Your own city "Box"

Best 2 books I ever read when I was a young hippie back in the late 60's/early 70's were, 'Total Loss Farm', and 'Home Comfort.' If you're old enough to remember them and a Southern Tennessee collective simply referred to as 'The Farm,' then you're about to collect social security. Those books and the concept of 'the Farm' along with a girlfriend who was willing to experiment in cultivating vegetable gardens within the concrete jungle of Oakland ignited a passion in me which has never quite been extinguished. There have been many years I have gone without having a vegetable garden but somehow I have always managed to return to this familiar landscape. Once, out by Lake Merritt, depressed by a serious break-up, I grew tomato plants in 2 bags of soil propped up against a wall; with no available container, I slit the tops of the bags open and set the plants in them. They fruited. The best garden I ever had was in North Oakland, not far from where I live now. Burning with youthful passion, I had a log of previous years: sketches of various gardens, failed experiments, mulches and pests. Our bible was JJ Rodale's book. The garden was small. A postage stamp in a tiny backyard with a heavy clay content. We worked the soil with compost and chicken manure. We planted 4 rows of corn. An artichoke plant. Ace tomatoes. Japanese egg plants which I fertilized with an organic tea made from compost etc. Green peppers. Strawberries in a shaded corner. A couple of cantaloupes which needed more heat! We mulched with straw we gathered from Grizzly Peak stables in the Berkeley hills. The harvest was bountiful. We even had apples from a semi dwarf Jonathan. On blind faith, we bought some asparagus plants which take years to fruit, but we believed we were going to be there together for awhile. The asparagus shoots came in about a year and a half later, but after that I, like so many other of my friends, moved on to the next revolutionary dream and the next girlfriend. Today, in the city, in my own box (3 tiny beds) out in back I'm going to put in an organic purple Cherokee tomato. Some herbs. Fava beans are almost in. 'Hot damn, summer in the city!'