Tag Archives: revel gardener

Whatever Happened to Dirt Cheap?

I went to my local garden supply store, around the corner – Shannon’s on Fort Hamilton Pkwy.  I wanted to buy a little soil and mulch since I used up the mulch so generously donated by newly known neighbor/friend, and the two big bins of compost I started out the season with are down to about half of one of those bins, and I’m trying to build up some soil in my backyard (literally, build it “up”) because I could not decide between planter boxes, planter pails, or the good old ground for the four heirloom tomatoes I picked up in Saratoga Springs, so I’m doing something kinda in between.  So I decided to buy some soil and mulch to help me out.  Two bags of topsoil, one bag of mulch and one bag of something else but it was, basically, dirt.  That, one pair of gardening gloves not more than $10 (I’ve worn my others out), and $8.00 worth of impatiens, and the bill came to around sixty bucks.  No lie.  That averages to about ten dollars for a bag of soil.  They’re big but they’re not outrageously big.  They’re organic and free of those nasty chemicals that self-water and self-feed and time release and all that junk.  But, still… am I crazy to think that’s a bit pricey?  Am I out of touch?  No, that isn’t my question.  It is….

QUESTION: How much is good dirt these days?   … AND … is it like other things where you might find a better deal online?  Did dirt go up along with every other useful item for living lately?  If it did, is it just to keep pace, to seize on the panic, or is there a real reason behind the increase?  Is it just that expensive here in NY?  Are gardeners elsewhere feeling the pinch too?  Go ahead … gimme the dirt, really, I mean it this time.  Give it to me, preferably for free or really really cheap.

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Guest Post by Kathe Johnson

Fellow Revelers, I hope you’re enjoying your Memorial Day weekend as much as I am.  It also happens to be my birthday weekend, and, as a present to me, several fellow revelutionaries have graciously agreed to guest host post over the next several days. So I am pleased to introduce you to our first, hailing from Wisconsin, an all around amazing individual and one of my most favorite people of all time, Kathe Johnson:

I’m not a doctor and I don’t play one on tv. I’m not a gardener, but I love to read gardening books and listen to gardeners share their stories. As I do, I wonder what transformation takes place in the gardener as in the seed. What attracts a gardener to the activity? Does it teach patience? I don’t think so. I think gardeners want to be alone, and gardening is a way to shut out some of the commotion of their everyday lives. I’ve often asked myself why I don’t garden, even though I have curiosity about it, and – the answer I tell myself – I don’t know what I am doing. I would feel like a failure, if I planted a flower and weeds came up. Perhaps I should check out Gardening for Dummies. My friend, Roxie, gave me some potatoes with eyes on them to plant so I could grow potatoes. Guess what? I have no the hell idea how to put them in the ground. Do I cut them? Do I put the whole thing in ? What do I do with it? I’m serious. So I gave them to someone who already has a garden. Except one. I have one potato with an eye down there.

I feel joy and awe when I think about people and their gardens, knowing that there is a looming world food shortage and those gardeners might somehow be lessening the pain of hunger even if it’s just by a little bit. I wish that gardening were taught in elementary school in the classroom. Bishop Fulton J. Sheen wrote, “if everyone lit just one little candle, what a bright world it would be.” I think if everyone grew just one little garden, what a right world it would be.

QUESTION: do you agree that gardening should be taught in public schools?

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A Little Night Gardening

Thanks to my very most awesome neighbor who has generously plied me w/native plants, some discarded, some abandoned, almost all of them looking a little lonely and forlorn, and thanks to my other most very great neighbor who turned on her porch light for a little night soil sifting, I now have a native plant refuge in my front yard. She’s breathing kinda heavy but it’s the good deep rib-roaring sighs that say she’s been sitting one way too long. A recurring message the multiverse (http://www.npr.org/2011/01/24/132932268/a-physicist-explains-why-parallel-universes-may-exist) keeps sending me is that change is the only constant on this earth. Gardening, by extension, is all about that movement. We just keep moving things around in the ground, and see how it all responds. Once it all seems settled, time to do the shift again, and then see what takes. I asked my mulch neighbor when was too late to plant & he said when the ground’s frozen. Taking that to heart, I planted my little native-plant plot by moonlight, with my dog lazily enjoying the night earth nearby. Now the natives aren’t so restless and bereft. They were looking downright snazzy when I left them tonight. Who knows what tomorrow shall bring?

