a new Italian zucchini this year,\u00a0 Zucchini da Pergola.\u00a0 It is a climber, and, I hope, a good producer.\u00a0 I have four eggplants, Rosa Bianca, Bianca, Nero and Japanese Eggplant.\u00a0 We will have lots.\u00a0 I will update you as the growing season goes on, and I hope my backyard labors will inspire you to start your own garden.<\/p>\n

\"Lilac<\/a>

Lilac Peppers<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

… This is just the greatest time of year.\u00a0 My garden is anticipation central – tremendous bounty is about to come.\u00a0 It’s the garden I work in every day.\u00a0 It’s the garden for which my neighbors give thanks.\u00a0 It’s the garden my friends envy.\u00a0 Each morning I go to my backyard to inspect it (one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[50,3],"tags":[57,1836,54,58,53,52,51,55],"class_list":["post-343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-garden","category-default","tag-eggplant","tag-garden","tag-juliet","tag-parmigiano-reggiano","tag-roma","tag-tomatoes","tag-tomatomania","tag-zucchini"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pYzzK-5x","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adribarrcrocetti.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adribarrcrocetti.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adribarrcrocetti.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adribarrcrocetti.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adribarrcrocetti.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=343"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/adribarrcrocetti.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4179,"href":"https:\/\/adribarrcrocetti.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343\/revisions\/4179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adribarrcrocetti.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adribarrcrocetti.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adribarrcrocetti.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}