Gardeners, plant and nature lovers can join in Green Thumb Sunday every week. Visit As the Garden Grows for more information.

• Green Thumb Sunday: White and red Gerberas
• Green Thumb Sunday: Baby red lettuce
• Green Thumb Sunday: Dew on the collard green
• Green Thumb Sunday: They’re green…for now…
• Green Thumb Sunday: Soon…very soon…

This wouldn’t ordinarily be a big deal. After all, it is still tomato season in California. I’ve been breakfasting on tomatoes since they showed up at the markets this year. In fact, this time of year, it’s not odd in the slightest for me to have more tomatoes on hand than I could possibly eat before they burst, ripely, in the bowls where Fatemeh and I store them.

But these? These were the first two tomatoes off my plants in the wine barrels.

No, really. The first two tomatoes I managed to half-assedly nurture to health in California. It was a momentous occasion, people. In fact, it was, perhaps, the best possible way to kick off a Monday.

Were they the best-flavored tomatoes I’ve ever eaten? No, they were not. They tasted like they’d been stressed throughout their growing season, as they have been. And they were awfully runty. But you know what? All things considered, they were pretty damn good.

It seems only fitting that I’m writing this post on my apartment patio, sitting with my feet propped up next to the card table that served as my back porch table for so long in Iowa City. It’s a warm, summery night here, which has been a long time coming after an unusually foggy summer. I think I just got a mosquito bite or three. And I’ve got a glass of Templeton Rye on the table next to me. There’s much the same in this scenario as two and a half years ago, and yet, there’s so much that has changed.

So, sure. Maybe I didn’t have tomatoes in July like I would have had in Iowa. But sometimes? Even if it requires a wait, life gives you exactly what you need, just when you’re meant to get it.

• Spacing out
• Unmatched bookends
• Three years, one post at a time
• Losing the lavender
• Go west, young gardener

The tomatoes. I planted them.

With four seedlings, it seemed reasonable to put two in each wine barrel, but that left room for other things. I still had some lettuce seeds lying around, and some sage seeds that I brought all the way from Iowa. I had some basil seeds, and I’d picked up some random bean seeds along the way during the Bay-Friendly Garden Tour.

Seeds went in. Plant markers, not so much (I’ll get to those eventually…). But by the time the sun went down, it was official: After two years in California, I finally had a garden again.

• Bay-Friendly Garden Tour Highlights: Edible Kitchen Garden
• Relishing my time here
• Starting, with seeds
• Harvest preserved: The I.G. learns about root cellars
• Gardens where I’d like to live

But as I stood on the BART platform in San Francisco one night with my friends Melissa and Derrick, Melissa pointed out to me that it was going to be sheerly impossible to move the planters without some ability to roll them.

“OK,” I said. “That sounds like a good idea.”

Inside, my head said, That sounds like something else I’m going to have to figure out how to do with a power tool. Hence, that is a terrible idea.

But I did like the sound of being able to move the damn barrels without requiring several chiropractor visits, and I’d already proved able to use the drill, so on to the next step. I had decided to go three to a barrel in a cockeyed triangle formation, which meant 24 bolts to place.

Luckily, the magnetized bolt setter made this easy. Right? Right. Except for the part where I put the fifth bolt up to the bolt setter attachment on the drill and promptly managed to lodge it in there at such an angle that it would not come out. The magnet held it there, wedged and ornery, and by this time in the day, the hardware store was closed. There was no option to just ditch the attachment and go buy another.

I pulled out my trusty toolbox and decided to try pliers. No luck. A wrench? Useless. Prying with a screwdriver? Pointless.

This is the point at which I channeled my inner toddler and threw a temper tantrum. I banged the bolt on the patio, though I managed to control myself enough not to slam the whole drill to the concrete.

Apparently? This is how you dislodge a stuck bolt. It popped right out on impact, and I returned to attaching casters, one at a time, until both barrels were done.

And then? Just because I could? I rolled those wine barrels around the patio a couple times before putting them in their permanent place.

Sometimes it pays to be a combination of petulant and stubborn. Sometimes, it even pays in tomatoes.

