The Enchanted Vegetables

Vegetables are a good source of nutrition for the body, and are consumed by millions and millions of people from all over the globe. The farm in the Enchanted Garden grows different kinds of vegetables like tomatoes, cabbages, spinach, etc. These and different other vegetables are grown throughout the year in different seasons. Lots of hard work and care are put together in order to grow healthy, nutritious and disease free vegetables. There aren't any mysteries in producing nutritious and tasty vegetables. All you really need is, as I mentioned before, hard work and good care.

Vegetables in the farm are grown in several beds. Black plastic mulch in the beds are used to discourage weeds. Regular watering and sometimes a mix of "miracle gro" is needed for the healthy growth of plants. Single stakes are used in different beds for the plants to have a rigid formation . This way the plants will be straight and well organized. Weeding is also done sometimes in the beds that don't have black plastic mulch. Thats why black mulch is very helpful in this kind of situation which saves a lot of weeding time.

photo by Mr. Thoman, 1997

Some people are afraid to eat food from our garden. How can our food be safe with all the air pollution in our city? What about the soil? We can't speak for the air, but the soil in our lot has been tested twice, and both times was not found to contain any significant levels of toxins.

Here are some raised beds constructed by members in 1997. We grow our vegetables above the general soil, and use soil that has been shipped from Long Island, which we know is clean, healthy, and safe. This is a sandy soil that drains well, and works well with most of our vegetables.

(editor's addition)

Big Early

Cherry

Lets talk about the vegetables that are grown in the farm. For the summer of 2002, the farm is growing three different kinds of tomatoes such as cherry tomatoes, big early tomatoes, and orange banana. Cherry tomatoes are small in size shaped like a cherry. Big early tomatoes are large in size and orange banana are beautiful orange tomatoes which are three to four inches long with pointed ends. All three kinds taste very good and are perfect for salads. Belive me, I have tasted them. There is no better taste than a fresh farm grown tomato.

Peppers dominates the farm section of the garden. Both sweet and hot peppers are grown in the farm like giant aconcagua, better belle bell peppers, banana supreme hybrid and jalapeno. Sweet peppers may be picked at any stage of development, but for sweeter flavor, allow the fruits to ripen to a deep red color. Sweet peppers can be served raw in salads, cooked, or dried. Hot peppers are dried and used in a variety of spicy recipes.

Next comes beans. Beans are warm weather vegetables and they do fine on raised beds like the ones used in the farm of the enchanted garden. Beans don't grow in cool, damp conditions, so once your garden soil has warmed up thoroughly, you can start growing them. Roma II bush beans is the kind that we have at our farm this year, and the bushes grows 1 to 2 feet high.

The vegetable that I am going to talk about is easy to grow and usable in a wide variety of family dishes. Well you guessed it. Its cabbage. Cabbage responds favorably to the cool, moist soil under a mulch. The kind of cabbage that is grown in the farm is red cabbage, with purplish red leaves.

For flavor, abundance, and convenience, the cucumber comes close to heading the list of the most popular crop in gardening. Under the right conditions, cucumbers will grow and produce a large harvest of fruit. They need plenty of water and organic matter, as well as a sunny location. Cucumbers are best picked when they are small and most tasty. Overripe cucumbers are dry, mealy, and often have developed hard, indigesttible seeds. If the skin begins to turn yellow, the cucmber is already too ripe.

Lets not forget about eggplant. Eggplants thrive on sun and lots of heat. Eggplant is one of the most heat-tolerant and drought-tolerant vegetables. So thats a plus point. Eggplants tastes best when young. Start harvesting when their skins appear glossy. The eggplants are past their prime when the outside skin turns dull and you find lots of seed inside.

So, there you have it! I hope you too will someday get to taste the superb vegetables we grow in the Enchanted Garden!

photo by Mahammood Elahi

This web page was completed by Abdus Salaam on August 30, 2002

All photos (unless noted) were taken by Abdus with a digital camera in the garden throughout the month of August.

This is a student Web page. Opinions expressed on this page shall not be attributed to the New York City Board of Education or the student's school.

Abdus Salaam

reports on: