Tag Archives: mulch

This Week My Honey”s Lavender

Ah, New York, my sweet.  What’s not to love?

My partner started making ice cream this summer (poor me, right?).  The first stash from the CSA had some lovely lavender that constituted the flowers portion of our pick up.  All I had to do was stick it in the fridge instead of a vase, and the next thing I knew, voila, dessert!  This last visit to the CSA landed me some gorgeous deep purple blueberries now in the icebox waiting for the fairy dairymother to whisk them away.  So many reason to love New York this week.

But with some good news comes some bad.  Heard in the media-stream this week is that grocery stores are pushing back on consumers’ increased use of coupons with greater restrictions on coupon use.  The whole CSA experience, while a wonderful experience, may still not be the best value for folks looking to disrupt their regular food sourcing.  I’m still wanting to do a comparison of the options, from the traditional grocery store to home gardens to farmers markets and foraging.  While I can understand a company’s need to plug the bucket, so to speak, now might not be the best time to kick the consumer where it counts, considering that our flirtation with alternasourcing seems to be deepening into a more serious relationship.  Grocery stores may have even more competition ahead from innovations to their traditional model by store owners starting to think outside the box (Austin is expected to have the first packaging-free grocery store in the near future).

As for me, I will continue to report on my CSA experience, and hope that someone takes me up on my invitation to compare theirs (looking for someone signed up in the City with a different CSA, and someone from outside NY – maybe one of my Madison friends?).  (I am doing the full half-share, which means I pick up a full share – vegetables, fruit, eggs, flowers – every other week @ $550 for 24 weeks, which works out to be about $45.00 every pick-up, but would like to do a comparison with anyone doing a CSA this summer, regardless of what you’re signed up for).  I’m also looking to hear more on another …

QUESTION: how have your food collection and sourcing habits changed?  What percentage of your meals comes from sources other than the traditional grocery store?  Are you getting any staples from your garden?  Of the home gardeners, do many of you can to make your stash last after the season’s over?  How many of you are keeping the garden going indoors over the winter?  What have you got growing indoors after season?  Anyone else out there who’s getting their groceries outside the box?  Of those who forage, would you say that you’ve incorporated the wild edibles onto your every day plate?   With apologies to any skin-thinned freegans, have we got any garbage eaters out there?  Any other urban foraging?  Anything I’m leaving out?   Go ahead …  gimme the dirt!

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Taking the Rapitest

So yesterday’s question was what I should plant, assuming I only have it in me to do one more this year.

Strawberries seems to be leading the pack (the only answer, btw, where are the other revelers – come back in from the garden and let us hear from you).  Okay, so I did try strawberries in a container last year in a bit of shade.  They got sun starved (I assumed, anyway) and their weak little stems and leaves pretty much just shriveled up and died (very similar to what my ivy is looking like on the upstairs terrace but I’m thinking maybe that’s the multiverse telling me there are better ways to find shade and privacy, and I should try instead just to love my neighbors not hide from them, and maybe a wall of ivy would block their sun and be a bug haven).  Ivy aside, I would LOVE to have some cute little strawberries to throw in a summer salad, so I think I’m gonna take Ralph’s suggestion and try, try again.

I checked in my handy dandy guide to gardening – “How to Grow Practically Everything” by Zia Allaway and Lia Leendertz (what great surnames for garden book authors) – and it makes no mention of strawberries being sunhogs.  It does recommend using slow-release granular fertilizer for container planting strawberries, though.  This gave me pause because I’ve generally shied away from the stuff  since I don’t trust it – not with good reason necessarily.  I typically put together my own soil mixture in a large paint bucket, comprised primarily of the $5.00/bag organic Hamptons Estate topsoil (whose price tag I’ve prematurely bitched about), PLUS a few large handfuls of no frills mulch, PLUS a few quarts of homemade compost (this batch is peepee free – I’m still cooking the human nitrogenized stuff), PLUS a few cups of peat moss if I have it, and/or a handful of Perlite.

Out of curiosity today, I tested my hodgepodge soil using a store bought kit, the “Rapitest.”  It’s a truly awful name, I know.  I felt like I was on CSI, Hard Core Unit.  It set me back about 6 bucks, give or take, at my local gardening store, and has the capacity for about ten tests.  The Rapitest told me that the batch I composed (which is pretty typical of what I usually put in my containers) was around a pH 6.5, “slightly acid.”  I was satisfied with that, and didn’t mess with it any further.  I consulted “How to Grow Practically Everything,” to find out whether I’d get a gold star for my person-made dirt composite but was disappointed to find that all they really say about soil is to know the pH, but not what to do about it once you find out, which, of course, leads me to my

QUESTION:  How do you know what a good pH level is generally?  Does it really depend on the plant?  On where you’re growing?  Do other gardeners mess with their soil to try to get it right?  Or do they just jump in, pH be damned?  How many of you pshaw with the pH testing as all a lot of fussiness?  Is it a damper on the revel spirit to engage in fretting over soil composition?  Or is a soil’s pH the necessary foundation for a garden?  Do any of you swear by testing?  Do any of you just go by feel?  If you’ve changed course and either ditched or adopted a soil ethic, tell me your story.  Go ahead … gimme the dirt!

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Brutal Muggy

It’s the kind of day that makes you give up on things.  So many to-dos that I to-didn’t.  Like staking my cuke containers and the tomatoes out back.  Or setting my crowded beets free and giving my carrots some room to grow.  I got halfway to planting a mysterious squash that had appeared unexpectedly among my container sage – and only this by putting my neighbor friend’s kids to work (while we kicked back with coffee & tarts – this is, after all, what parenting is about, right?).  And, on the advice of a very sage fellow reveler, I finally decided I am NOT going to use those Triscuit card seeds.  They kinda freak me out.  Does anyone else think that there is probably something a tad toxic in the gum that holds the cardboard seed card together?  And hasn’t Nabisco confused most its constituents who think someone stole the seed card since it looks just like part of their cracker box?

Yes, it was that kind of day: hot, humid, with too much something in the air, making hay fever go haywire, making a person delirious, and not in the good Prince circa 1983 kind of a way.

There is the good.  I learned that the City is providing seeds and something else I imagine for garden growing in the projects, but only the old folks are doing it.  There is the bad.  There was an armed mugging just a couple blocks down from me in regular daylight (wasn’t broad but it was only 9 pm).  Then there is the ugly.

Like the duck.  This was the kind of day that makes me want to choke the duck.  There is a toy that found its way to my house within the past year.  It is a grubby-looking matted hair whitish-grayish looking duck that my dog sometimes loves and sometimes ignores.  And when you squeeze that duck at just one particularly hard to find spot on its creepy arm-like wing, it sometimes rolls its head and sings, “It ain’t gonna rain no more no more, it ain’t gonna rain no more,,,how in the heck can I wash my neck when it ain’t gonna rain no more?”  The duck seems to move itself.  I put it one place, I find it in another (and this is on days when my dog is being lazy and secluding herself on the cool comfort of the basement floor).  I heard it on level balance that even farmers lately are weirded out by the non-weather “weather” we’ve been having — that they think it’s gonna rain then it doesn’t.  That all signs say go – the animals doing their little scatter or whatever it is dance, the leaves turning upside down, then nothing.  Not a drop.  I took my clothes off the line tonight, put them in a bag, still damp, because I was CERTAIN it was gonna rain (and I, remember, grew up in rural Wisconsin –  I do like to think I know weather).   Several hours later, it still was just doing the threatening cloud looking thing in the sky, and now those clothes are back on the line.  And this duck keeps looking at me ominously, just waiting to sing.

QUESTION:  is the sky falling?  (Cuz if it is I gotta go get my clothes off the line).

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Just Thinking Bout My Dad

and how when we were little he would lead us in raking leaves, or splitting wood, or some other way he’d show he cared about the earth and everything in it.  thanks Dad.

QUESTION: what memories do you have of you and your pops doing earthy things?

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Sitespotting

Recommended for a visit:  Wild Things Rescue Nursery.