• Help at the hardware store
• Drill, baby, drill
• Instructions for barreling
• The patio garden and its stay of execution
• Seedlings, not seeds

Yes, I know there are alternative methods of putting containers together, methods that, indeed, are a bit less weighty than the rock method. Styrofoam peanuts, for example (although if you use the non-dissolving kind, that seems like some kind of major crime against the earth, and, well, I can’t imagine the dissolving kind last very long down there…), or two-liter bottles of soda (empty, of course….please do not be burying a full two-liter bottle in your dirt and then coming to cry to me about how your containers aren’t draining) with holes drilled in them.

But I generally drink my Diet Coke out of cans, and hadn’t really thought ahead enough to start collecting them in time to line the bottom of the barrels.

I also had this little piece of logistics to take into account: Access to our patio is either through the building and through our apartment, which has very light-colored carpeting. In other words, garden stuff? Gets carried up the back stairs. Which are very steep. And then said garden stuff gets carried across the back of every apartment on our side of the building, all the way to the patio.

And this? This is what haunts me at night. Everything I carry in? I’m going to have to, at some point, carry back out again, unless I figure out a way to rent this apartment, with or without Fatemeh, until they carry me out of it.

So about those rocks? I was not carrying rocks in, drainage or no drainage. And this is how, once again, I decided that this step in the container gardening process is totally overrated, and how, once again, I decided that those wine barrels would get filled with dirt and dirt alone.

• Instructions for barreling
• The patio garden and its stay of execution
• Nothing to it
• 10.5 cubic feet of dirt
• A bit of a water retention problem

Today, this blog turns four. And I’m not going to lie to you…it makes me choke up a little bit every year to think about what has changed since the first day I sat down at my laptop and pounded out my first post. I’ve learned an incredible amount and, through this blog and the associated activities the blog has fostered (Yeah, Twitter, I’m looking at you…) continued enriching my life with new, wonderful people, ideas, and experiences.

In fact, just this week, I had an amazing Monday, thanks to my roommate, Fatemeh, who I met solely through food blog connections. After we both woke absurdly early, she suggested an early morning bike ride through Oakland, followed by Blue Bottle coffee and a brioche, which, people, I must say, is a damn civilized (and mood-boosting) way to start the day. And then, that evening, we met on our patio for Hendrick’s martinis and appetizers, and then she made me a steak dinner, over which we shared many stories. Without this blog, I wouldn’t have had the best Monday in years.

And last night? Over wine and vegetarian food at Encuentro, I finally met Adri, who started reading my blog when I was in Iowa, and who has been a friend on Twitter since she lived in Texas. Turns out, she lives not even a block from me, now, in Oakland. I would have never met her had I not started this blog. And we had a fantastic night of conversation and food and wine that would have never happened but for this connection.

I know I said I’d spend a good portion of this week celebrating other people’s gardens, but sometimes, one has to stop and mark the passage of time. And I had hoped maybe to celebrate by announcing that I’d actually gotten my new container garden underway, but I admit I’m still a bit behind on that project. Apparently I’m marking the passage of time by not hauling dirt…or drilling holes in wine barrels.

So, instead, today I stop and thank, as I do every year, those of you who come through these posts to read, to comment, to learn along with me, and hopefully, laugh along the way. You mean a lot to me, whether your number is small or big on any given day, and whether you comment or not.

But today? Comment, why don’t you? I’d love to say hello, virtually, and thank you for stopping by. Just to sweeten the pot a bit, I’ve got a giveaway: An autographed copy of my friend Tara’s book The Butcher & The Vegetarian: One Woman’s Romp Through A World of Men, Meat and Moral Crisis. Tara is yet another of the friends I would never have met if not for blogging, and her book is a wonderful, heartfelt read. Leave a comment between now and May 13 at midnight PDT, and after that, I’ll use a random number generator to select a winner. Be sure to leave me a way to contact you, too, if I don’t know how to reach you already, just in case you win! (And, just to be clear, if I draw a comment number that is my own reply to one of you, I’ll select again until I get a number that doesn’t correspond to me. I already have my own signed copy!)

