Few urban dwellers can claim they have gardens big enough to yield dozens of summer eggplants and fresh tomatoes, let alone 50 pounds of fava beans and multiple heads of broccoli in their winter crop. For most, a few healthy rows of fresh herbs grown in the patio flower box is a notable achievement.

Yet Hillcrest condo owner Luciano Emanuele’s garden produces an impressive bounty that allows him to make his grandmother’s original stuffed eggplant recipe every couple weeks for friends. Once he even had a surplus of fava beans to give to family members in Michigan.

His garden is among 29 plots of land in Balboa Park available to the public through the Golden Hill Community Development Corporation. He acquired the plot three years ago, after signing up on a waiting list.

Emanuele, a retired schoolteacher and volunteer for The Center and Aging As Ourselves, emigrated from Sicily to Michigan with his family when he was 12 years old. He moved to San Diego in 2004 to find that the climate and terrain was similar to that of Sicily, which ignited his interest in growing eggplants, tomatoes, bell peppers and other produce he enjoyed as a child.

After advertising with no luck to homeowners on craigslist.org for shareable garden space, he heard about the Golden Hill Community Garden and eventually landed a four-by-15-foot plot for $30 a year, which has since kept his green thumb busy.

The garden doesn’t allow for pesticides or chemical fertilizers, and crops have to be lined with wire mesh to keep away herbivore creatures.

Small, round Italian eggplants and their oblong-shaped Japanese cousins are among Emanuele’s garden gems, saying that one plant usually produces 12 to 15 eggplants per season.

“This year it’s a little less,” he said. “The gophers have been eating some of them, but if you pick them early, they keep on producing. That’s the trick.”

He uses the Japanese eggplants mostly for omelets, and the Italian variety for making his family’s stuffed eggplant recipe, which remains the common dinner request among his friends.

“I invited some of my teachers and classmates over when I first made the recipe for a summer party back in Michigan – and everyone loved it,” he said. “I remember one of my teachers saying that I should start a business. But you’d never find this dish in a restaurant because it’s so labor intensive.”

Emanuele also enjoys the eggplants and some of his other garden vegetables as pizza toppings, going so far as to bringing the veggies to a favorite neighborhood pizzeria when he doesn’t feel like cooking pizza at home.

With eggplant now in season, Emanuele shares his family’s recipe below. And for those willing to get their hands dirty in a community garden, more information can be obtained by calling (619) 231-0182.

(serves four)

4 small Italian eggplants

2 cups seasoned bread crumbs

1 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1 pound of ground sirloin

4 large eggs

4 cloves of garlic, chopped

1/2 cup fresh basil, chopped

1/4 cup milk

2 jars spaghetti sauce

1 can tomato paste

dash of dried oregano

olive oil

1 pound of pasta

Hollow out the eggplants with a knife and then finish with a potato peeler. Cut the flesh into one-quarter cubes and sauté in olive oil until browned. Set aside to cool. Sauté the sirloin until cooked, drain the fat and set aside. In a large bowl, combine breadcrumbs, cheese, cooked eggplant, cooked sirloin, garlic, basil, eggs, milk and dried oregano. Stuff the eggplants with the mixture, and use the leftover to form “meatballs.” Fry the stuffed eggplants evenly in olive oil until the skins turn soft. Place eggplants in a large casserole dish with the spaghetti sauce, add more fresh basil, cover and then simmer for one hour, turning occasionally. Add “meatballs” 20 minutes prior to removing the eggplants. Serve with cooked pasta.