I met the gardener, Dawn Foglia, on our recent trip to Saratoga Springs.  Lovely lady, very hard-working, single mom (don’t think she would mind me mentioning that since it was one of the first things I learned), dedicated to helping spread the (good) word about native plants.  I caught her just as they were closing up shop at a local farmers market, and she was off to another event but we had some quick words and immediate camaraderie. I bought some wild ginger from her (looking forward to seeing how it grows next year – this year it’s just getting used to my ground), and just checked out her site, now trying to resist the temptation … my eyes being bigger than my garden.  So many plants, so little … *sigh*…

QUESTION: if you were allowed to grow just one plant (keeping it legal – or not), what would it be and why?

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Wildman Steve Brill Makes a Surprise Appearance Here

Hey all, awhile back I mentioned my budding interest in foraging and native plants.  All the better if I can combine them together, right?  So I’ve been reading about edible and medicinal plants, and even dabbling in developing my palate in this latest greatest cuisine craze.  I’m excited to say that I plan to take the foraging tour this weekend.  I reached out to “Wildman” Steve Brill, author of the foraging guide I’m currently reading.  I thought I would post his response, since it’s particularly timely today, in light of breaking news of increasing food prices and food shortages.  Depressing as all that is, kudos to folks who are doing something about it (e.g., G-20 Ag ministers spearheading a movement for greater transparency by country of what’s being produced, what’s about to come up short, and what the heck is going on w/food prices, so that shortages can be caught sooner and the veil gets lifted on what’s really driving price increases) and a nod to more local efforts to increase food production on a local scale.   I encourage you all to join me Saturday in Prospect Park for the foraging tour….

In the meantime, words from the Wildman…[from an email from Steve Brill]

I look forward to seeing you on an upcoming foraging tour. Enjoyed reading your blog too.

Unfortunately, by buying my book from the book industry rather than getting a signed copy from my site, http://www.wildmanstevebrill.com/, they got all but 6 cents of your money. Please get other books from me, or check out my app http://tinyurl.com/6zcnuna.

Elderberries have feather-compound leaves while dogwoods have simple leaves, explained in the intro section of the book and the app’s glossary. And you can always post pictures.

Happy Foraging!

“Wildman”

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Ew, Gross.

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Since, here, we are kind of starting to drift off beyond the garden and into talking about trying to live responsibly, loosely speaking, I’ve been thinking lately about sponges. These aren’t real sponges but that’s what we pretend they are. And I know they’re filthy yet we pretend to “clean” our dishes with them. Here is the culprit, in the sink next to the dishwasher that rarely gets used because of my efforts, as I said, to try to live somewhat responsibly. That said, how responsible can it be to wash my dishes with a dirty sponge. Of course I rinse it out and squeeze it before using it each time but still I can almost feel the bacteria seeping through its pseudo-pores. My partner keeps a dish of soapy water next to the sink and uses that instead of wasting loads of water each time we need to clean dished. Even with that, I’m sure there’s bacteria that accumulates there as well. I used to put a drop of bleach in it to ward off the little bastards but now that I’m getting into the living somewhat responsibly, the thought of bleach, the plastic it comes in and all its nasty chemicals makes me shudder.

I’ve been on this earth, let’s just say, awhile now. And one of the things that continues to stump me is ….

QUESTION: what tis the best way to clean dishes (in a way that isn’t really just a foolhardy practice of moving germs around), without using nasty chemicals or wasting water? Also, does dish soap really do any dish or anyone else any good? Is a dish soap that’s marketed as an eco-friendly one either eco-friendly or effective? Go ahead (even though I’m sure there’s plenty already on my dishes) … Gimme the dirt!

