The gardens around us

In this week's article for Gardenista, I wrote about gardens in the hood. It is called Carroll Gardens, after all. Click that link for lots more pictures. A little local colour, literally. And I met some neighbors.

The garden above belongs to Polina Siterman, who grew up tending strawberries in the family's dacha garden in Russia.

Sadly, the pink flamingoes did not make the cut for the story. That is perhaps a whole other story. Every third or fourth garden in Carroll Gardens is stuffed with statuary. Flamingos, gnomes, Catholic saints, the virgin Mary, Jesus, baby sheep, mangers...

Changes

Before the heavy rains of last night I snapped a picture from the rear of the long back garden here at Chez 66 in Carroll Gardens. After snipping the tops of these fava beans (to eat raw in salads), I pulled them out. I love them - they have been a staple of my New York gardening life, perhaps especially as they are the first up in spring and the last down in winter, but I did not feel like doing daily battle with black aphids and a squirt bottle of soap (though it has worked on my Camassia flowers, also besieged).

I chopped the bean plants up, dug unaffected parts back into the soil, and used the lower stalks (also no aphids) as a leafy mulch in one very difficult and sloped corner that stays very dry (under the viburnum). It is planted with some volunteer purple perilla and sunchokes.

The umbrella from Patio Living has been even more useful than I had anticipated. In these months the sun actually clears the building well enough to make the area where the table is very hot in the morning, so if I have coffee out there, I can hide from it (the sun, not the coffee). And the Frenchman likes to keep it open for dinner because it creates a room beneath, a screen that gives us some sense of privacy.

This photo has made me decide: Those paths have got to go. I really dislike the color and texure of those pavers, especially in photographs. I have a nice little Rewards Card from my credit card company (points mostly due to long distance air tickets) and I'm going to blow it on river gravel, which will camouflage them.

It's decided. Phew.

Ready, set, garden!

The week has been busy. Which is why I have not been here. Also, May turned into summer, like that. So I picked some of the Boscobel and the Windemere (white) that are flourishing in pots in front of our bedroom windows. They would have fried by the next day

Earlier I gave myself 45 minutes to garden inbetween other things, and set my alarm: charged into the garden in my denim dungarees (the best gardening clothes in the age of low rise jeans) and mowed down the bolting spinach and cilantro (eaten for supper) then spread 3lbs of pulverized egg shells (it takes 5 minutes in the food processor - lots of fine dust) and dug it in - still raising the pH.

Instead of tossing or composting the remnants of my mache plants two week ago I snipped them into bits and left them in a layer on top of the soil, and I did the same with the spinach bottoms, today - they'll decompose eventually, but right now are a much-needed mulch, as this soil loses moisture fast. Beneath them I planted 'Dragon's Tongue' and painted pony beans - both bush beans. I must still remove the fava beans - suddenly besieged by aphids. They are in the prime and the sunniest spot where the test tomatoes will go (back left of the central plot, below). Not sure that we have enough sun, but it's not bad right now - from now till August this spot will receive 6 hours, before waning. And at the back the tall tomatoes will not shade anything else.

My alarm sounded, I went in, showered, turned myself into a human, and headed to Manhattan. 

Back home, a box of books arrived - I have lots of reading to do. All I need is...time. 

If you have any to spare, I am collecting it.

The Grow Journey season shifts at Chez 66

Here we are, in May's final stretch. The 10 x 10 vegetable plot in the middle of Chez 66 is producing daily salads. The Grow Journey spinach 'Verdil' - such a baby just the other day, is now sending up flower heads. When I bump one, an eruption of improbable pollen rises several inches and drifts away. I pick the bolting stalks as fast as I can, and we eat them in nightly salads. They are also very good wilted quickly in a hot pan and used as a bed for a poached egg. The leaves are still lush and upright, and just a few have been bothered by leaf miners (I pick those leaves and throw them far, far away, where the sun don't shine).

Nearby, the first sowing of arugula is trying very hard to flower and I won't let it. The upright budding stems are very peppery and good, raw.

