Where the Echinacea Came Up This Year

Everywhere.

And so of course then, what I had was some to give away.

Making Themselves at Home

 In this case, the bees in the plant and the plant in my commmunity garden plot.  I'm hoping the Monarda punctata will be sowing itself around like the echinacea seems to be and that this year isn't just a fluke. Because, I could swear these plants were not in this same place this year as last year. (and for Joe and Martha I think this was true too.) If this really turns out to be a native that likes where it is and is happy to move around and make itself at home, I would be pretty happy.

Not Enough Bouquets So Far This Year

But this one got me back in the mind. I miss this. Watching plants. Growing and tending something. The garden this year is tending itself in large part with large patches of welcome volunteers filling in the spaces. (this year chamomile a top contender for volunteer of the year and the love in a mist, which i should catch before it goes to seed again.) Though I haven't been experimenting myself I noticed that the coolness of this spring had flowers Joe brought home from the garden lasting a good long while in the vase.

Guy's Salad Bar

 and the tulip I crushed below weeding. I'd never had so many weeds in my community garden plot before or started the season so late. I usually mulch with straw over the winter. But I also have never seen so manylady bugs in my garden in early spring before while weeding, so maybe it's a fair tradeoff after all. Maybe it means my garden was meant to be just a litte bit more on the fallow side this year and that's ok.

(Guy's salad bar though I believe could rival Trader Joe's. I kid you not ever.  My neighbors rock the garden. Now is that a pretty cold frame you could line up with a plate at or what? It's April.)

Back in the Park Again

Aster, winter, Floyd Bennett Field

 

I have written many nerdy posts about this garden in this old airfield and happy moments here. But I haven't gone so long without seeing this place though as I have recently, so this first moment this year at the garden this weekend might be the happiest yet. (and there was snow)

Come January

 

Come January and the community garden at Floyd Bennett Field mostly belongs to the birds.

 

Sometimes the snow.

 

 

And what lingers from last season's blooms. 

A Man and His Bobcat

 

I think it was over 20 trees knocked down or dangerously uprooted by the storm at the community garden. But with gardeners armed with some serious tools, the hard work of cleaning up is already well underway.

At October's End

 Martha harvests some flowers to take home and pumpkin and loofah grown in the pumpkin patch get laid out for the annual Halloween party at the community garden. Before this blog became focused on the pipeline and the appropriation of a piece of  Floyd Bennett Field, our park, for industrial use, it was focused on small moments in the lives of plants and the joy of little discoveries made when immersed in that world. I still have those moments all the time at work on green roofs and in the garden or now in fall when there is much to observe, enjoy and learn as the leaves are starting to turn and fall on the city streets. The skies have been gray now for days as a storm makes it way toward us, but the brilliance of the colors of this season is undeniable in any light.

Margarets Mums This Year

 were more pink than white but no Margaret at the garden this year. She lives though and just a bit of her mums too do also in my garden, but I haven't had the pleasure of seeing her this year. I just have these mums to remind me of those minutes shared with her in the community garden.

And on the Seventh Day

ye shall covet your neighbor's vegetables. (my neighbor julia's haul)

Under an Umbelliferae and a A Blue Sky

 or next to a patch of some by the side of the road perhaps,

is where i want to be. To me there is something so lovely about the color of the curly dock as it browns and goes to seed this time of year among the Queen's Anne's Lace blooms. (This isn't the country, just the edge of Brooklyn, by the side of the road and above in an old airfield.)

Everything at Once, 2012

I've had the either lucky or very unlucky opportunity to come to know plants in a time when the seasons and weather is changing. It's unlucky of course because the world is changing and the plants and wildlife we rely on are being effected. It's unlucky because it makes remembering the order of things (who blooms first, what to plant and when) harder.

This year for instance, everything is blooming at once in my vegetable garden. The yarrow is still going, while nearby asters are already starting to bloom ahead of schedule. (The asters aren't pictured here.) The vegetable garden is flush with pollinators.

