Tag Archives: urban gardener

Keeping It Green

Maybe I was a little harsh.  My last report on my bi-weekly CSA pick up pointed out the meagerness of some of the offerings.  I’ve been noting all summer the harsh effects of climate change (f/k/a global warming) on home gardeners across the country.  According to an email that I received this week, re-posted below, we are not alone.  Larger local growers, as well, have felt the impact of unpredictable weather this season, which has run the gamut from drought to flooding, and has resulted in various pests brought in on the winds of Irene, blight, rot, increased sick days and low worker morale.  I just wanted to take a minute to say that I do try to give a fair and accurate picture of this – my first – CSA experience, but it doesn’t always capture the whole picture.  This is why I have invited others to tell me their stories, share their experiences, suggest additional alternasources, and, now, why I am forwarding the (very thoughtful) message I received a couple days ago from the organizers of my CSA and the farmers who grow some of the pretty awesome food I’ve been eating this summer.

Recently at a farmers market in Fort Greene, I saw signs from GrowNYC calling for donations to help organic/local farmers whose crops were damaged or wiped out by Hurricane Irene.  Their efforts are still underway.  One of their suggestions for how to help, in addition to direct donations, is to commit to eat locally as much as possible in September (the “locavore challenge”).  I’m encouraging all of you/us to continue this commitment through the end of the year, since it will take more than a month’s effort to help the farmers recover losses from a season screwed up by the environmental mess that we’re in.  Please share your stories here and beyond about what you are doing to participate in an extended locavore challenge (if the Occupy Wall Street protesters aim to make it through the winter, so can we).  Updates ahead on ways I’ve been putting my CSA treats to work.  Please pass along your recipes, suggestions, etc., on where/what/how to advance the local-eating agenda.

Here’s the email….

Chris and Eve have sent an update about the difficulties they’ve experienced this growing season, which I’ve shared below. We’ll be sending everyone an end-of-season survey later on, but if you have any feedback to pass on to the farmer before then, feel free to email the core group at kwtcsa@gmail.com.

Stacy,

On behalf of the KWT CSA core group

From the farmers:


This has been a challenging last couple of months and although we were not wiped out by the hurricane the amount of rain has been a huge issue affecting the quality of many crops.  Not just with organic growers, as conventional farmers in the northeast are experiencing similar challenges and losses.

Under the circumstance we try to stay optimistic about the situation. All seasons are different and rarely are they void of conditions at some time that will have an impact on quality, quantity or diversity.    Farms in the northeast can be impacted by one or more problems like pests, drought, disease, flooding or other issues  outside of the farmers control.   Other farms even 100 miles away may have a totally different growing experience in a season.

I met with Cornell cooperative extension today to seek professional help (as I do throughout the season) regarding three different crop disease issues  and one pest issue tied directly to the wet weather.  They believed the steps that we had taken were sound and accurate given the tools we have under the national organic standards.  I also learned about the vast damage and loss of  crops in our region to conventional farmers who can use chemicals as a tool.  That didn’t make me feel better; I just wished conditions were better.

In conclusion, we are disappointed that we were struck with tomato blight this year,  that we have received almost double our annual rainfall total (most of which in the last month and a half),  that we were hit with damaging hurricane winds and pests and insects that were transported with winds.  What does this mean for crops:

Cracking and rotting of root crops like sweet potatoes, carrots, potatoes and carrots.  Tomato quality and loss due to blight which kills the plant and cracking and rotting due to excessive rain.  This means we have to throw out a lot of produce.  Heavy rain and pooling of water leads to leaf disease on all kale, collards, cabbage, broccoli, head lettuce, beans beets and many more.  In extreme cases plant roots can suffocate leading to the plant wilting to the ground.  That has happened to broccoli, kale and Brussels sprouts.  Seedlings that wilt off or get damaged by heavy winds and pounding rains.  Seeding schedules get thrown off because the ground is too wet to work.  Cultivation and weeding schedules are difficult to maintain.  Farm help doesn’t want to work and morale is affected and sick days increase.

These are some of the issues that are a result of the extreme weather we are experiencing.  We don’t like some of the challenges it has created and we feel grateful that it wasn’t worse for us and our csa members.

Thanks,

chris
QUESTION: And you?  What will you do to keep it green?  Go ahead … gimme the dirt!
5 Comments

I Got Globally Warmed

And I am not alone.

Victims (not quite casualties but close): hostas and carrots and maybe the cukes too but the latter did produce. They just slowed down during and after the wicked heatwave we had.