QUESTION: Now that I have my little native plant garden in, are there any suggestions for its care?  I know it should probably fare better than an exotic garden, and feel right at home, but any pointers are welcome (including general gardening tips since I’m also compiling a list of those).  Go ahead … gimme the dirt!

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Thanks Very Mulch, Neighbor

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If you are the person that says, “why?” when someone says, “garden,” I have an answer for you.  I have been living in this house in Brooklyn for eleven years now.  Most of my gardening over these years has consisted of growing vegetables in the back, and planting other things like a peach tree, a cherry tree, and what I believed (until today) to be elderberry bushes.  My frontyard gardening consisted of little more than putting in a couple hostas that a neighbor gave me when I first moved in.  Those hostas, with little care and no prodding, have gone forth and multiplied, as all good hostas do.  When I looked at them a couple weeks ago, I realized I was the only thing holding them back; they needed room to grow and since they’ve no feet, they needed me to move them.

So I have ventured to frontyard gardening and need both hands and feet to count the number of neighbors I’ve met since I started, barely two weeks ago.  Today, lo and behold, I met the son of my next-door neighbor, who answered in 30 minutes what might take me several weeks of posting these questions to accomplish: the elderberries I was going to begin harvesting for wine this year are, as it turns out, dogwoods (I still need to confirm this – will post a pic later b/c I didn’t think that dogwoods grew berries but I’m not really sure); my hostas are hardier than I thought and can probably survive that shady patch close to the house where no other plant could make it; the little flower bush which popped out of nowhere a few years ago is actually a non-native invasive plant (my jury’s still out on the degree of importance of native vs. exotic – at least in small time gardening like mine – and, if I have a native that’s growing on its own and still rather pretty, maybe I should just let it be — taking opinions on that one too).  Along with bits of wisdom that came from his own experiences as a prize-rose-grower and several years working for NYC Parks Dep’t., he also gifted me with some beautiful black gold, pictured above.  Most importantly, he introduced me to my across-the-street neighbors, his mother and aunt, an octogenarian and noctogenerian who keep their front yard more pristine and pretty than any probably any other on the block.  I’m not sure if it was the introduction from their kin that made me okay in their eyes or the fact that I was finally tending my – we won’t say neglected but rather left to nature – yard.  Either way, it occurred to me that the adage “love thy neighbor” is good, but you gotta know them first.

QUESTION: what are some of the fringe benefits of gardening?  If you garden, what have you gotten from it that maybe you didn’t expect at first?  If you want to garden, what keeps you from it?  If we were to start a campaign to encourage more people to garden, what benefits – both obvious and hidden – are there that might might sway more folks to dig in the dirt?  How does gardening make you a happier person?  Or doesn’t it?  Go ahead…gimme the dirt.

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There’s No Turning Back Now, Folks

Welcome to the other side of the predicted Great Earthquake and concomitant (this-time-it’s-for-real) Judgment Day.  A sick side of me turned on the telly Saturday night to catch news coverage of fallen faces as the world, undeterred, insisted on existing, same as before, despite these guys’ predictions of the Great End.  Karma must’ve been wagging her fat finger at me, for I couldn’t find the coverage I was looking for on any of the usual suspsects: CNN, CNBC, or even Fox “News.”  I did find, to my delight, a channel on DirecTV that plays all the news all at once, letting you arrow over a box to hear the sound.  Just when my partner suggested I search online, I caught myself and stopped, thought better.