There is a feast now. But with latebloomers that I love so much like the asters beginning already, there may be famine for the pollinators come autumn. Here is where I can see my luck swinging the other way. Because I am paying attention in this time, I can choose to sow some annual flowers now that will help provide some sustenance for the pollinators or I could buy some to transplant. You have to live in your own time and recognize it for what it is.

Monarda punctata blooms.

ZigZag Zipper OrbWeaver

Not exactly its scientific name,but that zig zag zipper that seems to echo that spider's markings is the way I'll probably know it for what it is the next time I run across it. It's common enough, but I had to go to my favorite bug source to find out its proper name. Habitat? Gardens and old fields, but in this case a garden in an old airfield.

Abundance

Granted, the lily is indeed a massive flower, the anthers like giant fuzzy-slippered landing pads, but that is one very very tiny bee. I'm not sure how to make a comparison to any feast I've eaten. But then, I've never actually sat down in my dinner plate with room to stretch out and walk around.

We had our first eggplant for dinner tonight.

Controlling Pests the Easy Way

 What you need is a nephew with very quick hands and an interest in insects.The pictures are bad, but the day was good and I don't think I've ever seen that squash vine borer above actually flying around in my garden before, even though every year it always manages to kill my zuchinni. I told my nephew that my garden would not disappoint for bughunting, but I had no idea that he was going to be doing me such a big favor. The cucumbers and zuchinni just might have a chance this year thanks to him.

A Little Piece of the Weekend Wrapped in Tinfoil

A fresh harvest from my vegetable garden. Much of it hung tough and survived the hot bike ride home and found its way into small bouquets.

What's Blooming Bouquet from the Vegetable Garden

Joe's bouquets, whether weeds from the side of the road or pickings from the vegetable garden, are usually my favorites. Here just a little slice of May via a flowering cover crop, a brassica that bolted, sage and some unopened Verbena bonariensis, which actually overwintered in my garden this year.

The Strawberry Bed

or rather the strawberry/creeping thyme/chives/decorative allium I know not the name of/rattlesnake master bed (but that's too much of a mouthful really to say) in this early May. I like this bed not just because I don't have to replant it every year but because every plant in it came by way of another gardener. I didn't plan it that way, but there's not a plant in there that wasn't originally dug out of someone else's garden or given to me as a gift. There are a million lovely things about gardening but the passing on of good things and the way that the person who shares with you is just as happy as you are has to rank close to the top of the list.

A Mixed Bag

for me is a good thing, especially when it comes to lettuce. I tend not to know any of the greens I grow, by name of cultivar that is. I like the surprise that comes from sowing a packet of mixed spring or summer lettuce and then seeing what comes.

 I made it to my own community garden plot last night and it felt good to see that somewhat neglected space again (seriously this was a very good week for weeds and for growth in general..it was that week in spring where everything grew tenfold). I really enjoy working in other people's gardens, but spending even the tiniest amount of time on a windy and surprisingly cool spring evening in a little patch of the earth that's mine to take care of was really grounding for me and familiar. I know there's a lot of emphasis in education in the schools on gardening right now, mostly food oriented, and this is all good, but for me the greatest and most powerful part of gardening, the good that in can can bring in terms of really caring and investing in the environment where you live, comes from getting to know, explore and tend a piece of the earth for yourself.

This is where there is room for the mistakes that will teach you, and this where there is the room for experimenting and playing, and this is the only place that is yours to make the decisions. It isn't the kind of experience you can ever get from a class or a book, an internship, a job, or a magazine article and as ever, I feel incredibly lucky to have stumbled upon a space in a community garden in New York City to call my own.

My lettuce seedlings looked good and colorful last night. I was happy to see them doing so well. It was so dry and warm when they were sown.

Because Nothing is Wasted

last year's leftovers from the vegetable garden become this year's food for bees and a brilliant splash of yellow. Some people are neat gardeners and already have a real jump on the season, others not so much. It's all good, as the surfers like to say. You know, people will seek out all kinds of ornamental plants with this kind of vertical impact, but in the vegetable garden sometimes it just comes easy if you just let something go. I kind of wish this was my garden right now.