A Little Bit of My Dad's Garden in Late August this Year

Dahlias and caladium and eggplant.

Because the only thing better than watching your own garden grow is checking out someone else's.

Does the Zucchini Dance For You?

Well, maybe you need a boom box?

Just kidding. It doesn't dance for me either. But it does sometimes look to me like it might know a little yoga.

Tassels & Silk

Hmm. Has there ever been a band named Tassels & Silk? Well, maybe it would make more sense as a restaurant name then or fabric shop? 

I passed a side yard where someone had planted the three sisters and their corn was tasseling and silking this week. 

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.

The Scene From Today's Window Sill

Joe's in mad propagating mode and he's beginning to take up more and more window sill real estate. His innovations continually surprise me. Today I noticed the new shelf and the mirror for catching some extra sunlight for the tomato, eggplant and pepper seedlings. I can only wish that I had some of the building and really fine motor skills that he has. Handling delicate seedlings kind of freaks me out (I still have to get past my tendency to be overly precious with plants), but he just pricks them out and transplants with the kind ease and steady hand that makes it seem like he's been doing it his whole life.

And below, some freshly harvested flowers in a little bouquet. (You know I don't keep bouquets on the window sill. It's just a source for capturing some daylight for pictures.)

Some of what's blooming now, grown in Brooklyn

Wintergreen

Wintergreen with envy over Marilyn's cold frame productivity in February.

Marilyn's always got something to ooh and ah over at the garden and it's usually something handbuilt, awesome and efficient like this winter's coldframe full of good green stuff. (Now she hasn't been dubbed the vegetable fairy by Edible Queens for nothing, but someone's gonna have to come up with a good moniker for her as an innovative builder and design maverick too though. That's a bed built for a queen, you know. She doesn't have to bend over at all to reap her harvest.)

Looking at Potato Flowers in a New Way That's Old

I've been reading a lot lately about the idea of growing potatoes from seed instead of from seed potatoes. I remember only vaguely and perhaps only once seeing fruit on one of my potato plants and even then it was someone else who noticed it and pointed it out to me. Flowers yes, always and pretty too, but no fruit. I'm not sure why I never thought about the reasons behind not planting from true seed. I think I thought that it was probably like a lot of things propogated from bulbs, in that getting a flower or fullsized plant would take a while. (technically potatoes are modified stems though, not bulbs, something I still find mind-blowing) I will be keeping an eye out this year for any potential berries because it could be that I just wasn't paying attention and they were there. I'll also be checking out this 1915 Potato Breeding and Selection manual, available for download from the potato farmer who's in the news these days as the face of the OSGATA's lawsuit against Monsanto, to learn a little more about potato breeding, vintage-style, just because I'm curious. Are my potato flowers producing male flowers that are sterile? Likely. I'm still going to be growing my potatoes this year from tubers, not true seed. Maybe someday in the future when there's more room for seedlings started at home, I'll try seed.

Which Came First?

The Broccoli rabe or the egg? The definitive answer to this age old question is finally in and it looks like we're gonna have to give it up to the egg.

So it's one thing to sow seeds in an old egg carton, but now Joe's sowing in egg shells? Seriously? They remind me of wee terrariums missing their covers, but if I know Joe, though he may be an artist, there's a practical method behind his gardening madness. I'm just not sure whether he thinks it's going to be easier to slide the seedlings out of the eggshells rather than the carton or if he's thinking that he might then also crush the shells to ward off potential insect predators who might not want to slither over the broken shards, therefore protecting his seedlings. Not to mention that the eggshells will also eventually be broken down in the soil, releasing calcium and potassium among other things useful to plants. (Joe's always a step ahead of me. Here I am just thinking about getting a cold frame going because of this warm winter and already he's moving his recently sown seeds to the window sill, a pitstop on the way to his coldframe.)

Is there a lesson here? I think there is, but it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with DIY craftiness or eggshells. I think it has more to do with the idea of having a willingness to experiment in the garden and also with having a willingness to celebrate the unexpected small pleasures that are always a part of the process. If you really want to get the most out of being a gardener, cultivating your sense of wonder is at least as important as sowing seeds.

Lest you think that having a sense of wonder is a frivolous idea, here are the words of one with a much bigger mind who went before me:
"A child's world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement. It is our misfortune that for most of us that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful and awe-inspiring, is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood. If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantments of later years, the sterile preoccupation with things that are artificial, the alienation from the sources of our strength." - Rachel Carlson, A Sense of Wonder

They are Farmers, They Grow Food For The People

I said before that I receive regular e-mailed updates and a newsletter from my potato seed farmer,(Wood Prairie Farm) and this video arrived today. If it doesn't play here, follow the link to the youtube video uploaded by Food Democracy Now.

Just Potatoes

Are they just potatoes? Well, the seed potatoes came from a family farm from way up north in Maine, Wood Prairie Farm, and they were double certified, both organic and by the state of Maine. The first year that we grew potatoes at the community garden, it was just by some internet searching for certified seed potato that I found the Gerritsen's farm online and ordered some. They yielded well and we continued to order from the farm, both some other vegetable seed and each year since potatoes. But now, I don't just order my seed potatoes from Wood Prairie, I also follow the news about the farm, both in emailed newsletters they send out to customers and elsewhere. And some people are talking about Jim Gerritsen and The Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association's lawsuit against Monsanto these days.