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What I’m Growing

It occurred to me I hadn’t shared with you what it is I actually put into the ground.  So here goes, by category, only edibles:

TREES/BUSHES:

  • peach tree
  • cherry tree
  • elderberry bushes (almost certain not dogwoods now)
  • Meyer lemon tree (in a container)
VEGETABLES:
  • tomatoes, four plant, purchased at a Saratoga Springs farmers’ market, all heirloom
  • cucumbers, eight plants, don’t remember where I purchased these but I think it may have been Shannon’s
  • pumpkins, from seeds, picked up at a restaurant in New Haven, CT, when we went to see my friend, Bill Demerit, who’s studying theater there.  I planted these and they shot right up.  I now have six plants (confirm).  Unfortunately, these are more the jack-o-lantern variety, but I figure they will give some nice color to the garden late in the season.
  • wild ginger, three plants, purchased from the farmers market in Saratoga Springs from a woman who was the only one with a plethora of native plants
  • carrots, multiple.  These are from seeds, which I didn’t really think would take off, since I’ve had difficulty growing carrots from seeds before but that was straight in the ground.  These are growing in a wooden box (like an apple crate) that I used to have hops from Six-Point brewery growing in (ever want to check out some good looking hops, pay them a visit by going to Rocky Sullivan’s in Red Hook – on the upstairs terrace, they usually have hops growing there).
  • beets, multiple.  These are also from seeds and, again, I planted more than I need, thinking they might not come up for the same reason – I’ve tried planting them from seed in the ground before with no luck.  In contrast, these little seeds [brand], which I put into the small plastic starter containers you get new plants in [name?] sprung right up.  I now have the dilemma of where to make their seasonal home.
  • jalapeno peppers.  These I picked up in a set of three starter plants from Shannon’s.  I had good luck with these plants last year and wanted to try it again.  I have them in a different location (south-facing upstairs terrace) than my north-facing backyard where they were before.  We’ll see if it matters.  They are in a couple planters with some other hot peppers (another jalapeno and cayenne, I believe) that I tried to maintain indoors over the winter but I’m not sure they’re actually going to produce again since they’ve remained essentially unchanged from last fall when I brought them in.
  • new addition: green beans (these seeds just went in the ground from my very most awesome neighbor friend, who is also growing green beans & sweet peas in a self-watering container)
HERBS:
  • sage
  • thyme (three types)
  • rosemary (not doing so great)
  • cilantro
  • parsley
  • mountain mint (got this from the Grand Army Plaza farmers market)
  • (will be growing: basil from the Triscuit box seed card & dill from same)
QUESTION:  what grows in your garden? Who’s happy this season?  Who’s not?
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Oh Yes Friday Din Din

Thank you, farmers, real farmers, for bringing me truly really good food to cook and devour. I made dinner tonight (broccoli rabe & white bean penne) to the silky sultry tune of Krystal Warren, beautiful summer breeze traipsing in, and made a magnificent (yes I do say so myself) broccoli rabe w/white bean penne. Taking it easy this Friday night, kicking back with a glass of wine that found its way with a dear friend here last week to celebrate. A little exhausted from the week now behind us, I am nonetheless buzzing w/all I want to catch up with you on, including what Ted Danson has been doing lately with Oceana.org, and what precisely is aquaculture, and how my little rosebush thanked me for clipping its mildewy leaves and presented two happy flowers this morning, and new uses I’ve found for those pesky wild onions, and what’s growing out there in my still-just-a-baby native plant garden, and all these things and more to come, to come. For now, for you … a

QUESTION: what is one of your favorite ways to spend a Friday night in the summer, and ease (or jolt, depending on your fancy & frequency) into a summer weekend? Feel free to illustrate.  Oh, and now an interlude on our featured artist, just for your

LISTENING PLEASURE … (p.s. I just realized how hard it is to find this song online – Krystle Warren’s “I’ve Seen Days” from her album Diary … copyright stuff I’m guessing b/c it was removed from YouTube from what I can tell.  But the song itself is gorgeous.  Sorry I couldn’t find more than the little clip I’m linking you to here.  I saw her years ago at A Gathering of the Tribes in the LES.  Have it on video.  If anyone has news, post here.  A gem, she is indeed.

blogging resumed …

Also, so we can all be planning, what are some events coming up these sweet summer weekends that you are looking forward to? Invite guests! Send links! Let all the revelers jump in the partay. And, as always, … go ahead, gimme the dirt!

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Hey, Hey, Whatda ya say I just got back from the CSA!

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