They’ll have a hard enough time of it, I realized, trying to get back the jobs they quit, the husbands and wives and – some of them – kids deserted on their quest to announce the end, the life savings they blew through like there was no tomorrow, quite literally, without all the rest of us nyah-nyahing them.   Besides, they probably did us prediction disbelievers a favor.  It’s not a bad thing to be reminded of our immortality, inspires us to update that bucket list, maybe pick a new plant to grow, really activate the compost, or perhaps even just appreciate that we’re still here.

My partner turned to me Saturday about 7 p.m. or so and said, “I’m glad you’re still here,” teasing me over this little obsession I’ve grown sort of fond of harboring.

Getting to a question, not so much gardening related but it’s been bugging me since I started thinking about it earlier today …. I wonder if news outlets have canned coverage for when/if the world does end.  I remember hearing that the BBC had prepared a broadcast many years ago after Orson Welles participated in the radio performance of H.G. Wells’ 1984 and it caused panic among audiences who thought it was for real, even getting some people so freaked out and, realizing it was theater, pissed off that they tried to storm the station.  I heard that folks at the station had to whisk Welles out the back and sneak him away to safety, kind of like a modern-day Justin Bieber but with the oddly adoring fans being an angry mob, and without the hair.  I also heard that the BBC prepared this tape which reassured people everything was okay, telling them not to panic, we’ve been invaded by aliens, or some other catastrophe had struck.  I heard that the most challenging piece for BBC to figure out was how to reassure people once the tape started to loop and then wouldn’t people REALLY start to freak, realizing it wasn’t live?  I also think they released the tape not too long ago, but I’m not sure with what/whether they replaced or updated it.

Hm.

I am wondering, do major stations in the States have anything like that ready to go now?  Do you think they did when all this Great Quake chatter started up?  If you know, divulge!  Give us all the dirt … tell us: is there a canned broadcast ready for the end of the world?  How about in print?  Do newspapers have a story ready to run in case the Great Big End begins?  How is the media preparing to tell the poor saps who are left what the heck just happened, and what to do next?  Who are the experts called in to comment?  Do they know they’re on deck?

“Um, Father Joseph, is it okay if we call ya if, like, if the pale horse shows up round here?  Can you, uh, you know, give some words to the peoples?”

“And what makes you think I’m still going to be here?”

“Well, you’s Catholic, ain’t ya?”

QUESTION: should I plant my tomatoes in the ground or in boxes on the ground?  If boxes, how deep?  And, please someone tell me if there’s a canned broadcast for the end of the world as we know it (yes, yes, granted every day is the end of the world as we know it, as is every moment but you know what I mean).  Are there pre-drafted articles for an alien invasion?  How about the Great Quake – is there another story ready for that one?  Go ahead…gimme the dirt.

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Gee, Dad, that’s great.

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“the Greatest Ever”? As in kick your ass great? As in no whammies great? As in big money great? As in Tony the Tiger great? 

As in, Gee Dad that’s great.  Thanks … FOR RUINING MY LIFE! 

(as in it’s great that I don’t have a five-year old to explain this one to — as seen on 7th Ave, Park Slope, today)

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Quick, Quick, While It’s Not Raining

Has anyone seen little wild onions growing in their Brooklyn yard or garden lately?  These little spermazoidal looking creatures have taken over my front yard.  Just when I was getting all excited that they must be native, and was about to introduce them out back where persistently naked patches of dirt abound, I suddenly realized they may be vicious invaders, ready to choke out the handful of natural inhabitants residing back there. 

QUESTION: should I plant these mystery onions out back (they grow so quickly and look kinda yummy)?  Or is it ecoirresponsible, since I’m not yet sure from whence they came?  Also, ya think it’s ok to eat them?  (Yes, I’m aware that after the various questions I’ve posed here, I’ll never have dinner friends again). 

One more quickie: I went ahead and bought a $20.00 rose bush from my local florist/plant shop, Shannon’s on Fort Hamilton Parkway (it was, after all, only 20 bucks, and I read somewhere that some roses are native to New York – it’s getting late for me to be too picky on the native plant front).  I’ve already clipped a couple whose beautiful pink roses have quickly wilted when just placed in water in a short glass. 

