Fire escape garden, SoHo

A real fire escape, this time...

Kensington, Brooklyn

Today we found a neighbourhood I knew nothing about. Brooklyn is big. Really big. And I know bits of it.

Our bit is Cobble Hill. Bluestone flagstones on the sidewalk colour both the street- and audioscapes; tall trees, discreet brownstones and townhouses, expensive strollers pushed by rather entitled mothers; little, pretty parks, a stretch of Atlantic that is comfortingly Middle Eastern, and human; good food shops: cheese, bread, meat, fruit, vegetables. Serious restaurants close by, Manhattan ten minutes away. It's all very attractive and civilized

We took the F to Church Street and came out in what looked a lot like a suburb once off the main drag, except one with big, solid apartment buildings, wide avenues, and a population on the street that is the least homogeneous I've seen in New York.

On the cement sidewalks of Kensington were old Ukrainian ladies in sandals and knee high natural stockings, ladies in saris, in burkas, men in kurtas; yarmulkes, kufis, Hasidic hats.

I liked it.

Even before I saw the people, I knew from my recent BBG judging experience that the mosaicly bright gardens in front of the houses signified an "ethnic" population. The adjective amuses me. Am I ethnic? And why is an Indian family ethnic? Anyway, folks were growing things. Food.

This one fence had four kinds of beans rampant over its mesh: green beans, yard long beans, hyacinth beans and one I'd never seen before.

Squash and gourds grew up every available vertical surface. There were little pepper bushes and aubergines and tomatoes. There was a grocery that sold fresh pea shoots and amaranth from boxes. I perked up. I could live here.

There were stand-alone houses (as opposed to connected brownstones and townhouses) and bits of green everywhere.

But the apartment we looked at was on busy, noisy Ocean Parkway and was very old and urenovated. Windows stuck in place. The garden, if you can call it that, was surrounded by rotting fences covered in astroturf. Yup. The landlady, a lip-linered, bust-enhanced Russian, had a sporty BMW and Mercedes parked in her driveway next door. Her dark garden was chipped marble and bad statuary and lots of shade.

It wouldn't work.

This autumn clematis foaming over a fence showed that August is over.

I have put a request into the Universe for an apartment with lots of light, and a terrace.

I asked nicely.

Summer in New York

Pic: Vincent Mounier

For a break at a beach, go as far east as you can with the Metropolitan Transport Authority, and Vincent as your gimlet-eyed guide...

Black swallowtail

Tired, struggling to hold onto the wet Japanese ribbon grass on the terrace in a mist of cloudy rain.

The two last caterpillars disappeared the day after I photographed them. Birds? It was very hot, and the parsley was in full sun, so I thought they might have moved to shade, but they never came back. I suspect there'll be more.

The roses of August

...smelling as good as they look.

Garden Rant

I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to write a guest post for Garden Rant, which you can read here, about plant thievery.

If you are a regular reader of this blog you'll recognize the story of the lily thief, the agastache, so it may be old news...

There'll be future posts over at Garden Rant, so I'll have to pull up my writing and ranting socks. I try quite hard to not to rant over here, so it may be a good steam vent...

Between the bridges

Under the Manhattan Bridge, on the Brooklyn side...Daucus carrota, Queen Anne's Lace, host to the Black Swallowtail children (so they stay off my parsley, damnit). I saw no caterpillars, but we did see a cormorant diving and bobbing in the strong, incoming current.

This low 12" high grass - anyone? I swear it's growing on the Highline, too.

Brrr: cedar quince rust on the poor amelanchiers in the park between the bridges. I never did go and pick berries in June. I chickened out.

Sumac. For the first time this year I saw it sold at the Union Square Farmers' market, though the person tending the stand was vague about it. I buy it powdered from Sahadi's for Middle Eastern dishes, and I tasted two of these seeds, though the fine fluff covering each bothered me a bit. Same tart taste though - very nice.

Below, looking over the little bay in the park, a leggy Russian woman posing in gold bikini for a plump, elderly photographer...

Next time we'll take a picnic.

Pig in a Mink

I can't go to bed yet.

I'm baby-sitting a (usually-reserved-for-Thanksgiving) Pig in a Mink for Mimi's birthday tomorrow.

Some people give flowers for birthdays.

I give pigs.

Lightbulb pops: how about...Pig. with. flowers!!!???

SSSsssh: the pig needs tucking in...

