Prepare yourself for some shameless healthy food porn. (Yes, that’s a thing.) It’s gratuitous. You’re welcome.
This spring, forces collided in our favor, enabling us to start our first garden on our brand new (to us) Brooklyn apartment’s super-sunny, sixth-floor balcony.
We have small and large tomatoes, hot and mild peppers, basil, cilantro, mint, dill, thyme, rosemary and sage. All of it (except one tomato plant) was grown from seed in large clay pots and railing attachments, as well as a cool contraption of stacked pots speared by an old lamp post — yet another instance of David making my idea into a reality.
Check out these dishes of deliciousness made possible mostly through David’s green thumb.
1. David’s BLT open-faced sandwich using our homegrown tomatoes (and Dickson’s Farmstand bacon — the best).
2. My oatmeal with toppings including our homegrown mint.
3. My tabouli salad with our homegrown tomatoes, mint and basil.
4. My salad using our homegrown dill.
5. My sweet potato gnocchi with spinach, Hungarian salami and our homegrown sage for a sage butter sauce. OK, I bought the gnocchi in the freezer section of Trader Joe’s. But I’ve made it before from scratch. Sheesh.
6. My beefy, beet and squash flatbreads with tzatziki using our homegrown dill.
7. David’s Caprese salad using our homegrown cherry tomatoes and basil.
8. Although David is the resident master of melty-awesome toasties, I might have influenced this version as I grew up eating hot dog sandwiches, slicing the dogs in half longwise, placing between two melted cheese toasts. Courtesy of my mom. Oh yeah, there are homegrown tomatoes and mild green peppers in there too. Props to Dickson’s Farmstand for the best hot dogs ever.
9. My tofu Pad Thai (or maybe it was some peanut butter-ginger-soy sauce concoction; I didn’t Instagram it, so I don’t remember exactly) using our homegrown basil.
10. David’s cherry tomato feta cucumber salad with homegrown mint and basil. Perfect for a picnic lunch on the beach at Coney Island. Just sayin’.
11. And for dessert, my blueberry homegrown basil Greek yogurt popsicle, inspired by this smittenkitchen.com recipe. You rock, Deb!
Many other fresh fruits and vegetables pictured here came from our Kensington-Windsor Terrace CSA. Go forth and cook. That’s all for now.
What do I eat now? 
That’s so awesome!!! Keep up the great green thumb lol
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Thanks! Well, I’m learning from watching my boyfriend that plants can require some problem solving through Googling, and to water morning and night, use good soil, spray with organic homemade insect repellant, and have patience because the growth from seed feels like it takes forever. But how fun now, to have so much food to eat that we created ourselves! Neat. Now we learned that pruning tomato plants earlier on will help them fruit even more. We still have a bunch though.
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Oh gosh I have so much to learn thank you so much
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I’m also a brooklynite and sometimes people as so surprised at the fruits and veggies that we can grow here
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Yes, it’s awesome what you can do with a little sunshine. Not having a yard in a big city doesn’t mean gardening is a lost opportunity. My current home actually has plant space with much more sun than where I lived in Florida. Imagine that.
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Thanks for the pingback, @mrjonmoore!
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It all looks so fresh and delicious!!
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