Recently in From the Garden:

I know, I know, more garden updates, but every week there is something new. Like nice, new, round little tomatoes, or oblong tomatoes - but they're there and growing and getting bigger by the minute.

We counted over 20 tomatoes on one of our plants - that is how many our eyes could see. But there are tons more other flowers, which means, more little tomatoes in the works!!

And people, we have two pickles already growing and resembling edible stuff. Two. Pickles. Where they there a few days ago? No. But one day we were watering the plants and this guy was just hanging out staring right at us. We were speechless before we felt giddy.

The squash is out of control. Perhaps because they feel late to this garden party (they were planted a few weeks later) and the seeds lay dormant in the soil, they want to fit in, catch up on their growth, and show the other plants what they've got. For reasons unknown to us, the squash growth is beyond anything we expected and would've believed had someone told us what to expect. We would have chucked it to slight exaggeration. But I am telling you - the squash and the cucumbers continue to impress our doubting minds.

So there we have it: our vegetables, like our herbs, are thriving, but I decided so spare you another shot of basil or sage - I just wanted to show you our budding little harvest - I can't wait to see what happens this week!

I know it seems a bit too soon to post about how the garden is doing, but things have changed so much so soon, I feel like I should share with you about our (ahem KS’s success) and greenies’ progress. Well, I am happy to report that everything is going swimmingly and things are growing like there’s no tomorrow and they’re just gunning it down. It’s like a race to the harvest line out there.

We have a new addition to our “family” so to speak – the squashes. They’re a peaceful and quiet family that’s growing in a window box they will very soon outgrow. We are in the process of finding the appropriate real estate as not to make them feel improperly housed. They are cute and little and have just emerged from the soil all at once it seems. I suppose they’re a tight-knit bunch.

I’ve dubbed myself as the absentee mother because a few days might pass before I take a look at our garden, sometimes too busy with work and sometimes cognizant that KS will water them. I’ve felt pangs of guilt in the last few days and have made a resolution to spend more time with the plants – giving them their much-needed love.

But as you can see from the pictures, things are glorious, green, and growing! And while I am treasuring each new day of this beautiful weather, a part of me just wants to fast forward to see what our harvest will look like.

We need more “stuff” for the garden. Larger window boxes, pots and perhaps a more environmentally friendly bug spray – ours is some kind of an organic soap that makes them slide off, but I want to find something really truly safe. Something I could make at home, but don’t have to make at home.

All in all, this garden is making me and KS realize a few things. Like our love of the land and soil and enjoying the ‘farming’ process – if you can call it such at this point in the stage. What does this mean about us? I’m not sure. But the garden continues to provide this elusive feeling of zen – there is something about this process that is so calming and grounding (pardon the pun) – that it is difficult to put into words. Sure we giggle with glee at the sight of a new leaf or a new flower, or seeing that little tomato grow bigger and bigger, but there’s more to it. I am, for one, amazed at the thrust of life on our deck. The push, the need, the sheer fortitude of these plants to procreate, grow, get bigger, produce fruit – it’s the strongest force of life I’ve ever observed – and perhaps this all sounds trite and sugary, but I really don’t mean for it to be. I am just excited that a month ago, we planted the seeds, potted the plants. And today we have a thriving little garden growing on our roof in New York. Urban gardening at its inception stages – who knows where we’ll take this project of ours?

Radish's note: Even though I have just posted a few days ago about the garden, the pictures you saw were at least 2 weeks old. The pictures in today's entry were taken by the insomniac me around 6:30 in the morning - yes, I know, I should sleep at this time, but who can sleep with such glorious sun pouring its rays everywhere?

I’ve never been a plant girl. Never quite understood what the fuss was about. You know, those things growing in pots, and you have to water them. Unlike with a dog or a cat, plants give you no love, they never cuddle next to you, and if they die, you might feel a hint of remorse, but chances are, you aren’t going to go into a month-long mourning because your lucky bamboo plant just didn’t make it.

So I never had much desire to purchase plants and besides the Japanese peace lily, all thanks to Hot Fuzz, I haven’t owned plants since living with my parents, and that was a long time ago. But I a garden. And I don’t mean a basil here and a rosemary here – I mean, I wanted a harvest. Things I can make into a salad, or pickle, or snack on.

And so in the dead of winter when KS and I talked of making better use of the upstairs deck when it finally warms up, we tossed around the idea of growing some herbs and vegetables come springtime. But who knew this was indeed going to become a reality – one that is blooming and showing us promises of summer’s bounty?

Over Mother’s Day weekend, we stopped by a nursery in Westchester and picked up all kinds of little green guys, gravel, planting soil, pots, organic plant food, and seeds. As soon as the plants were over at our apartment, we got to work. We planted during the dark, with limited light, often groping our way through this process. Neither one of us has ever really planted before, or grown vegetable from scratch, but we were excited and eager.

For the first week or so, things looked grim. Our plants were drying out, looking limp and on the brink of death. We watered them with great care, only at night, we talked to them, we mixed their soil, but to no avail. The herbs and vegetables were looking less and less like plants that were going to give us a harvest at the end of the summer – they were about to meet their maker! One of the plants, an alpine strawberry bush, gave up the fight. We used it as compost for one of the tomato plant, hoping that it’s what the strawberry bush would have wanted.

But then something happened, and I give credit solely to KS, who lovingly tended to the plants daily. Upon getting home from work, he would immediately go upstairs and water, plant, weed, fertilize and tend. One day he came down and said he couldn’t believe his eyes – the very basil and sage that were drying up and turning into straw days before, were strong, verdant and bushier than ever. He even plucked a few leaves of the basil for us to use!

Over the next few days the plants really took off. Peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers began to flower. Parsley that was all but dead, turned the brightest shade of green imaginable. Cilantro perked up. Sage grew another layer of fuzzy leaves. In short, our little almost-herbarium became something of a miniature Eden. And every day when we climb the stairs to the roof, we find more green leaves on each plant, more flowers, more promise of vegetables to come. The cucumbers, in particular, are growing as a frightening speed, almost doubling in size each day. And while it sounds a bit hoaky, we’ve turned into a bit of nerdy farmers in our after work past time. We’re delighted to see each new leaf and each new flower. And while plants might not look all that different from day to day, to us, who monitor them with a meticulous eye, they show something new every day. I have never thought that watching plants grow, plants that I am tending to, would be such a personally rewarding and thrilling process, but it is. I cannot imagine not doing this again and again. And expanding our garden to perhaps include a lemon tree, or a squash (already in the making). Who knows – by the end of summer, you might see pictures of things KS and I grew ourselves, on a rooftop of a downtown New York apartment – a little idyll of our own bearing fruit.