Rooftop lunch, poppyseed bread, and city sidewalk veggie gardening

So before I talk about the vegetable garden right next to the sidewalk by our apartment, here are some pics of the city from our apartment roof deck. We had tibetan dumplings and curry for lunch, soaked up the sun, and admired the snow covered mountains around - not a cloud in the sky:

Mount Rainier

Downtown panorama

Seattle Center and the Olympic Mountains crystal clear today!

Sea plane coming in for a water landing on Lake Union

I also baked some poppyseed bread using my normal no-kneading required, cast iron pot method -- just adding poppyseeds this time for fun. If there are enough people interested in learning, I can post a whole entry dedicated to the secretly easy way to make gourmet bakery quality bread. All you need is an iron pot:

Excellent texture inside :-)  ... first time using this new oven and it worked out fine

By the way, if you think you'd enjoy making homemade bread, PLEASE PLEASE do not buy a breadmaker. They do not get hot enough or keep moisture in to give you bread like (above). Breadmakers dry out your bread and bake too long, giving you a dense bread that isn't fluffy and a crust that isn't thin, crispy, and light. You'll end up with a half-inch thick rock hard crust.

And now finally, since this is an urban garden blog, Ian and I always walk past this sidewalk veggie garden next to our apartment. Only today did we figure out that some person just contacted the land owner to ask if they could use the sidewalk space to grow vegetables. Since the owner didn't mind, we have a beautiful example of an urban row garden:

The big leafy plant in the bottom left is zucchini

Beautiful zucchini blossom (edible) which will turn into a regular zucchini soon!

Rainbow chard

Ian spoke to our apartment manager (thanks ian!) who told us that the person who takes care of this garden shows up on thursdays or fridays. I've also found them on the Capitol Hill community blog, so hopefully I can get in contact with them. I would LOOOOVE the chance to help them take care of this sidewalk plot, and maybe even have some space to grow stuff of my own besides on the balcony.

[UPDATE]: We've made contact! Woo hoo. Thanks to our neighborhood's great blog, I've contacted one of the awesome people who helps to take care of this sidewalk row garden. I can help water and weed and hopefully plant that baby sugar watermelon I've been wanting to plant for so long now...

And now, with the balcony doors wide open and the breeze blowing through, we can hear the sounds of a great saxophone player playing some jazz on the corner outside of the apartment.