So are they just potatoes? Well, yes they are. The ones pictured above are just some potatoes I grew. But there's more than one definition in the dictionary for the word just and it seems to me that the people I buy my seed potatoes from aren't just growing potatoes.

Where I'll be Six Months From Now

Colorado Potato Beetle Eggs

Probably, stooped over or squatting, checking the underside of my potato, eggplant and tomato plants for the yellow clusters of eggs laid by the Colorado Potato Beetle. That doesn't sound like a lot of fun and it isn't really, but the good part is that if I remember to start doing this a little before Memorial Day (or to put it in the gardening year, sometime just after the tomato transplants go in the ground), I can manage an important pest in the garden.

And in five months? Definitely checking out Cayleb's tulip and bulb display at Brooklyn Botanic. It's different every year, but it's always around the same time. (That's what's awesome about gardens, this fantastic mix of regularity and surprise, and the chance each time round to learn a little more, try something different or just get better at the craft.)

From A to B, the Short Way

Here, some straight lines of vegetables and cover crops in the borough that used to be known for farming, and where the Queens County Farm Museum now preserves that legacy. We stopped in to look around and to buy some of their honey for my oldest friend who recently moved not too far away. We also ended up with a bottle of wine to go with dinner, made partly from the museum's grapes (the rest came from eastern Long Island). My phone camera did not capture the glory well, but still, I'll probably always be a sucker for the beauty of a nice row of vegetables.

Growing Roots

If it grows underground, it might surprise you at harvest time and therein lies some of the fun in growing root crops like carrots. You're never quite sure how long they are, although usually you know how thick they are because they tend to crown up out of the soil when they're ready for harvest or you can dig a little down around them to feel or see their width. Carrots are cool too because you can direct sow them in the garden with no need for transplanting, unlike say your tomatoes. (although Joe direct sowed tomatoes and peppers in the garden this year with success.) Mine never seem to germinate at the same time or grow at a uniform rate, so they tend to be ready for harvest at different times. And that's cool too because you can just harvest what you need for the day and it's as fresh as can be. This one isn't a monster, but it doesn't need to be. It just needs to taste good. (And it did.)

What's Coming Up on Its Own

Some cilantro. Perhaps I will rue the day that I left so much in to flower and go to seed, but right now I'll take the volunteer seedlings that pop up everywhere. My thinking is that something will be coming up anyway, so why not a plant I could use or transplant or give away? And below, some oak leaf lettuce. I let the lettuce flower and go to seed, but wasn't thinking about using the seeds until my garden neighbor Julia got all excited about them. I wasn't sure if the lettuce was hybrid or not and if it would come true from seed, but Julia wanted some and said that it would. So she collected some and I sprinkled some in my garden and let others fall where they might. And they are germinating and coming up already. Of course, there are a lot of seedlings coming up crowded on top of each other, but so what? They can be microgreens.

Something Past

What remains of a daylily seedpod

And something not quite there yet...

My dad's green tomato

And the Little One Said

"Too hairy". My youngest niece, a la goldilocks-style, declares the Edamame too hairy to eat and cannot be convinced to eat it even by squeezing out the beans with her hands and avoiding the offending excessive hairs altogether. What's an aunt to do? I imagine we'll have to try out another variety next year and see if they meet her approval. I know this kid likes Edamame, so there has to be a variety with less conspicuous hair that she's used to. I can't really blame her though. I don't think I ate a peach until I was an adult. Too fuzzy.

Some Limas, 1,2,3

After the sowing and growing and staking, there is...the harvesting.

And the shelling. Plus composting. Easy as 1,2,3,do re me. Don't be fooled by my photos. The vine is a monster and prolific. Just watch out for hurricanes and Mexican bean beetles.

Garden Fresh, A brooklyn garden that is

It's what's for dinner.

Trust me, the potatoes and leeks cleaned up nice, just like the gardeners. We made one of our favorite soups for this time of year, Cream of Tomato and Potato Soup, mostly following Elizabeth David's recipe in French Provincial Cooking, though we are apt to toss in a little more leek, butter and potato. More is more, apparently, as far as we're concerned. The major ingredients of the soup (the potatoes, leeks, tomatoes and parsley for garnish) were only a few hours out of the garden when all was said and the meal was done. Now if we could only rassle up a good Jersey cow, a salt mine and a greenhouse to grow the pepper vine in down at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, we'd really have it made. But still, growing what you can in a community garden plot in New York City feels like enough to celebrate.

A first-time Garden in the City

Rooftop garden, Brooklyn (New York City).

I've said it before and I'll say it again. The only thing sweeter than watching your own garden grow is watching someone else's. And a first-time garden is always particularly sweet. We grilled some peppers, zuchinni and onion harvested from our community garden plots on the roof this weekend and admired Katie's tomatoes growing in their buckets on the fence, looking out at the city skyline from Brooklyn. This is Katie's first vegetable garden.