Danberly Garden

Cute baby seedlings

It's summertime in Boulder! We've had a cool, wet spring followed by a mild, balmy summer. The hot, humid days feel like Mississippi and the cool, gray, rainy evenings feel like the Pacific Northwest (Kim's dreamland).



Oh yes, the garden. Last year, our neighbor Scott planted an organic veggie garden in the right-of-way in his front yard (you know, that strip of land between the sidewalk and the road that actually belongs to the city). Sounds like a lovely, and harmless thing to do, right? Apparently not. An uptight neighbor complained to the city of Boulder who then told Scott that what he was doing was against the law. The City threatened several thousand dollars in fines for his miscreant behavior. Scott didn't back down... he fought the City of Boulder like an angry Parisian on strike. This gained the attention of local citizens and soon Scott was featured on the news, in the newspaper, and even a documentary. Long story short, the city finally backed down and let Scott do his thing. This year, several folks on our block who were inspired by Scott's awesomeness have decided to plant our own gardens in the front yard.

Our garden is totally awesome. It's about 10 by 20 feet. Scott spent 7 hours with us one day digging up all the weeds and adding tons of compost to the dirt. Dan used all the testosterone he could muster to haul gigantic heavy rocks and create a beautiful rock wall. He also wielded his saw with glory, and hand-cut a butt-load of 2x4s into uneven lengths which Kim then used to create a cute garden wall. Scott donated some lovely flagstone pieces with which we created walkways through the garden. We took our sweet time, but eventually got all of our seeds and seedlings into the ground. The copious spring rains really helped everything to sprout and grow. It's been a couple months now, and the garden looks amazing. We're already harvesting kale, chard and basil. Our radishes are just about finished, and there are tons of blooms on our tomatoes, beans, eggplant, and cucumbers. We can't wait for them to turn to fruit. Our peppers and carrots are still tiny, but we're patient. We also put a small bed in our backyard for lettuces, spinach and additional herbs. We can't keep up with the lettuce production, even with eating huge salads every day. We put the spinach in too late, and by the time it was ready to eat, the weather got hot, and the spinach went to seed. We'll try another crop in the fall. We also planted a bed of strawberries, but again, we planted too late, and so they haven't produced anything (yet!). This has been such a fun project, and we wish you could all come and see it... and help us eat it all!



Here's a list of all we planted:

Tomatoes
Pineapple
Anasazi
Brandywine
Sungold Cherry
Yellow Pear
Czech's Bush
Bush Beefsteak

Beans
Kentucky Wonder
Royal Burgundy

Eggplant
Ichiban
Taiwanese

Cucumber
Armenian
Lemon

Peppers
Habanero
Bolivian
Thai
California Wonder
California Wonder Orange
Hidalgo

Miscellaneous Veggies
Carrots
Radish
French Breakfast Beets
Lettuce
Spinach
Neon Lights Swiss Chard
Lacinato Dinasaur Kale

Herbs
Chives
Garlic Chives
Basil
Holy Basil
Calendula
Thyme
Oregano
Chocolate Mint
Thai Basil
Italian Parsley
Calendula
Nasturtium

Love,
Kim&Dan

Dad Eric posted on 2009-07-18 at 11:18 am

I loved being brought back to your home in Boulder. Your garden is your baby, did you name it Danberly 2? Such an inspiring hero story about your friend Scott. Mom & I would love to help you eat your veggies, me on the swing. Thanks for keeping us close. Dad & Mom

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Becky in PhoeniX posted on 2009-07-16 at 8:59 am

Rain. Fantastic. Really cloudy here today, just checked for chance of rain & weather.com says 10% : ( which = NOT I'll be right over to help eat through that naughty, over abundant garden!

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grace posted on 2009-07-16 at 3:10 am

What a wonderful garden I would love to come and visit and learn from you too. I put is a summer garden evey year but not as varied as yours. my area is too small to carry so much. Should turn my front lawn into garden, (some people do) most probably will be to big for me to handle. All the best.

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Mark posted on 2009-07-15 at 8:53 pm

You guys rock!

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becca posted on 2009-07-15 at 3:24 pm

things look and sound fabulous! i will be partaking of more extra-ordinary veggies in the near future. and i'll bring the cooks illustrated best vegetable recipe book to boot! genius.

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jennx posted on 2009-07-15 at 2:58 pm

ah, yes, i was doing some gardening recently.... ok, no i wasn't. but on sunday i had brunch at a place, called sunburnt cow, where we ate on the back patio which resembled the monkey habitat at the zoo, and there was a window that looked out into a little east village garden. there were also unlimited mimosas. same same, but different. :)

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James posted on 2009-07-15 at 2:44 pm

Wow - that vegetable selection sounds amazing. I can't wait to see the combination of Chocolate Mint, Dinosaur Kale, Neon Lights Chard and Czech's Bush all on a plate! In Phoenix it is now too hot for tomatoes, Japanese eggplant doing well and the tiny Thai chilis are awesome with Indonesian sweet soy sauce as a dressing! Thanks for sharing your story - inspiring. James

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jen k posted on 2009-07-10 at 12:35 am

Hi Guys and Gardens! I just wanted to reconnect across the way...I'm in Thailand for the summer and saw you planted Thai peppers! YAY I've been reconnecting here and bringing scholarship money made from t shirts sales the last year....300 bucks!! I'm working with Where There Be DRagons, so i'm in charge of 11 high schools kids and we're on a whirlwind tour of the country, culminating with a waterfall swim in my village. So glad you're both living in CO and gettin dirty..... love and hugs to you both Jenn NEE

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