I took these pictures on Tuesday. It’s amazing to see how well the Grocery Row Gardens are performing.
We have lots of peppers:
These yard-long beans are outside the gardens proper, but they are still beautiful:
This area of black-eyed peas and Sudan/sorghum grass is probably going to be turned into Grocery Row Gardens this fall.
And now the actual gardens:
Some of the paths are more consumed than others. Below you’ll see the summer squashes encroaching on the pathways.
The variegated canna lilies are particularly beautiful right now. 
Some of the Cucuzza squash are now climbing into the oaks.
Here the paths are getting even thinner:
The amaranth look amazing right now.
This is supposed to be a path but the Everglades tomatoes ate it.
On the right (below) we have Tithonia diversifolia getting tall. On the left, “Burgundy” okra. 
One of the beds has some “Kakai” squash ripening in it beneath the cassava. This is a hull-less pumpkin seed variety we’re trying for the first time.
There is a lot of life in the system, despite the endless rain.
I have now put my new book on the system up for pre-order if you are interested.
It works!
16 responses to “Grocery Row Garden Photos from July 20th, 2021”
Your garden is looking great. I didn’t do anything in my garden in over a year. Taking care of my husband and getting hurt myself has taken a toll. Now that my husband is in the VA nursing home and I am finally getting on the mend I hope to garden this fall.
Life has many seasons. I hope you get to put in a fall garden.
Wow, it all looks so bountiful, love the idea of using the oaks to trellis very long squash. I so want to know about those pumpkins with the hule-less seeds. I get those seeds at the store for a snack and they are not cheap, so I would love to hear more about that plant and if Rachel likes how the seeds roast up. I am not a big squash person but love roasted pumpkin seeds, the company even does a not to spicy version and those are so good. The pumpkin/squash is beautiful too. I also love the look of variegated Cana lilies in your garden and that pop of color from the Amaranth.
We should have some ready pumpkins soon. The variety is “kakai.” I will let you know how they are.
What an amazing transformation! Congrats to you, Rachel and all of your little garden helpers!
Thank you. Much better than patchy grass and weeds.
Everything looks beautiful but I’m curious how you’re going to get those squash that are growing up the oak tree? I had one Zucchino Rampicante that literally took over the whole back half of my garden and my pear tree. My husband found a couple of really long squash up there, the longest was almost four feet long. He had to use an extension ladder and that tree isn’t nearly as tall as an oak tree. Thanks for sharing!
My daughter climbed the tree and threw them down today.
Love all the relative contents. I live between Panama City,FL and Chipley,FL and nearly all your topics apply. I’m currently “dealing” with a raised bed that has been a royal pain. After watching your livestreams I have a much better idea what’s happening and a plan of action. Thanks
Hi David and family, I found you a few months back on you tube because I wanted to start composting and wanted a simple way, thank goodness you had the answer; and then I just got your book the “Grocery Row Gardening” and I have enjoyed it until I got to Chap.1 page 1 and my thoughts went straight to….yes but, my summer heat goes up to 112+ for about 6 weeks starting in June through July (many times longer) at which time anything I have ever planted dies, sometimes even the cactus! We tried a small greenhouse just to see if that would help, not so much. If you haven’t guessed I live in Arizona, between Phoenix-Sedona-Flagstaff.
Also our ground is clay/rock/mud/goat head haven; drains immediately after rain so you don’t even notice it rained.
We used to have monsoons but those left about four years ago, although we did get a small one this summer-5 days of afternoon showers (front yard-1 acre-pool.
Soooo frustrating. Am I really going to be able to do like your book reads? High temps-maybe rain?
I decided to write for an answer before I get through your book, cause I’m Just a tiny bit impatient. :)
Linda
ps: I have 1 other email I am going to list
English.linda@gmail.com
I have been to Arizona – it is mostly not designed for traditional orchards or gardening. I would have to experiment in that climate in order to figure it out, as it’s quite different from any place I’ve gardened before. For starters, though, I would try wide spacing, sunken beds, and burying wood and compost to hold more water after rains.
Thank you
Just beautiful. I really love this system. I feel like it really is the culmination of a lot of the basic principles and best practices you’ve been talking about for years. And it’s something that would work outside of the tropics, whereas the more traditional food forest system always seemed like it would have limited productivity in a temperate region. I think this is the style I want to emulate when I start my garden all over again – we are trying to get out of our “yankee hell hole” for greener pastures in one of the freer southern states, but as renters we’re probably going to be stuck with some tiny suburban yard that we’re not allowed to garden in until housing prices crash and we can finally buy some land. Hopefully I’ll be able to do some small scale gardening in the meantime, but I’ll be living vicariously through your videos and dreaming about how I’ll eventually build my own grocery row gardens once we’re settled.
You’d be surprised how pro-gardening people are here – if you rent, I’ll bet you find a good price and can use part of the yard to garden.
I’d like to try to find a place like that to rent, even some place with a backyard where I can make a small garden, so I can grow some food while we wait for land prices to drop. I’m hoping the market crashes soon, but I’ve been saying that for 10 years and prices have only gone up, so I don’t want to hold off on growing food on the assumption that next year we’ll have land. We might be stuck renting for a while if companies like Black Rock keep buying up entire neighborhoods trying to turn us all into neu-feudal serfs.
This looks so beautiful!