QUESTION: how do you extend the longevity of clipped roses, and is there any use for them other than their prettiness?  Like, where are the rose hips and how do I get them in my tea???

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NATIVE PLANT EVENT REPORT

It was good. Thanks for the dirt, Brooklyn Dirt.

For more usefulness, check out the links below.  The evening started out with a presentation by Marielle Anzelone, who said she worked as a botanist for New York City until about three years ago, and the position hasn’t been filled since.  She gave very useful answers to why native plants are important, though I think the second part of the night, led by Chris Kreussling may have been more pertinent to my purposes, essentially concerning what I can put in my front yard without feeling like an ecocriminal.  I think for my yard/garden, I may hunt down the highbush blueberry and maybe some wild geraniums.  One take-away, though, is that you can’t rely on Home Depot or Lowe’s or even a local garden spot to know what’s native and what’s wise to grow in your garden.  Luckily, Chris promises that his site has a link to retailers who know their native plants.  Overall, it was a one greenthumbs up for the one part of the evening I caught, and I’m sure it would have been two had I stuck around for more.  As it was, I had to get home to a sick kid, and my friend’s kid had to get home to bed.

Sycamore, a flowershop/bar on Cortelyou was good enough to let the kid come along, even though the announcement said 21+.  By the end of the first part of the evening, though, we were all ready to go.  We had a good walk home in the rain.  We kicked around the question whether trying to save our ecosystem with native plants in a little plot of land makes any difference in light of the bigger destruction going on around us.  My neighbor’s son asked if I had a car (I thought maybe he was getting tired of riding on his scooter in the rain).  “No,” I said.  “Well, okay.”  He said it so definitively, like I was on the right track to saving the earth.  Just like that.  He may be right.  Maybe it’s all way simpler than we know.  We also considered whether it might not be better to just throw up our hands, recognize there’s no turning back the clock on the damage that’s done and simply try to find a better way to work with it rather than lament its loss.  It was a pretty quick walk. Only 15 minutes or so … another few minutes more and I’m certain we’d have the answer.

QUESTION(S): what are you doing to make your little difference – in your garden or elsewhere? What do you wish you would be doing? What do you wish other people would be doing? If we could save the world and our little ecosystems by having every person do one thing, what would it be? Should we just throw up our hands and plant kudzu in the concrete? What’s your take? Go ahead…gimme the dirt.

LINKS:  sustainableflatbush.org & flatbushgardener.blogspot.com & marielleanzelone.squarespace.com

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If There’s a Summer Reading List

On rainy days like this week, I like to think about when the slugs have slithered or been salted away, when my garden will be all lush and beautiful, full of flowers in bloom and meticulously cultivated organic juicy red tomatoes whisper, “eat me, eat me,” (yours say that too, right?).  Yes, these soggy days I drift in my mind to when I will finally feel the tickle of perfect, pesticide-free, native grasses beneath my feet, and I will lord over my bounty, a steamy cup of morning joe in hand, gently brewed from individually selected, hand-picked, shade grown, fairly traded, equally exchanged, peacefully planted coffee beans lovingly smuggled from some distant corner of the globe, when bounty bursts forth from each bud in each hand-painted, Gaudi-inspired mosaic-print pot.  Well, maybe not all that.  But I do get through these days without a trowel thinking about what, other than gardening, I will be doing with my long summer days (besides pecking away at my desktop under flourescent glowlights, day in, day out, thinking about what I could be doing with those long summer days).  And that, naturally, turns to reading.  

Assuming those weird Canadians (thanks for the link, Bronwen – see Armagarden post comments below) are wrong, and no one will be whisked needlessly away into the unfeeling blue yonder by an unloving god, I think it’s time we talk summer reading list.  Top of mine is “What Would Google Do,” by Jeff Jarvis.  I’m only twenty pages in but I’m hooked.  I think it’ll be a perfect subway read (being realistic, for those of us not fortunate enough to have a home in the Hamptons or anywhere but our concrete slab of this city, it’s just more practical to think in terms of a subway read rather than beach books).  More on this later but the skinny is it’s about Google, the first “post-media company,” what it’s doing right, and what other companies can learn from it.  Although it’s early to tell, I’m pretty sure he’s also sending out a warning signal to all the rest of the companies who think they can keep doing business as used-to-be: we’re in a new era, folks.  And the old ways just aren’t cutting it.  But, it may take many a more company to flounder and sputter about before that message gets through.  I’m also putting on my list Just Kids, the Patti Smith memoir, just ‘cuz, and maybe…not sure what else.  How about you?

