Did a lot in the back today, here’s a photo set.

The Thai basil is coming in nicely.

The boggy mint bucket (that’s the overflow hose from the rain barrel.)

Tomatoes and petunias, jenky ties.

An tree will be cut down in Brooklyn. (Ailanthus)

Another Ailanthus that I cut down today.

Hard to believe it’s the same backyard. http://precisionaccidents.com/wordpress/?p=12

Grapes! (not ripe, but Grapes!)

Paul’s Glory Hosta (thanks, Wilma!)

Rain Barrel, as installed on top of an amp left behind guitar store.

A peek out at petunias from under the grapes.

Exiting, eh?

More rain today so photos tomorrow.

Here’s a progress report:

• Mosquito dunks in the rain barrel are controlling the volume of biters pretty well. The only exception is the small cloud of mosquitos right next to the composter. Today’s rainy day project is figure out what they’re going after there, and how to make them go away.

• The compost is hot, smells clean, and is decomposing stuff very quickly. The corn cobs from our barbeque three weeks ago are almost entirely gone.

• I have been meaning to tie up or cage the tomatoes for weeks. I never got around to it, and the tomatoes started sprawling all over the place, thereby squishing the nasturtiums and the purple petunias. So I found some bright pink fabric strips at the sweatshop around the corner, and tied them up today. I lost a couple branches to my laziness, but I won’t knock into them anymore and the flowers will look better.

• After the Massive Seedling Death in May, I direct seeded the cukes, the zucchini, basil, dill, peas, borage and marigolds. One rogue tomato came back to life, and I hope it’s a Sungold, but I think it’s the Chadwick Cherry. The dill is coming in nicely, and the borage seems to be coming up everywhere. The cucumber plants are looking stocky. Zucchini seems to be nowhere, unless I’ve mis-identified one of the zucchinis as cucumber. The peas went looking for something to grab onto, and they are latching onto the big iron gate piece I have leaning against the wall. Everywhere I had a spare inch of soil, I planted basil. As a result, basil is sprouting between cucumbers, petunias, chives, and tomatoes. I truly don’t think it’s possible to have too much basil, and am excited that both Thai and Genovese seem to be flourishing.

• Paul’s Glory Hosta put up its first flower spike! (Thanks, Wilma!) Last year, it was a little timid, but the leaves are very big, and I believe I can get rid of the squirrel/cat cage to let the pot run over. I think moving it into the grape arbor and giving it a lot of compost was the key.

• Weeding goes on apace, and it’s tough to keep up with. Brooklyn is lush with weeds, and I am learning which ones to hate, and which ones I kind of like. Galinsoga is very pretty in form, but always seems to have buggies on it, so I make it a priority. It’s also very easy to identify when it first germinates. Lambsquarters were a problem last year, but now that I know that they are edible and better tasting than spinach, they aren’t growing at all. I have an official zero tolerance policy on Ailanthus since it gets so big and stinks. This, the tree of Brooklyn, makes up a huge percentage of my browns for the compost. I can chop down the whole tree, and within a week, it’ll be three feet tall. I know I will lose the battle. I haven’t been able to identify one of the taller weeds that grows around the patio drain. The leaves smell a lot like chrysanthemum leaves but I’ve never seen it flower. I also have quite a bit of plantain, which I just learned is good on fresh bug bites to control itching. We will see.

• The rain barrel is irrigating everything nicely, as long as it is full. Otherwise, it doesn’t seem to have the pressure to do the whole yard. I think the dripper in the thyme is clogged, but otherwise, the whole system is working beautifully.

• The mint is swimming happily in it’s boggy home with the rain barrel overflow hose. I made a delicious salad from the Times of green grapes, MINT FROM MY GARDEN, feta cheese, salt and pepper. It was supposed to have olive oil too, but Steve is a bachelor and had none. It was remarkably delicious and was the first produce to come out of the garden.

I am happy with my garden this year, and the rainbarrel is easing my mind about watering. If it doesn’t rain for a couple days, I turn on the drip system and the plants are fine on the hottest days.

After several weeks of rejiggering, fiddling and tinkering, the drip system WORKS!

I need to add a few drippers and connect the Hosta to the system, but the hard part is over with. And just in time for the first cruel heat wave.

Pictures to come later in the week.

The petunias are running wild, the herbs are all settling and finding their habits. The thyme spilled over the container for the first time today…. Maybe I’ll get a thyme fountain in that corner. I fed nasturtiums to friends on Friday night, and by this morning, the whole plant was covered in blossoms again.

