URBAN GARDENS: Late Summer / Autumn

I've put my green fingers back to work in my latest Urban Gardens trilogy, this time focusing on planting for late summer/autumn. With the help of my neighbour/gardening guru, Erica we learned how to get the soil ready as well as what to plant at this time of year. The trilogy shows the before, during and after proving how easy it is for you guys to start your own urban garden. Clearly if I can do this anyone can!

Urban Gardens - Transplanting a Plumeria Tree

This is our next installment of our Urban Gardens series. We've been busy all summer shooting with our neighbour Erica, the gardening guru, so we're putting those together right now but here's a taste of what we've been up to.

URBAN GARDENS - sprouts & growth spurts

With time on our side (and the magic of editing) the urban gardens have flourished. It's brilliant to see the broccoli florets forming and the vibrant colors of the swiss chard. My favorite by far are the zucchini blossoms. I'm still amazed this is all happening right next door. If you could see the size of these cabbages in person...they're as big (and bald) as my head!

These photos document the days counted from the first round of photos. When we first posted Urban Gardens the photos from Chris's garden had been taken in late March which was about 3 weeks after planting. So basically we're looking at 9 weeks in the soil. Can you believe what a little over 2 months will get you? Last time the missus picked her first carrot. It was my turn this time and what a beauty it was! To see this in action be sure to check out my latest webisode on YouTube.

Looking forward to seeing more growth spurts along the way to my kitchen.

Our neighbour Erica has been an avid gardener for longer than I've been around here. She's grown everything from artichokes to corn to tomatoes and so on. But this time something clicked and I found myself wandering over there to take a gander at what she was up to. It was brilliant. She had lettuce, cabbage, swiss chard, mint, oregano, carrots...the whole 9 yards. It reminded me of growing up in Ireland, where growing your own veg was the norm. You didn't need a hugh selection maybe some carrots, potatoes and onions. Enough to make soup or an Irish stew.

This got the juices flowing to start blogging on Urban Gardens. Myself and herself try to eat local as much as possible so this idea is right up our alley. And even more surprising, it has spread like wildfire throughout our neighborhood. Erica kindly lent a portion of her garden to our other neighbours Chris and Jen, who have planted even more veg like eggplant, leeks, arugula, beets, pole beans and zucchini. Herself the elf decided to jump on the bandwagon and starting small, she planted some herbs such as cilantro, thyme, oregano and basil. On the other side of us Cristina and Dave are trying their hands at heirloom tomatoes so by summer we should be in good shape to salad party!

The best part about this though is that we're a beach neighborhood in Los Angeles, CA. For those of you at home still shivering, tough! It's great to see the community bonding together over home-grown organic food. I've decided to keep track of the growth spurts in both gardens in hopes of inspiring some of you out there to try your own Urban Garden. I'm going to pass on all the info I get from these two and any of you out there who want to pass on any insights, don't be afraid! Let your inner jolly green giant pop out.

It feels great to be surrounded by these organic veggies (cabbages and all) and my fellow beach foodies.

Check out the video!