Got thyme?

My four favourite thymes, over at Shelterpop.

Note how I spell favourite here and favorite there...This is my comfort zone.

Plectranthus "Mona Lavender"

At GRDN the other day, I asked Susanne, the owner, whether she would be getting any plectranthus in...She didn't know this one, but found it in a catalogue after I'd waxed lyrical about its virtues, and called today to tell me she had some waiting for me.

The plectranthus genus is native to South Africa, and the Mona Lavender cultivar was born at Kirstenbosch, the national botanical garden in Cape Town.

My mother's garden is home to several native species, from groundcovers to massive shrubs, all happy in shade and dappled shade, making their late summer flowers at the same time as the autumn anemones (like mine, below) when most others have given up.

Here we plant it as an annual. It grows tall, about eighteen inches plus, and puts out gorgeous lavender flower spikes, conspicuous against dark leaves, in late summer, lasting for weeks and weeks, if not months. They last well indoors, too, as cut flowers, and are an imposing alternative to impatiens impatiens impatiens, when shade intimidates us and makes us run for what we know. Pink pink pink white pink.

I haven't grown it for two years (as evidenced by these photos: 2008, pre-all-red-terrace) - couldn't find it last year - and will have to find some space. I think the terrace's denizens may have to expand to the building's stoop; rotate some things out there every now and then. I'm stuck with the lilies, which are now 6' plus, and can't be moved, the hosta is taking over the world, and I'm beginning to look at the Japanese forest grass with a jaundiced eye.

I could have worse problems.

Brooklyn Bridge Park picnic

We have been enjoying barbecues on the tiny terrace these balmy nights of this early summer, but yesterday I wanted to feel grass between my toes.

Last evening I packed a picnic, originally destined for the Great Lawn, but then I chickened out and we decided on the new lawns of the Brooklyn Bridge Park, and we headed off, a fifteen minute walk from home.

Naturally, the lawns were closed...

But I still gloated at the No Dog signs planted in them (clean lawns for all!). I asked a friendly John Doe cleaner (one of a blue-overalled battalion - there is nary a scrap of paper to be found in the park - I wish they'd fan out into the greater Brooklyn area) what was up, and he said that the lawns had just been sprayed.

Er...? I said.

Not fertilized, he said, Sprayed.

Maybe they sprayed them green, suggested Vincent. The French are often very helpful.

So, no lush grass beneath us. We chose the newly opened, warm stone steps and joined two other picnicking couples. The two guys below us had sandwiches and chips. The German couple above had a Wholefoods bag.

Our picnic won: Saucisson, brie, prosciutto, baguette, insalata di Caprese, crunchy vegetables, dolmades, hummus, my new favorite Pop Chips, and Mulderbosh Cabernert Sauvignon Rose, 2009.


Later these two arrived, on what looked like an early date. They had pizza, probably from Patsy Grimaldi's round the corner. Her new shoes hurt her feet - she had little wads of tissue tucked near the toes.

As dusk settled, more people arrived, but it's still a quiet place.

I love this view of the river, working as it has for hundreds of years. Barges, tugs, pleasure boats, yachts, cormorants flying past the skyscrapers of the Financial District, ferries hooting, helicopters and planes above, landing and taking off. A busy peace.

New York garden blogs

Apartment Therapy, the go-to blog for apartment dwellers everywhere has named 66 Square Feet one of the top ten New York gardening blogs. High praise, and I have a silly smile on my face. Thank you, Aaron!

We share the honour with some friends: Frank at New York City Garden, the Ellens at Garden Bytes, and Xris at Flatbush Gardener, as well as some other very good blogs you might enjoy...go over and visit.

Verbena bonariensis

Here's another guilty planting...

Years ago I started adding Verbena bonariensis to grassy plantings on roof tops. I liked the way it looked, held high and lightly above the cascading grass blades and later, their seed heads. It fixed the wildness in a way, gave it anchor and form. But it self seeds vigorously and is a pest. In my tiny space, it is easy to control by dead-heading before it sets seed. But I am suspicious of it en masse. You cannot control it on that scale.

It's a cliche now, this verbena, and tends to date a garden's design, in the way that lavender used to. I almost like lavender again. Actually, I've always liked it, but couldn't resist rolling my eyes and snorting a little if it was designed into yet another lavender and rose or lavender and boxwood combination.

I lean towards agastache now, for this tall blue effect. Though more substantial as a plant, it still carries tall flowers spikes above the fray, lasting long and late into the season. Its leaves are fragrant and edible and bees adore it.

