Name: Kate
Location: Washington, D.C.
Type of space: Urban garden
Tell us about your outdoor project and how you enjoy it: My name is Kate and I’ve lived in and around the District of Columbia my entire life. I’ve recently landed in a beautiful historical rowhouse in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood of D.C. with my media naranja.

For our second anniversary (the dating kind, not the married thing), I was given an incredible gift – a 6?x3? cedar garden bed frame and the offer of any and all plants and supplies I could want for. While a wonderful and thoughtful present (I’d been dreaming out loud about a city house with a garden for quite a while), it also posed a formidable challenge: to figure out the wild and wacky world of vegetable gardening in an urban environment. More

Name: Sue
Location: Vancouver, BC
Type of space: Garden
Tell us about your outdoor project and how you enjoy it: We share a home with my 90 year old Father-in-Law. We live in the basement and so when Summer comes I am DYING to get outside from the dark space.

We have a huge garden...and have many "rooms in it. At the entrance to the back yard is a small patio where we BBQ followed by a lush and green planted area with a water pump feature I carried back from Ireland in my suitcase :-). We have an Asian style garden on the far side with a Thai Spirit House, then comes the large patio with in-ground fish pond, fire pit, seating and dining and bar. Through the arch you come into our Vegetable Garden...followed by another patio where we are building a fire pit from roasting large pieces of meat etc. All of these are connected with a cobble stone path we laid ourselves. More

Name: Victoria
Location: Somerville, MA
Type of space: Roof deck
Tell us about your outdoor project and how you enjoy it: We live in Somerville, MA, and our condo building has a lovely roof deck space that receives ample sun. Having grown up in a house with a huge herb, vegetable, and fruit producing backyard, I knew I wanted to utilize this outdoor space for growing at least a little something. Although the summer has been fairly cool so far in the Boston area, our makeshift vegetable and herb patch has been doing well so far! More

Name:
Location:
Type of space:
Tell us about your outdoor project and how you enjoy it: We bought the house 13 months ago, and I could not wait to start gardening. The yard had good bones, including great fruit trees, but had been completely neglected for the last couple of years. It is definitely a work in progress, as we're having a really hard time maintaining any semblance of a lawn. I really wanted to grow edibles as well so we turned the side yard into what I jokingly refer to as the "farm". I have also expanded the edibles into the backyard in wine barrels and even planted pumpkins in the front. I love being able to grow things that I can't buy, especially squash blossoms and poha berries. More

News of alfalfa sprout recalls prompted us to call our mother. Why? Because when we were in kindergarten, she came and taught everyone how to grow their own sprouts in a jar. It seems like a good idea now that we're adults looking for more organic, locally-grown food. Our own kitchen is as local as it gets. More

Just before I left on a long trip to the Northwest (cross your fingers for the continued health of my garden for me, please...) I pulled up my first garden radish. It was a tiny, late-planted little guy, with a long skinny root and a plucky green top. As modest as this first harvest was, it was a thrill to see it and remember that after all the watering, composting, weeding, lugging of mulch and tying of stems, things are growing down there. More

Here's an herb gardening question from Alexis:

Last fall a local nursery unloaded 10 tarragon plants on me. (Ed. note: NOT pictured above.)They are doing great, and I would love to use them in my cooking. I read however, not to bother using any tarragon not labeled "French." The tags for these plants don't specify, which makes me worried they are non-tasty. How can I tell if they are French tarragon?

Name: Margaret
Location: Chicago, IL
Type of space: Wooden balcony
Tell us about your outdoor project and how you enjoy it: I fell in love with this apartment because it has two balconies, a cooler cement one on the north side, and a sunny wooden one on the south side. The view from the south deck is of a lovely backyard next door, and then a park beyond that. Way in the distance is the Sears Tower and the Trump Tower, which remind me what city I live in! It's been cool and rainy so far this summer, but on nice days I sit outside, and every day I check on the plants. Kitchen gardening has always been important to me, and we are growing as much as we can in containers: two types of basil, rosemary, thyme, sage, dill, cilantro, chives, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, and cucumber. More

As part of My Great Outdoors, we've seen some rooftop gardens from you urban dwellers who don't have a backyard. Well, The New York Times is showing off some ambitious city gardens today—and one's from a famous chef. More

We just read that there is going to be an early harvest at the White House today: some of that big, beautiful vegetable garden is getting harvested by kids from Bancroft Elementary, the same kids who helped First Lady Michelle Obama plant the garden to begin with. We're slightly jealous: our garden doesn't have much to harvest yet! What about yours? More