And for those who like to celebrate with a bit of the way-back machine, here are the first four May 6 posts that have marked this blog’s growth since it all started on a quiet street in Iowa City:

• May 6, 2006: Planting season begins
• May 6, 2007: One year later, the garden accidents continue
• May 6, 2008: Go west, young gardener
• May 6, 2009: Three years, one post at a time

Cheers to all of you, and may your gardening and food adventures bring you as much laughter as mine do.

• Three years, one post at a time
• An anniversary winner!
• If Oprah likes it, it must be good
• Planning…and worrying a little…
• pH, which also stands for pHtttt

The garden itself features artichokes, lettuce, berries, leeks, and a bunch of other tasty plants, and pretty flowers border each bed to help attract pollinators.

I think this just about describes my heaven. Ditch the lawn and start eating from right outside the front door? Brilliant, and perfect.

My very favorite detail of all? It had to be the use of wooden utensils as plant markers.

Spoons and forks dotted the beds, the name of the edibles carefully written on them in black ink. They were adorable, and this is definitely an idea I plan to steal for a future garden.

• Further punishment
• A-pee-logy required?
• 2007 resolutions
• Bay-Friendly Garden Tour Highlights: Raised Beds
• The secret garden, part 1

I had a beer at lunch, though, people. Don’t think I was going to let the day slip away completely free of substances!

But here is what I have learned from the garden tour: Some people have a hell of a lot of time on their hands. Some people have a hell of a lot of money on their hands. And some people have both, and I would like to come live in those gardens, please, oh yes, oh please.

I’m not going to mention who I think falls into any of the categories as I tell you a little about the tour, because, well, that would be indiscreet. But I will say that there are some fantastic gardens in the East Bay, and my friend Michelle and I only got to about seven of them. This week, I’m going to highlight (without giving away anyone’s addresses) some of my favorite elements of some of the gardens.

But if you can’t wait for a preview, and that Sunday’s Green Thumb photo wasn’t enough to tide you over, here’s a little slideshow from the day:

• Green Thumb Sunday: Indoor jungle
• Rocking the garden tour like Johnny Rotten at a tea party
• Bay-Friendly Garden Tour Highlights: Edible Kitchen Garden
• Green Thumb Sunday: A different spin on a garden bed
• Victory! Or, I found a garden (for the time being)

“How’s that garden coming?” random people ask me, and I do what I am Very Good At as a Communications Director.

“Fine,” I say. “A lot of work to do.”

Or some variation of that. It’s my talking point, see? It does not give any more information away than is necessary, and it’s absolutely and unassailably true. It works, for now.

But soon, people are not going to be satisfied with a lack of photographic evidence of something akin to progress.

My excuse? There have been barely any weekends when I’ve been home AND have had time to garden AND it has not been raining since I moved into my new apartment. And really? This has not been a gentle soaking rain of the type that is lovely to walk in. It has been pouring rain.

Which led to the next situation. An email. From the property manager. Asking me if perhaps I needed some assistance. With some drilling of drainage holes.

See, there is an actual, professional gardener who maintains the communal plants on the property—lovely grasses that create a natural border between our wall and the next rooftop. And apparently he noticed that I had not, um, done anything yet with the wine barrels. And that they were collecting water at an alarming rate.

Me, being an unprofessional gardener, had not paid any attention to this water retention situation.

Also, though I lived in Africa, and Iowa City, and therefore know a thing or 35 about mosquitos, it did not occur to me that standing water? Breeds the annoying little buggers. Did this occur to the pro? Why, yes it did.

So I dumped the water over the weekend, and now the barrels are on their sides, drying out. The property manager has intimated there might be an engineer on her staff who just might be able to meet me for a drilling expedition. The kind, that is, that creates drainage. And once that little task is done, I’m bringing in the dirt.

• From one gardener to another
• Help at the hardware store
• Dirt, and dirt alone
• Three bags full
• Water: It’s a good thing

This is just a taste from today’s Bay-Friendly Gardens tour. More to come!

Gardeners, plant and nature lovers can join in Green Thumb Sunday every week. Visit As the Garden Grows for more information.

• Green Thumb Sunday: Indoor jungle
• Green Thumb Sunday: Where my garden was
• Green Thumb Sunday: Victory Garden yellow
• Green Thumb Sunday: State Fair children’s garden
• Green Thumb Sunday: Fire in the garden