So I made it to The Big Easy. But my troubles are not all at an end, my friend. I don’t like what I’m hearing. I met a gardener from Oklahoma who said they’ve been without rain for about two months. Said she went away for two days and came back to find her petunias and other flowers all wilted or dead. Another friend outside Chicago put as her Facebook status that someone had murdered her cilantro (I think that same killer was on the loose in my herb garden). When I was talking to a fellow reveler in Carmel, IN a couple weeks ago, she had to stop mid-sentence because it started to rain, something they hadn’t seen in many weeks (may also have been a couple months). She and her father commented that a lot of people would be stating out their windows at that moment. All other folks, too, across the country have been telling me their global warming woes. Hope about you?

QUESTION: what’s your take on this wacky weather? Are we getting globally warmed? What does your garden have to say about it? Are you changing your approach in response? Will this change what you do next year? How so?

Go ahead … Gimme the dirt!

1 Comment

I Had Trouble in Getting to Big Easy

The day started out rotten.  Up at 4 a.m. (okay, well 4:30), only to miss my flight to New Orleans, despite my best efforts.  Made it all the way to JFK, raced inside like a lunatic, wheeled luggage flying behind me, only to find out I’d have to pay an additional $80 for the next flight this afternoon, couldn’t check my bags until at least after 1:00, and would have to trek it back home in the meantime to wait (which meant another $100 in cab fare to get home and back again later).  Sooooooo, while still in a spectacularly foul mood, I headed out back to check on the garden.

I had major renovations done on my house in the last six months.  I find that when I’m in a good mood I look at the changes and am pleased as punch I laid out the money for it.  When I’m grumpy, I see the tiniest nicks and chips in the new paint or corner spots where the moulding isn’t perfectly straight, or that infuriating little dribble of paint that hardened under the counter ledge in the opening between the dining room and kitchen, and think about the dollars wasted.  This morning I found the same phenomenon occurs in the garden.  I went out there and all I saw were the problems.  Although the first heirloom tomato ripened, this morning all I could see was the split at the top.  While the peach tree is producing lots of fruit despite some early season troubles, all I saw this morning were problems that I don’t remember being there a few days ago.  (In May, I sprayed it with copper fungicide but not in the amount Shannon’s recommended — I try to go easy with that stuff even thought it’s organic.  It’s still copper being sprayed on a tree that produces fruit I fully intend to eat.)

So, although I didn’t skip through the garden this morning, peppering self-congratulations, I did identify some problems that need fixing.  Of course, my mood is a little improved after getting up close and personal with the plants; that never fails.  Eternal happiness and sprightliness, however, can be a dangerous thing.  I don’t know that I would have spotted those issues if I weren’t such a grumpy gardener this morning.

I do feel like the guy in Dr. Seuss’ I Had Trouble In Getting to Solla Sollew.  He left all the pesky troubles he was having at home to get to the beautiful city of Solla Sollew (on the banks oft he beautiful River Wah-hoo, where they never have troubles, at least very few), but found that the journey wasn’t quite as easy as he had expected.  After an exhausting bout of difficulties getting to SS, he arrives to find that the city is suffering from a key-slapping slippard who moved into the door, and now no one can get in and no one can get out.  The town’s gone to pot and even the ever loyal doorman has decided to leave, off to the City of Boola Boo Ball, where they never have troubles, no troubles at all.  So, while I’d really like to kick off this vacation with a bloody mary, fixins courtesy of the garden, and chill till my flight at 3, I’ve decided to follow dude’s suggestions.

Declining the doorman’s invitation to follow him off to paradise, he tells us what he has decided to do:

…I started back home, to the Valey of Vung.  I know I’ll have troubles.  I’ll, maybe, get stung.  I’ll always have troubles.  I’ll, maybe, get bit by that green-headed Quail on the place where I sit.  But I’ve bought a big bat.  I’m all ready, you see.  Now my troubles are going to have troubles with me!

Watch out ants.  I’m going to Shannon’s to buy my big bat.