The last of the garden cress has been eaten and the remnants tilled into the soil as a very light green manure - any organic matter helps, here. I have to re-water our abused soil often, as it loses moisture fast. And what about fertilizer? I have not used any, unless you count the many pounds of crushed oyster shell to raise pH. Last fall's soil test revealed high phosphorus levels, so someone before me fertilized a lot. And I am discovering that the use of fertilizer should never be automatic: This blogpost is enlightening.

Now the upland cress is flourishing and I mix it with the pretty beet greens ('Early Wonder Tall Top') for bagel toppings and stuffing for breakfast omlets/omelettes.

What's next? I have sown the Seeds-of-the-Month dill 'Goldkrone' and it has risen in a spiny little row. Thai basil and garden huckleberry (actually a variety of Solanum nigrum) are in a seed tray and soon I must transplant them. The basil will go into pots as I do not trust the European starlings to leave it alone, but the Solanum must go in-ground into the sunniest part of the plot, where it will be joined by some cherry tomatoes from Grow Journey as well as their beautiful 'Painted Pony' beans. When the arugula comes out.

Sun. I have to make myself remember The Dark of Winter. Because right now the whole garden is in sunlight as the rising Northern sun clears the tall townhouse. Closest to the house the shade begins again by late morning, while the back stays in sun more or less all day. In late fall, winter and early spring, not a ray of sun pierces our gloom.

It is challenging to choose the right plans for this space. But now I pretend that we are Alaska. Night, and then day, and then the longest night, again.

What did you plant today?

A long table

Supper outside last night, on our new table from Rustic Productions on Etsy (if you visit the link, ours is a newly-built version of the 'very rustic' sale item table - $350, made from reclaimed oak). It would have had six legs, which didn't look right to me, and Deena and Paul very kindly modified it with a reinforced center section. It shipped in three boxes from Ohio. Amazing Internet.

 We are very happy with it. Having space to spread out is wonderful.

As we ate and it grew dark the possum climbed back over the fence towards us, climbed down, snuck around the side, crossed the garden and went about its business...

Chez Possum?

A swearing squirrel drew me to the screen door. And there I saw, walking across the garden in May daylight, the possum. So I fetched my camera. The sheep says, What the f-f-f-f-f-f-u-u-u-u-u-...?

I didn't got too close, just in case it was sick, and after it got over the frozen-possum attitude, it high-tailed it (low tailed it?) up the fence.

And back down, after thinking about it for a bit. It drooled a little on the way down, which worried me, but I have looked it up, and that is what possums do when stressed. Opossums are very resistant to rabies, apparently.

Then it sprinted across Carlos' yard to its hole in the shed.

Who needs to go camping in Africa?

Chez...?

I have always wanted to grow ornamental alliums, and now I do. In Cape Town, my mom has used leeks to similar effect. Most of the alliums have been fine but a few curled up on themselves and did not produce flowers. Their bulbs are blue with mold.

I have learned new things in this, our third New York garden, and the first in-ground. That squirrels eat viburnum blossoms. That European starling love herbs - parsley, summer savory and fenugreek have been decimated.

No one bothers the salad leaves - arugula, spinach, mache, upland cress, an Asian mustard, mesclun, peas, fava greens. Which is good, because we eat them every night.

We have learned that a raccoon uses the utility wires highway strung from pole to pole in our backyards as a suspension bridge. We saw one in the dark, the other night, walking the highwire. And the possum comes nosing round at ground level, from Carlos and Rose's side. Without our own animal to watch, we watch the other animals, like campers at a watering hole.

The formidable Rose passed away recently. We did not know, our neighbor Carlos told me, through the fence. We can now grow flowers on that fence. He says that there is a kitty in her house, which he helps feed. It shows itself to no one. He likes cats.

I am searching for a better name for this garden. Chez Mosquito feels too aggressive. Although, we did swat out first skeeter, today. Any suggestions? Short, catchy, accurate. No pressure. It needs a label for easy filing. Chez 66? Our new table is just a bit bigger than our first terrace (isn't that COOL!?). Hardly seems possible.

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Last Spring Forage Walk