QUESTION: what’s on your list?  What will you be reading this summer?  What’s the last book you read?  Are you glad you did?  Was it on a  Nook, Kindle or in your good, old-fashioned hands?  What are you reading now?  Any suggestions for a good gardening book (tall order, I know, but one worth filling). 

(I just picked up How to Grow Practically Everything by Zia Allaway and Lia Leendertz, DK Publishing 2010, which is a great book to have on hand, easy to peruse & good how-to photos, and also am flipping through, courtesy of my most very cool neighbor, Weedless Gardening by Lee Reich regarding how to give the earth a break and grow above ground, like on newspapers and clippings – inneresting but not sure it’s for me.  I like to dig in the dirt, what can I say?  We’ll see. )

LINKS: http://www.buzzmachine.com/,/ (Jeff Jarvis’s blog)

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Kicking Up the Bucket List

On Saturday, I finally made my first visit to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. First … ever. It’s embarrassing, I know. It just was something that always fell into that category of things you do when friends or family come to visit – you know, one of those things that makes New York great and that makes being a New Yorker super cool but that you never do, which makes New York more like any other town and you like any other townee (which, when it comes down to it is probably more true than any of us cares to admit). But, like a dyed-in-wool local yokel, I do have my list of things to do right here at home before I die or leave Gotham, whichever comes first. And visiting the BBG for the first time is no longer on that list. Visiting it again many times, however, now is.

I’m glad it was a scuddy, rain-soaked day. It can only get better from there – and it was pretty damn good as it was. Aside from the phenomenal foliage, and the massive trees that really do seem to sing to each passerby, I am in love with the little old lady at the information booth, which, by the way, is piled high with pamphlets (each of which was more alluring than the next and each of which I couldn’t help but stuff in my bag, to the chagrin of my patient partner). Our BBG ambassador urged us to take the next tour, and when we politely (I hope) declined, she almost couldn’t contain herself as she directed us breathlessly to the bluebells (when we saw them, we realized why – it is just pure joy, truly – it’s got a kind of magical buoyancy that lifts every person within range). After cautiously, anxiously making our escape from her eager urgings — nodding our heads, backing up to the nearest exit, as she chattered on about all the things we could see on our way to the native plants garden — we were finally on our way.

Now, I question the countless times I’ve looked up Lady Liberty’s skirt, my out of town entourage in tow, or took my tourist friends to guzzle more than our share at ChaCha’s on the boardwalk, or stuff our faces at Nathan’s, when all this time I could’ve been tripping through the bluebells. Maybe it’s age. Try to convince a 25-year old visiting from Beloit, Wisconsin that, yes, what they really came to New York to see is that vast field of flowers in the middle of Brooklyn, when all they wanna do is shout “HowYOUdoin” in a very bad Brooklyn accent to every surly regular in the bar.  Yeah, it did take me a long time to live that down. Back then, in my own heyday at the local pub, it eventually helped me feel more at home, since after that visitor left I ended up with a new Brooklyn nickname, like Mikey Apples, or Jimmy Deli (he owned a bodega, of course – later came to be known as Jimmy Daily for his increasing presence at the bar).  My moniker was, simply, “Wisconsin.” A dubious benchmark but one I warmed to nonetheless.  My own Brooklyn name.  “Hey, Wisconsin, what’re you having?” Bluebells.  Lots and lots more bluebells.

QUESTION: if, as it’s said, we have a mere five days left, what would you do to get yourself back to the garden? What are your bluebells?

Links: http://www.bbg.org/

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