2 Comments

Gardening Podcast Round Up Correction

Props to the self-sufficient gardener (Jason Akers) for the correction.  It was not he who proclaimed something or other about the “women folk.”  It was Jack Spirko, of the Survival Podcast.  As I noted in my round up (not to be confused with Round Up, which I roundly condemn), I’ve spent a bit of time recently listening to various gardening and garden-related podcasts.  I should have been more careful to take notes because they did start to run together for me.  Unfortunately, I ran the self-sufficient gardener headfirst into the survival podcast guy, and ended up mistakenly attributing a confounding phrase (“women folk”) to Akers when I think it was Spirko who said it.  It’s not that I could feign to be offended on behalf of women folk.  They can speak for themselves (they’re allowed, I think).  It just interrupted the flow of the podcast (why is this all sounding so womanly?).  It was weird when I heard it on the podcast, and I assumed the guy was joking, till I didn’t.  There was no drum roll, no punchline, and I just waited to see if he was going to say anything about the fact that he’d just said something about the women folk cleaning the game that the men had caught.  I mean, seriously?  Well, I guess so.  That or he just forgot the drum roll and dropped the punchline.  Anyway, maybe there are parts of the world that really are, as they say, not Brooklyn.  No harm, no foul.  Akers straightened me out (and pointed out that his wife would not allow him to be sexist – right on, wifey!).  And I realized that maybe Spirko was getting all the sexism out of his system before bringing the impressive Chef Maribel (who needs to work on her marketing — the site is just weird — tell us, please, more about the program to help feed the hungry and less about whose famous cousin you cooked for) onto the show to kick some girly butt…maybe Spirko’s?

2 Comments

Gardening Podcast Round Up – Starting with my Favorite

Yes, the only time I will write “Round Up” in this blog with any positive connotation at all. Well, to be honest, with you, not all of it positive…my apologies in advance for any harsh criticism…but I gotta give you all the dirt on this topic, and I’d be shortchanging you if I were anything but flat out, brutally honest. As always, this is all imho, and I do mean for it to be humble.

So, thanks especially to my fellow reveler Ralph, in the last couple weeks I’ve been listening avidly to various gardening podcasts. The jury’s still out on some of the others but I do think I’ve listened enough to find the one I like the most, so far at least.

My favorite, hands down, is the self-sufficient gardener, Jason Akers. He’s a guy in Kentucky (whose hardiness zone, for the most part, is the same as ours here in Brooklyn – find your own here). His podcasts vary in length but generally run about 30 minutes. He always starts with news and updates which, appropriately I think, tend to be particular to his own locality. The topics he covers range from the practical (see, e.g., peppers, strawberries, bluebirds, and composting) to the philosophical (e.g., Sun Tzu‘s The Art of War applied to gardening). Personally I think the practical ones are his strong suit but I appreciate the diversity in topics. In the ones I’ve listened to, he never comes across as arrogant or condescending, and, most importantly, really seems to get the revelry of gardening. Since I’ve been listening to so many of these, they’ve all started to run together so I have to apologize if I’m attributing something to him he didn’t say but he may have (seriously it seemed) referred to “the womenfolk” when discussing hunting and his wife preparing the food. It was weird and offensive and I’m hoping I’m wrong and he didn’t say it. He’s a young guy, at only 33 years old, but seems like he’s been gardening a long time and, again importantly, doesn’t take himself overly seriously. His website could be a little easier to navigate. The search function needs some improvement, but his podcasts make it worth the effort (and patience you need to find what you’re looking for).

Others that deserve a mention, and will get more coverage in the days ahead include the Growing Your Own Grub podcast. I’m not sure I’m getting the name right on this one (which is one of the things that keeps this from the #1 spot — I can’t tell by a quick look what the name of the blog is, who the host is, etc.) . This sounds like an older guy in Texas who tips his hat every so often to Akers, with who he agrees to disagree on several topics (e.g., raised bed vs. in ground gardening). We, the listeners, benefit when they disagree and get well-rounded coverage on the topic. Message to Akers & the GYOG guy: disagree more often — we learn from it. Another one that I’ve listened to but need more time with are Melinda Myers from my home state of Wisconsin, and Margaret Roach’s A Way to Garden. To the former, I need to listen more and get back to you. As for Margaret Roach, I’ve found a couple tidbits useful but it is presented more like a casual radio talk show, where you have to really listen to gather pointers than with some of the others that just give them to you straight-out and don’t so much bog you down with how they spend their days. I also am not getting some of the joy that I hear from other gardening blogs with Roach’s podcasts although, admittedly, I haven’t given them enough of a listen. When I do, I will definitely be updating this post.

In the meantime, let me pose this

QUESTION: do you have a favorite gardening podcast? What topics would you like to listen to covered on a podcast? Any least favorites? Go ahead … gimme the dirt!

4 Comments

A. Ham

20110722-063929.jpg

Pushing up some not so healthy hostas…

I shot Alexander Hamilton’s final resting place earlier this year, and was impressed with the wholesome hostas surrounding him.  These wilting yellowish leaves caught my eye today and, frankly, made me feel better: if the groundskeepers of Trinity Church are having a hard time fighting the heat (or whatever it is that’s causing some cranky vegetation), maybe there’s some green left in my thumb after all.

