One Week’s Rooftop Harvest

Posted:8/1/13

Updated:8/1/13

Hello, my name is Pamela.

We have a garden where we grow many vegetables. That garden is on a rooftop.

It is summertime and the vegetables really like to grow.

I also really like cats and my cats like me.

This is our harvest for the past week – 7 days.

Can you believe it?

You are no longer allowed to say you can’t grow vegetables if you don’t have a yard or some type of ground to dig into. I won’t allow it. Oh no, I won’t.

Ok, I will admit it, this picture makes me tremendously happy. I mean the table is full of vegetables we grew out of love. All picked in one week! Then there’s my 4 meowza cats (can you spot them all?) surrounding me. I am in my happiness zone. Pure smiles and rainbows. I can’t control it. Oh garden, oh cats, I love you so much. I also love Matthew who took this picture and is one half of the garden and the cats and our life. He is pretty cool too (as cool as Brother Bear posing in front of me? I’m not sure, verdict is still out).

So let’s look at some of our loot…

First up, the onions.
Let’s talk onions, can we? Some of you might know onions are the only thing in the garden I do not eat. But like all things in life, I find my foot in my mouth when suddenly I taste a onion 29 years into my life and think “not so bad”. Ok so that was a fried onion ring (recipe coming soon) but still. There was a few days ago I even put chopped up onions in a casserole.. and I ate it. Man, my life is changing. I don’t even know who I am anymore!

We had alot of onions to pick. Matthew is ecstatic because that means we can start planting new ones for the Fall and I am pretty sure we’re planting 2 or 3 times more.

Onions, you guys rule. Onions were one of the vegetables on Matthew’s list when the garden started where we thought it would be difficult to grow from past expeiences.

But that all changed, because we are Onion City USA here. That’s what it should say on the door to our rooftop, Onion City!

Wee brush the dirt off, then let them dry.

It’s really important you let them dry if you aren’t going to use them fresh right away. So pick them on a dry day and let them sit in the sun to dry. You don’t want to pick them after a rainy afternoon as they are going to have alot of moisture on them. Having the onions dry is one sure way to extend their shelf life for months (sometimes up to a year!).

Another way to dry them out is to hang them in bunches for a few days. This is a great alternative if a storm is coming in and you can’t leave them dry outside. After they are dried, store them in a mesh bag or a basket. It’s important that the onions have air circulation.

Next up.. carrots!
You can see by the first 2 pictures just how excited we are by carrots.

We’re like happy bunnies. Well humans. Ok humans as cute as a bunny. Let’s just pretend, shall we? Imagine us with furry tails. Adorable, I know.

Carrots are one of those plants that grow really well in our containers. They don’t take much care, except some water and love.

To dig up carrots, just dig around the top, then a little deeper and just yank that carrot up. Carrots are pretty resistant, but be careful not to break it.

These are pretty much as long as our carrots can grow due to the depth of our containers. I’d like to do a experiment where we grow them in 4 foot deep containers and set a Guinness book for tallest carrot ever. Then we would get it preserved and put it in a glass container in our home. Or maybe we won’t do that at all, it still would be fun. Anyways, these carrots grow big!

We snip their bushy leaves on top and compost them right away. Then we wash the carrots, let them dry and store them in a plastic bag with the bag slightly opened, in the crisper drawer. Crisper drawer is such a funny word to me.

Now.. my babies.. watermelon!

Hi babies, I’m your mama.

Our watermelons have done pretty great this year with so many watermelons growing on every single plant. This is hands down our best year growing watermelon so whatever we did, I hope it continues to next year and forever.

We didn’t plan on picking the watermelon when we went up to the roof to water the plants, but we did. And then we were like how are we going to get them downstairs? So I found this crate. And then I went to pick up the crate to take it down and it was comical to say the least. The crate didn’t even budge. Actually I budged because I fell over in frustration. Big strong man, come carry my watermelons downstairs. Thank you!

Now.. green peppers.. the no fuss warrior guys of the garden.

How many times do I say this? Alot. But seriously. Green peppers, plant them, water them, and that’s that. They are no fuss. They just grow amazing. Green peppers are the only plant I think we’ve never had any difficult with. They are the perfect children. They are also really delicious.

Can you spot the ladybugs? Our pepper plants are currently full, there’s so many more to pick, I don’t know what I’m going to do with them all!

And they are beauties! B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L. Who’s beautiful? You are peppers, you are!

They also are giants this year. Great job peppers, as always.

Now tomatoes…. oh tomatoes. oh tomatoes! oh tomatoes! oh tomatoes. What am I going to do with you all?
One day we picked 16 pounds, 2 days later we picked 13 pounds. And there’s more days in a week. It’s insane. It really is. I have no other way to describe the tomato insanity that is happening at this very moment.

Cherry tomatoes, I want to eat you up!

It always starts with us thinking there will only be a few tomatoes to pick.. then it turns into this.

Then we need multiple baskets. By the way, this basket is totally about to break due to the tomato weight.

And more tomatoes..

We got a few siamese tomatoes this year, grown with just 1 stem. I’m in awe of them. I had to google about this and there are many search results for “Siamese Tomatoes” some of them relevant and some of them just weird. When they grow together it’s referred to as “fasciation” or “cresting”. It happens when the growing tip spreads perpendicularly, contouring the tomato tissue inside. This mutation happens to not just tomatoes, but other vegetables and flowers. Some people actually raise their flowers to get double heads, because well.. it’s pretty cool looking!

Aren’t they just the cutest? I have to eat them together because it just feels right!

Some beef tomatoes almost ready to pick…

Speaking of beef tomatoes, holy enormous, we got some big ones this year!

And then they go downstairs where they take up my entire kitchen and I have no room to put anything else. It’s the life of summer, it’s devoted to tomatoes. All counter space is for the tomatoes. You need a plate? Use the floor kid.