Re-dating chickens' sell by date is legal

The chicken incident was repeated at the end of last week, when I went to see what was in the poultry case at Key Food. Just curious to see what their labels would say two weeks later.

Incredibly, I discovered that the date-switcheroo had been repeated!

Store label on top of the organic chicken, above. Producer's label below. Most of the original labels had been torn off, this one had been left on.

But: According to the NY State Department of Agriculture and Markets, a store can, at its discretion re-label a sell by date on perishable food. This from Andy Campbell, the reporter investigating the chicken incident for the Brooklyn Paper, here.

"At its discretion."

Key Food on Atlantic's discretion was to re-label one chicken's sell by to 11 days after the original sell by date. The chicken above was re-labeled by 8 days.

Define discretion.

It's the NY State Department of Agriculture and Markets that has some 'splaining to do. When they wrote to me about Chicken #1 they said they found no evidence on site (the D'Artagnan chickens in question were not in stock when they visited) of tampered-with sell by dates. That would imply that it did not condone such behaviour...

So which is it?

The Huffington Post version of the story is getting attention.

[6-7-10:Here is PETA's vegan-angle take on it]

Good.

I have written to the Department in Albany, asking them to explain what 'discretion' means. Also who - in a store - makes the call on whether perishable meat is still safe for consumption, and how it is done...

And why, if a sell by date is not intended for the customer, why it is visible at all?

It all seems to be an elaborate, bureaucratic hoax.

The edible terrace

A lot of lamb's quarters showed up in several pots on the terrace in the spring (it's summer now, isn't it?). I can't remember there being any last year so somewhere close by, a plant set a lot of seed. I transplanted about fifteen seedlings to their own pot, so that I could have an orderly crop, but they were terribly unhappy - obviously do not like being transplanted, were in shock: Who transplants us??? We're weeds!!! - and just sat there, with furled leaves, for a week. By that time I had run out of patience, binned them, and planted parsley in their stead. Must have parsley. If you are not up to performing on this terrace you will be asked to leave. Others need your place.

But the weeds that were still growing in the Abraham Darby's pot were very healthy, so I pulled them up and will cook them. Maybe I'll make a little soft polenta-thing. In Cape Town, Selina cooks them up with other wild greens, or morog, as it is known in South Africa, for which she patrols my mother's garden, like a beady-eyed hen: young, tender thistles, the fat hen (lamb's quarters, here), purslane, although she doesn't like that much, and green onions. She mixes this with mealie meal (like fine grits, or polenta) and makes a loose, savoury porridge.

I think it would translate very well into an Italianized dish, and is probably eaten in wild places everywhere, where people do not have enough to eat, and turn to the fields and hills, for vitamins and variety.

I made a braai last night, Memorial Day it was, after all, and holidays call for barbecue. Does anyone remember that we are fighting a war that drains our tax dollars faster than the oil well is gushing into the Gulf? Also, people die. But we're worried about undocumented Mexican workers.

Where was I?

Fennel. This fennel has returned three years running, in the pot right outside the sliding door. Its deep root overwinters, and every spring the fine feathery leaves breach the surface, and by the end of May it is eighteen inches tall. It remembers summer, and comes back for more. I use the leaves for flavouring mushrooms a la Grecque.

I have wanted my own blueberries for a long, long time. I tossed some misplaced liriope, and the awful red lilies (tied them up in bags on the railing in front of the brownstone with notes explaining what and how, and by the time I had returned with my groceries they had been adopted). I think I may buy our terrace neighbour a blueberry as a gift, so that they can cross pollinate. The only trick is to keep the soil acidic.

The strawberries are ripe!

Frankly, they look gorgeous and taste a little tart.


One of two mint forests, for mojitos, for Vietnamese and Thai dressings, for salads of mango and chiles, for fruit punches and for cooking with peas...

And, finally, with its second crop (the first dropped off, as it usually does, for me), the fig is figging.

Speaking of which I must update that nasty story I posted a while ago, about my hunt for someone searching for child porn in Gosport, Hampshire. It came to naught, but I was very encouraged by the effort expended by an intelligence officer at the CEOP (Child Exploitation Online Protection Centre, based in the UK). She would not tell me exactly what their methods are, but she had every intention of pursuing the search that led them (disappointingly for them) to my blog. I lacked a full ISP address for them.

In the meantime, I have another brewing story about chickens and sell by dates, if you can believe it. Same store. Say tuned.

All this latent activism. Clearly I am not gardening enough.