Penelope, age 4, is the inspiration for this wonderful garden.
Penelope digging.
Helping rescue worms to add to the garden beds.
Day one of phase I: figuring out where to lay out our first five beds.
Day one - May 13, 2009 - was wet and chilly. Here, workers fill newly built garden beds with an organic soil blend.
Surveying our plantings at day's end.
Final cleanup at the end of day one.
Phase I plantings included a wide variety of heirloom tomatoes.
More tomatoes and onion starts.
Two weeks later, our Charmant cabbage has sprouted and is growing fast.
In mid-June, just one month after planting, our tomatoes have taken off.
Baby magenta and golden chard.
Butter lettuce was grown from seed in mid-May, then replaced with green bean seeds as each head was harvested.
Bed one: six weeks after planting, Roma tomatoes, carrots and chard are thriving.
Charmant cabbage plants at six weeks.
Beds one, two and three at six weeks. Note we grow our vining tomatoes up custom-built trellises to save space in the garden.
In phase II of Penelope's Giving Garden, we replaced the entire front lawn with vegetable beds, each with its own trellis.
Front yard bed one was planted with vining tomatoes, eggplants, basil and green beans. Lavender and chives line the pathways.
An overview of the front yard Phase II garden, two weeks after planting. Beds two and three contain vertically grown cucumbers, plus marigolds and a wide variety of sweet and hot peppers.
Phase III of the garden: before work began on July 14.
Getting set up for Phase III in the early morning. We put in seven raised beds in this latest phase; four on the asphalt area and three along the edge of the lawn.
Morning volunteers start trenching to run the drip irrigation lines over to the new beds.
Six yards of organic soil being delivered.
Once the frames are in position, we add soil, watering it well and raking it as we go to allow it to hydrate.
Phase III beds one through four in their early stages, waiting for irrigation lines.
Verdura helpers and volunteers moved all six yards of soil in just a few hours.
Watering in the new soil prior to planting.
Several young volunteers enjoying some of the bounty from Phase I. We were asked to grow as many carrots as possible by program participants!
Volunteers of all ages helped with the planting, in this bed (number seven) adding tomatoes, marigolds and Thai basil.
Note the drip irrigation lines in position in the bed.
Planting three different kinds of carrots - nearly 500 were seeded that afternoon in just one bed, accompanied by pumpkins in the background.
End of day - newly planted pumpkins, lemon cucumbers and mini bell peppers.
Large folding cages were added for each tomato plant.
Bed four in Phase III was planted with more pumpkins as well as 30 cabbage plants.
Finishing installing the drip irrigation lines.
Two months after planting, Phase I is already yielding carrots, lettuce and Swiss chard.
Another view of our first five garden beds, with two large sage plants nearby.
Great soil, full sun, and lots of attention are resulting in bumper crops, all grown 100% organically.
Green beans, onions and tomatoes thriving in beds two and three.
Sweet Baby Girls starting to ripen on the vine.
Can you see the baby peppers?
Edible borage and nasturtium blossoms are great companions for squash plants in bed five.
Looking over newly built and planted beds from Phase III.
The front yard garden, one month after planting.
Heirloom tomatoes growing up our trellises.
A baby eggplant.
Cucumbers are starting to climb their trellises, with marigolds and peppers in the background.
Nearly a dozen different varieties of sweet and hot peppers are thriving in the front yard garden.
The potato beds, four weeks after being planted.
Jimmy Nardello peppers ripening.
The green beans in the front yard are just hitting their stride. We picked several pounds of beans today for delivery to BCSI, along with tomatoes, zucchini, carrots and cabbages.
More bush beans in the front yard, shown here growing in front of eggplants and tomatoes.
Costata Romanesco zucchini is a delicious heirloom variety that is just starting to produce in the garden. We harvested this one and delivered it flower and all.
The first two cabbages of the season were harvested today, mostly to thin the plants.
Cherry tomatoes are the first to ripen.
Our sunflowers are just about to bloom!
Larry watering in feather meal, an organic nitrogen supplement we added today. Nice white socks!
The first Sweet Reba winter squash are forming in bed number five. We had to remove a couple of the overgrown borage plants today to allow the squash the room they'll need to grow into the fall.
The marigolds are just gorgeous right now, and popular with the bees.
Looking north at beds three, four and five, with green beans and tomatoes in full swing.
Mini yellow bell peppers are proving to be prolific growers in a frame on the back patio.
A closeup of our gorgeous Bintje potato plants.
Young cabbages and a few winter squash share a bed on the patio.
Costata Romanesco zucchini, a delicious heirloom variety.
Sweet Jimmy Nardello peppers are finally ripe!
More Jimmy Nardellos.
The filet-style green beans we're growing are long, slim, and incredibly tender.
Momotaro tomatoes ripening.
Our resident mutant Roma tomato resembles a bird.
Delicata squash ripening on the vine.
Potatoes have lovely (but poisonous) white flowers.
Sunflowers form a cheerful backdrop to bush beans.
Fall garden planting started in August, when we finished harvesting a number of crops and started planting over-wintering Walla Walla Sweet onions, Swiss chard and peas.
Another view of our sunflowers and beans, with bush tomatoes in the background.
Newly planted Swiss chard replaced some summer-harvested onions. More chard is being planted in September.
Green cabbages ripen in the late summer garden.
Acorn squash is thriving in Penelope's Giving Garden.
Another view of a delicata squash, framed with edible nasturtium flowers.
Our two potato beds are actually containers, each planted with Bintje potatoes, a Dutch variety that resembles Yukon Gold. Bintjes are not well know in the U.S., but are actually the most widely planted potato in the world.
Nick, one of the culinary students we brought to the garden on September 26, took this next series of photos, including this one of a young cucumber flower.
A cucumber ripens as it hangs on a trellis in the front yard.
These small green tomatoes will likely ripen before the first frost.
Basil is still going strong in the late September garden.
Eggplant leaves and flowers, although poisonous, are gorgeous.
An errant pumpkins blossom pokes its head through a thicket of carrot tops.
Roma tomatoes are in their prime right now.
Fall peas and chard, planted early this month, are already well established.
More fall chard starts, as the garden slowly transitions from summer to fall.
Cherry tomatoes ripen in our Sturdy Cages from Oregon Wire Products.
A nearly perfect cabbage, ready for harvest.
Borage continues to attract bees to the squash patch.
Edible and gorgeous, borage is a great attractant for bees.
Our prize acorn squashes continue to grow.
A perfect vine-ripened Sungold tomato.
A nearly ripe butternut squash nestles in amongst the nasturtium.
Squash blossoms are also edible.
A freshly dug Solar Yellow carrot.
Nick taste testing Solar Yellow, Paris Market, and Yaya carrots. The small round Paris Markets were the culinary students' favorites.
Nick and Tagg confer on tasting carrots.
Small Sugar Pumpkin plants crawl up a trellis rather than across the garden beds, leaving room for hundreds of carrots to grow underneath.
These winter squash march across an unused area of lawn.
Our largest pumpkin is still green but measures about 10" across.
We dug up the first of the Bintje potatoes today to see how they're doing.
Caroline found one!
Still digging...
Amy, Anne and Tagg all delight in their discoveries.
The first few Bintjes of the season.
Penelope hides treasures in her cabbage patch.
Penelope explores the garden in the back yard
Penelope enjoying her back yard, which has transformed this summer into a lush playground with 15 raised beds full of organic treats.
Tomato vines continue to grow in the front yard.
A late summer rose peeks through the fence.