QUESTION: it’s been posed already (thanks Ralph!) but want to put it out there again .. anyone else having a rough a growing season?  If so, what do you attribute it to?  Is the heat doing us in?  Anyone want to argue global warming’s a myth anymore?  In 100 degree weather, does it matter?  Go ahead … gimme the dirt.

1 Comment

Call of the Wild

Hello fellow revelers,  please check out my post below on my impressions of Wildman Steve Brill’s wild edibles tour that I took in Prospect Park last month (some of the pickings remain for edification and identification purposes in my living room — my oh-so-patient partner would be rightfully impatient right about now but, luckily for me, is not).  I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to hear from someone in another part of the country as to whether there are such tours going on elsewhere, and what you all are learning from them.  One of the things that surprised me was the sheer number of people who showed up for the tour.  What was even more surprising was that there was enough such sizable audience to support several more of the tours this summer.  Happily for all of us here in Brooklyn, there are monthly tours in Prospect Park through the end of the year (though I’m sure each is unique and worth checking out, given the movement of seasons).

So, revel friends, I am definitely looking for feedback on all things wildly edible outside the great Northeast (or even outside nyc for that matter).  Perhaps what got me thinking about this is an announcement on a podcast late last week: http://www.thesurvivalpodcast.com/episode-702-chef-maribel-the-food-diva.  It occurs early in the podcast (fair warning – the whole podcast is rather lengthy but an entertaining listen if you’re inclined), and announces that a town in Michigan is trying to ban a resident’s vegetable garden in her front yard.  From what I can tell, she’s not growing lewd zucchinis — it’s just that there’s some ancient regulation about only permitting “suitable” gardens visible to the rest of the world.  I didn’t hear any quick follow up on today’s podcast but the link above gives a rally cry for anyone wishing to give Michigan a piece of their gardeners mind.  I’ll let you know if I place a call tomorrow.

In the don’t be meantime, please pass around my

QUESTION: for residents outside the greater NY area, are there any Wildman equivalents in your neck of the concrete woods?  How about for non-urbanites?  Are wild edibles passe for you country folk?  Or are there tours and meetups and affinity groups for all you all too?  Anyone care to share some stories of their own adventures in foraging?  We would love love love to hear a review of any other wild edibles tours going on across the country.  Go ahead: Austin, Beloit*, Chicago, Detroit, Eden Prairie, Fargo, Grand Forks (anyone tell I’ve got family in ND?), Honolulu, Independence, Janesville, Kansas City, Lexington, Madison, Niagara Falls, Orfordville (anyone tell I’m from WI?), Potters Grove**, Quakertown, Reno, Seattle***, Tupelo, Universal City, Vancouver, Wichita****, Xenia, Yellowstone, Zion … Gimme the dirt!!!

*Boston, you almost made the cut.  This was a hard one because you’re so irresistible for so many reasons, not which of least that you rhyme with Austin.  But you’re not my hometown.  Sorry, you’re just not.

**Phoenix, I thought of you too.  Pasadena, you too (and I do hope to see you someday soon).  But, Potter’s Grove … how could I resist?  It just doesn’t get the attention it deserves anymore.

***I also thought of you, St. Paul, St. Louis and San Francisco.  I just always wanted to go to Seattle so I thought I’d send her a little shout out here.  You do still have my heart, SP, SL, & SF.  And you’re just so saintly.  You’re number 1 in my book.  Just not in this list.  sorry.

****Weehawken, I love you too.  You’ve always been there for me.  And you really are very awesome, even being in New Jersey and all.  We’re just a little close, you know.  And Wichita has just been sitting out there waiting for so long now.  I knew you’d understand.

