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How a city backyard became an urban farm


Joe Robustelli's garden, near 13th and W, produces a bounty of fruit and vegetables. (Photos courtesy GardentheGrid.com)

One Grid gardener did it; see how on Midtown Garden Tour


How much food can be produced in a city backyard? A few pounds? Make that a few tons.

Joe Robustelli knows, and he’ll show how he does it. His garden is among the featured stops on Saturday’s Midtown Garden Tour.

“I have a large lot with very, very old fruit trees,” Robustelli said. “I got 800 pounds (of fruit) from my apricot tree this year alone. My peach tree went crazy, too.”

What did he do with all that fruit? “Urban Roots (brewery) is just down the alley from my house,” he said. “They’re making beer from my peaches.”

In all, Robustelli has 15 fruit trees and five raised beds for vegetables at his Sacramento home, near 13th and W streets. He also has his own chickens, which provide eggs as well as a constant source of high-grade fertilizer. He shares his bounty with neighbors and at the Victorian Alley farmers market.

“I let people come and get produce,” he said. “I have plenty.”

During the tour, Robustelli will explain how he manages to pack so much produce into a relatively small space.

“My favorite thing to grow? Anything that’s self-seeded,” he said. “I like all the volunteers that keep coming back on their own year after year: Cherry tomatoes, tomatillos, cucamelons.”

Cucamelons? Those are Mexican sour gherkins, tiny little cucumbers than look like miniature watermelons.

Edible gardening is a big focus of the Midtown Garden Tour, which features 15 gardens on Sacramento’s Grid. Tickets are $10 and available at
www.gardenthegrid.com . The gardens will be open from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, July 27; come early to beat the heat.

On tour day, tickets also will be available at New Era Community Garden, 204 26th St., Sacramento.

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Garden Checklist for week of May 11

Make the most of the lower temperatures early in the week. We’ll be back in the 80s by Thursday.

* Plant, plant, plant! It’s prime planting season in the Sacramento area. Time to set out those tomato transplants along with peppers and eggplants. Pinch off any flowers on new transplants to make them concentrate on establishing roots instead of setting premature fruit.

* Direct-seed melons, cucumbers, summer squash, corn, radishes, pumpkins and annual herbs such as basil.

* Harvest cabbage, lettuce, peas and green onions.

* In the flower garden, direct-seed sunflowers, cosmos, salvia, zinnias, marigolds, celosia and asters. (You also can transplant seedlings for many of the same flowers.)

* Plant dahlia tubers.

* Transplant petunias, marigolds and perennial flowers such as astilbe, columbine, coneflowers, coreopsis, dahlias, rudbeckia and verbena.

* Keep an eye out for slugs, snails, earwigs and aphids that want to dine on tender new growth.

* Feed summer bloomers with a balanced fertilizer.

* For continued bloom, cut off spent flowers on roses as well as other flowering plants.

* Add mulch to the garden to maintain moisture. Mulch also cuts down on weeds. But don’t let it mound around the stems or trunks of trees or shrubs. Leave about a 6-inch-to-1-foot circle to avoid crown rot or other problems.

* Remember to weed! Pull those nasties before they set seed.

* Water early in the day and keep seedlings evenly moist.

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