Pilates in DUMBO

OK, Class: now let's all make like cockroaches when someone has emptied a can of Raid into the room!

Big Sky Country

The promenade at the edge of Brooklyn Heights looks down and out over the last piece of the East River that isn't a river, and over New York Harbour. This is big sky country.

This was the afternoon before the night of the storm that ripped over 100 old trees out of a corner of Central Park.

Specks in the sky are passenger jets and helicopters trafficing over New York.

First Fig

The little fig in its little pot has clusters of fruit at the tips of all its branches. The first crop fell off, immature, which longer worries me. I'm still not sure about the current crop. This lot
has looked the same for a very long time now. But this evening I noticed one fig on the far side had turned a promising pale olive-brown. Ha!

The first fig.

Looking at last year's posts, I see that the ripe crop was only ready in late September, before it was attacked...

The First Fig was served with chilled Lillet. The Frenchie and I shared our crop. White inside and sweet as honey.

Sizzling shrimp

Not quite there yet. Some kinks to work out.

After we ate these shrimp, for the umpteenth time, I took another crack at it last night.

The bagna cauda theory was good, for cooking the garlic gently before the shrimp were added. But the flavour balance was off, and the shrimp slightly over-cooked. I put them into a blistering oven for five minutes, but perhaps they should just be cooked briefly in the oil on the stove...Arkadia? - wat jy jy gedoen? I needed more garlic, too, for my pound and a half of shrimp.

one cup EV olive oil
1/4 stick butter
6 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1 Tbsp red pepper flakes
1 lemon's juice

Combine all and cook gently till garlic is soft.

Then all bets are off. Add shrimp: in oven for a bit. Under broiler for a bit. In pan for a bit. The latter, I think

They looked smelled, sounded and tasted fine. But they weren't up to the Schiller's shrimp standard. Next time we go, I'm going to beg to be let in the kitchen.

The ones above got dab of the chipotle sauce I made two nights ago for some outrageous porterhouse steaks.

Prosecco and some Cassis. So good.

Don't forget good bread. And plenty of green leaves.

Little Tribeca Terrace

This was an enclosed, dark terrace in Tribeca before its make over. The akebia (chocolate vine) was actually doing quite well high up, and I would have liked to have kept it, as this is an impossible situation for plants, with no direct light, confined by tall buildings on four sides, but the tough vine was not wanted. The old, shellac-ed planters were falling apart. Do not paint wooden planters in shellac. You will live to regret it.

After the planters were broken down and moved out (through the apartment, into the elevator, down to the street), the soil - under the tarp - was stored in giant grow-pots to be moved into the new custom-made planters, yet to arrive.

Cedar planters being delivered...

Then the trees arrived. The useful thing about birches is that they are bendy, and suffer corners better than, say, a crabapple, whose horizontal branches scratch expensive walls unless well wrapped in a clean, soft drop cloth. I make myself deeply unpopular by nagging that all trees be swaddled for delivery.

The clients wanted to keep their old trellis and to spruce it up I decided to add some more vertical pieces.

Which I really wanted to paint green and blue, alternating.

Blue was settled on, and it really lifts the whole terrace. I think.


Here the new birches are in place, planted a little over a week ago, with yews behind to show up their trunks in winter, and with hardy begonias (Begonia grandis) and lady in red (...) ferns (Athyrium angustum 'Lady in Red') at their feet, and some Hosta 'Fragrant Bouquet' flanking a bench. Climbing hydrangea to go up the trellis.

I'll check back in a week to see how everything is doing.
 

Pizza Napolitana

Not quite.

There was some buffalo mozzarella on it. Otherwise, a tomato sauce: skinned tomatoes, sliced garlic, cooked till soft with salt, pepper, a little sugar, and thyme and basil. Chopped salty anchovies, black olives at the last minute.

The crust was a cheat. Organic, raw pizza dough from Wholefoods.

Mexican heirloom tomatoes

The tiny tomatoes upon their rusty, wrought iron tower are growing and growing...

I snack on them when I am watering the terrace, and looking up at the open sky above that I love so much. I am beginning to panic about not finding a new place like this.

It is tiny, but light-filled. I would like another pocket in the sky. We've been looking at garden apartments, which are a different animal. Looked down upon by others, and darker.

I stood in the rain on the terrace yesterday and got wet, and felt my heart break in my panic spell, and a rainbow came out over Brooklyn.

Then we barbecued, made a salad with the tomatoes, and watched a movie while the cat begged for tidbits.