6 Comments

Everything’s a Blur

After my brief abduction by alien mushroom plant invaders last week, I’ve had quite a bit of catching up to do on household chores and other mundane duties. Although my weekends are typically waaaaay more exciting, Saturday was dedicated to laundry. On my way to pick up more clothespins from Walgreen’s, I ran into a friend in front of her usual spot on Church Avenue. A couple other regulars were gathered there to smoke and look at the day. This person and I hadn’t been in touch lately, mostly just exchanging messages on her medical condition. In one of those exchanges, she shared a bit of meaningless gossip about a mutual friend. She brought it up again Saturday and, to punctuate her point, said, “You shoulda seen the look on your face when I told you that.” I pointed out that we had been on the phone. The truth is that, were it nearly anyone else, I could have replaced “the phone” with “Facebook,” “texting,” “tweeting,” “online,” “emailing,” “messaging,” or fill in the blank with any other sort of cybermunication. The truth is also that nearly anyone else would not have been hanging on the corner having this inane conversation or patronizing the bar behind us for that matter – it’s become a bit of blight in my otherwise pretty cool hood. My friend, like the other regular clientele (and I mean the truly “regular” customers – not those who go to gawk at them), are largely technilliterate. Although it was a welcoming place when I first moved into the neighborhood, it’s known for mistreating its customers and hosting violence. It’s a blue-collar bar where the running joke, surely inspired by the age of its patrons and the attendant physical conditions of the most regular of regulars, used to do with a stool at the end of the bar that they called the dead man’s seat since anyone who sits there dies. And it’s true: anyone who sits there dies. Don’t ask me how I know this stuff. It’s my neighborhood, and I’ve been here awhile.

Back to the blurring … it’s 3:33 a.m. here, and I’ve woken up after my first online dream ever. I try to take note when I dream of someone for the first time after meeting them. It says to me I’ve incorporated something about that person or the relationship, that it’s become part of my consciousness. I can’t quite explain what I mean that this dream was “online,” or even relay the plot to the extent there was any. The dream, simply, somehow concerned itself with online existence. There was nothing fantastical or otherworldly about the dream. It was everyday ho-hum, regular old doing online stuff, but I was existing inside it .. inside “online.” It was not just passive (which is, why, I think it felt different than the few tv dreams I can remember – one, for example, I had when I was about 15 years old and in it I was in a sitcom that was popular at the time). But my activity in the dream was not particularly active either. It wasn’t like I was racing through a cyberworld as on the kids’ show Cyberchase where they have to get the bad guy before he takes over cyberspace. It wasn’t even particular to this blog. I was online, and I seemed to have no existence apart from what I was doing online.

This is, without question, a transitional time. I may have mentioned (or not) that I’m an unlikely blogger. In college, I was the last of my friends to use a computer. (That was, obviously, in an era where there was even a choice). I check the mailbox that hangs next to my front door every day, and every day there is something there I should look at. I have a checkbook, and I use it. I believe in cash, and I use it. I like the feel of a book in my hands, and most pages I view online overwhelm me. But all of that is slowly beginning to change, against my will or not. I worry about my credit card bill getting stolen from my mail. I find there’s not much use for a checkbook anymore except to pay bills or make donations; I don’t remember the last time I stood in a checkout line and wrote out a check (although I have done that in my life and I believe those of us who can say that are dwindling in number). The convenience of someone else keeping track of how I spend my money and spitting back reports of it (a la mint.com) is a temptress who may seduce me soon. As for the almighty book, my Kindle sits in my inbox (physical inbox – I do still have one of those) waiting to be fired up. And as to my self-imposed segregation from cyberspace, as of two months ago, I write a daily blog, am training my eyes to not swirl from the advertisements on every page I view online, and, for the last three years, my work has required at least nine hours a day nearly without interruption in front of a computer. And now I’m dreaming online. My suspicion is any resistance is a hopeless cause; I should probably just float on in with all the other folks. Modern irony: if there’s some cybertastrophe that destroys all that is the internet, those folks in front of the local bar who now seem to be lagging may come out smelling like roses.

I also suspect that my avid gardening this year may have metastasized from my fear of the other side. If there is an opposite of “online” it’s not offline; it’s under the line, in the ground. Although you can bring all the gadgets and advancements you want to gardening, it is at its core setting hands to earth. It’s a perfect antidote to the nine+ hours my fingers spend clacking at the plastic keyboard. I think I’m not alone in this drive to ward off media overload with my gardening. It seems everyone is doing it these days. Then again, gardening is probably no more a reaction to the fast paced internet-dominated world we live in than is any other “back to the land” trend like slow food, home brewing, the DIY craze, or any other such hippy hobby that’s seen a resurgence in popularity lately. Evidence? Just check out all the blogging on that stuff.

That’s it. I’m going back to bed. As for you?

QUESTION: do you remember your dreams? what’s the last one you had? have you ever had a cyberdream? do you have any garden dreams? is your gardening an effort to get off the keyboard and back to the land? is it to figure out how to live off the earth in the event of a cybertastrophe? Go ahead .. gimme the dirt.

1 Comment

Bananas in our Midst

Hello fellow revelers, one of our most revelsome revelers has a beautiful banana plant that is multiplying, and which has some babies that need to find healthy, happy homes. Warning: viewing these photos may give you baby banana fever. View with caution…

Leave a comment