Harlem nights

In summer the Harlem terrace is deserted from midday till late afternoon, while the sun blazes down. By 5 o' clock the shade has arrived, cast by the tall building to our west, and I emerge to water the pots, often with a drink in hand.

While we are packing for our move I am consolidating all of my foraged infusions and cordials, so last night's drink took shape from a collection of crimson dregs: wild black cherry cordial (fizzy, with a hint of bitterness), sloe gin, and my second vermouth blend, Northeast #2, as it is known in these parts - lots of botanicals, including local bayberry, spicebush, sumac and super-invasive but essential mugwort (yep, Artemisia is an important ingredient in Noilly Prat!). So, those, with loads of ice, a twist of Thai basil from the terrace and a squirt of tonic water. Good.

I picked the hostas, as the flowers may be damaged in the move. They smell wonderful (the cultivar is 'Royal Standard'). The salad is figs, local tomatoes and quick-pickled Persian cucumber slices with pea sprouts and terrace basil. The vinegar is wisteria blossom, the last of the 2014 batch.

I bought some local beef short ribs from Harlem Shambles as a treat, and grilled them over coals after marinating in black soy sauce, lime juice and some mugwort leaves. After they had rested we sliced them from the bones and wrapped each bite in either a shiso leaf (terrace), or American burnweed leaf (Erechtites hieraciifolius, foraged, and the larger leaves on the platter). Interestingly - he is the perennial guinea pig - the Frenchman much preferred the burnweed, which has an amazing affinity for the flavours of southeastern and eastern Asia. It's a little like cross between culantro (Eryngium foetidum - also in the family Asteraceae) and  the better-known cilantro.

Lately, we eat on tin plates and drink from mismatched glasses. I am paring down the kitchen and packing it away. Soon, it will be like camping, as today I pack the cookware, and we will be down to grilling outside and one pan (cast iron, of course) if it rains and we are chased indoors.

Shiso thirsty

It is hot in the city today, and I can't wait to dip into one of these.

I grew many shiso plants last year (and wrote about the herb for Gardenista), but forgot to order seed, this spring. Luckily, one dropped seed germinated and now we have a modest crop of the fragrant leaves. They have an affinity for gin. I crush them a little before adding the gin, and topping with tonic water. A few Persian cucumber slices macerated in the liquor for five minutes before the tonic is poured are a very good addition.

Later, for supper, there will be grassfed beef shortibs marinated in soy and lime juice, grilled over coals, rested, sliced, and wrapped in a choice of shiso or American burnweed (Erechtites hieraciifolius) leaves. Because there is still some forage left in this forager.

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Book an Autumn Walk

Harlem Terrace in The Times

Harlem Terrace. Photo by Pablo Enriquez, for The New York Times

In June we were visited by Anne Raver, whose gardening stories have been a fixture for so long in The New York Times. Her article about our terrace is in today's print edition, and you can read it online: A City Garden in Harlem is on the Move to Brooklyn.  (Naturally, when we learned that we had to move, the story's angle shifted, a little!)

Late summer light

Our twilight is reflected from the tall wall of the building on our terrace's eastern edge. The sinking western sun is hidden from us by more buildings, but bounces down to make the terrace a strange pink in the late August evenings.

The Nicotiana mutabilis are very tall, now, and speak unexpectedly to the pinks and apricot of the Agastache 'Acapulco,' also planted for pollinators and hummingbirds. Honey bees still besiege the calamintha, and when they leave, a single firefly blinks in the dying light.

Tomatoes are often on the menu, now. Stuffed here with rice and dill and little bits of leftover lamb (the lamb-less version is in my book). In the glasses, very cold prosecco with sliced white peaches from the tiny but excellent farmers market on Lenox and  West 118th.

We still save up stories from our days, for supper conversation. The Frenchman tells me about The Man with the Dog, The Man in the Suit, and The Tide of Construction Workers - all regular and developing themes from his Harlem-Empire State Building subway commute.

Nights are hot, but the terrace always seems cooler. While we eat we listen to the small yapping dog whose location we have never been able to pinpoint. Occasionally, in the last few weeks, there is an eruption of angry shouting from the homeless shelter across the way. It used to be very quiet, but something has changed - new management, I think. We wait for Korean Air's Airbus A380 to lumber overhead, on initial approach to JFK - its wide wings and massive tail are unmistakeable at 13,000 feet. And sometimes the American kestrel perches at the top of the homeless shelter's fire escape and scans for careless pigeons.

City life. Day in, day out.

Tomatoes till we bust

The tomato days are here. They really only start in mid-July, and we will see them till early October. I have learned to wait for them. No tunnels, no Canada-grown (sorry, Canada), but sun-ripened fruit from Jersey, upstate New York, and Long Island.

And then they will be over.

The best way to eat the first ones is to toast some good sourdough bread, rub it with raw garlic, smear it with mayonnaise, load it with tomato slices, salt and pepper it, and drizzle some olive oil over the lot. It is simple and it is decadent.

If you want to go crazy, add some basil.

Harlem Alpines

The Alpine strawberries keep strawberrying. Luckily, the squirrels are not interested in them, despite their strong and delicious perfume (the strawberries', not the squirrels'). If you have the space for a long row, plant them, and gather more than my twice-weekly breakfast handful from three small, six-inch pots.

Two of these tough little plants survived our last winter, and one grew from seed, from last year's dropped fruit. They were puny in April and are now plush and prolific (p-p-p-p!).

Off topic: Tomorrow is the last day to enter the giveaway of my book on Amazon (call it a goodbye Harlem, hello Brooklyn gesture). There will be two winners. If you are a US resident, head over there if you'd like to try your luck.

[Update: whoops, both prizes have been claimed - that was quick. Hopefully I can do another in the fall.]

No plant left behind

One of the herbs planted in the built-in wooden boxes on the edge of the Harlem terrace is Calamintha nepeta.  It has been planted in my city gardens ever since I learned how long-blooming it is: few perennials will flower from June till frost.

Honey bees and other insects love the tiny white flowers.

The leaves are intensely minty, and the cut stems last well in water. The plant tolerates some drought, and loathes to have wet feet. Here, it receives only four hours of direct sun, and it has grown huge. The specimen above traveled with us from Brooklyn in late 2013, and it is now going...all the way back (we just signed a lease on a garden apartment in Carroll Gardens). I have transplanted it and another into a galvanized bucket. Calamintha, on the move.

So - there is the same wooden planter, empty of perennials ( we are still eating the parsley), and there are the two calaminthas on the deck, waiting for moving day. The bees do not mind the change in elevation. But in a week or two they will be buzzing hungrily.

How we move those tall Nicotiana mutabilis without snapping them is another story. Tears before bedtime.

The buckets. Why? They are quite cheap, and they are light. And I find them inoffensive aesthetically, once the stickers are off. Much better than plastic, and lighter and cheaper than terra cotta. I am worried about moving-weight for the big terra cotta pots. In our new place we may want to house plants for a while in their containers while we settle in, and I won't mind looking at galvanized metal.

There's a hole in my bucket, dear... All the buckets need to keep plants happy is a drainage hole. Easily achieved with a hammer and a pointy thing. This unscrewable hammer with smaller screwdriver heads within the handle is the kind of tool that makes real craftspeople wince. But I've used this one for about 15 years and I refuse to be shamed. The smallest screwdriver head makes the hole and the larger ones wiggle it wider.

I'd have made an excellent caveperson. As long as people let me stay in my cave until I was ready to leave.