I installed a fruit fly trap inside the composter, and it’s working well. Fly stew.

Yes, I know it’s been a tiny while. Here are the latest developments:

1-The seedlings died. Flat. Like pancakes. I tried to harden them off by putting them outside for a few hours. But then it was 39 degrees with a lot of wind. After Mother’s Day! What the F? Sad picture to make everyone else feel better about failure. I cried. Ma laughed, but felt sorry for my pain.

2-I found a rain barrel after many months of searching. It’s a big gray olive barrel. There’s a secret dumpster behind a Middle Eastern food importer near the house. Email me for address if you need one. After a quick two-week top-to-bottom search of every hardware and plumbing store (8) in my zipcode, I have all the parts (5) to finish installing the damn thing. Sometimes the city is infuriating this way.

3-I installed a new flexible drainspout to fill said barrel. This, supposed to be a quick 15-minute swap of tubes on the house, took TWO DAYS of cursing, dangling-off-the-roof, dropping-screws labor. Basically, when I removed the old drainspout to install the new one, it became clear that the old one had been attached with a single screw and a lot of rust. Not having a bucket of magic rust glue at hand, the re-install did not go well at all. Poor Husband. I think he got more of the barbed tongue of frustration than he deserves.

3a-Paul bought me new st. johns wort that is stronger and fresher. Much more happiness inside of 2 days. Fewer tears over stupid shit. I continue to be amazed (and embarrassed and upset) that my brain chemistry is wonky and broken, yet so easily fixed by 3 tiny capsules per day. However, I am lucky to have found something that works, and for that I will remind myself to be thankful.

4-I potted up the tomato, petunia, nasturtium and thyme starts that I bought at the Botanic Garden sale. Today, I’ll finish installing the drip system and rainbarrel, plant the mint, rosemary and alyssum. I’ve got a big bundle of petunias to plant too.

5-And it’s going to rain again, so I can test the barrel.

Paul makes fun of me for gushing about Michael Pollan, Bill McKibben, etc.

But I can think all year, and not boil it down like this:

“But there are sweeter reasons to plant that garden, to bother. At least in this one corner of your yard and life, you will have begun to heal the split between what you think and what you do, to commingle your identities as consumer and producer and citizen. Chances are, your garden will re-engage you with your neighbors, for you will have produce to give away and the need to borrow their tools. You will have reduced the power of the cheap-energy mind by personally overcoming its most debilitating weakness: its helplessness and the fact that it can’t do much of anything that doesn’t involve division or subtraction. The garden’s season-long transit from seed to ripe fruit — will you get a load of that zucchini?! — suggests that the operations of addition and multiplication still obtain, that the abundance of nature is not exhausted. The single greatest lesson the garden teaches is that our relationship to the planet need not be zero-sum, and that as long as the sun still shines and people still can plan and plant, think and do, we can, if we bother to try, find ways to provide for ourselves without diminishing the world.” From the NYTimes magazine

http://tinyurl.com/64xqeu

Today I dragged my dirt from the store about a mile in my old grandma cart. It’s time to recycle the thing, since it tips, and doesn’t function as the City Minivan that it used to. Still too cold to plant the seedlings outside.

Today I planted seeds and pruned grapes.

I feel late to start seeds, but since I’ve jumped the gun so many times before, it’s probably for the best.
I remade all the paper pots that I rolled back in January because they were wonky and did not survive storage in a paper shopping bag. Apparently, paper pots are attractive nest fodder for kittens.

The rejiggered pots are much more durable and need far less paper than the first round. Rather than doubling the paper as in the demo video, I just folded the top edge, and went after a much shorter pot with a more solid bottom.
(That’s morning glory seeds soaking in the jar, and a jar of last year’s pickles in the background)

After the pots were made, I set myself to the task of choosing which seeds to start. Tomatoes, borage, morning glories, marigolds, thyme, basil (questionable seed), sweet alyssum, bachelor’s buttons (ancient seed), more tomatoes, pinks, and more marigolds went in. Planting went easy, in a purchased seed starting mix. For the flowers, which I’ll be able to put out from very small seedlings in about a month, I just used egg cartons. I am very committed to the Butter & Eggs marigolds, so they merited paper pots.

As I planted, the cats went berzerk because a bee was in the house. Bees? Already? It was 35 degrees two days ago! Paul helped it out the window, where I hope it won’t die without anything to eat. If I was a real hippie, I would have made it a little nest in a paper cup and fed it nectar with a pipette, but I am clearly a meanie.

Then, I tackled the complicated part, cat-proofing the seedling area. I used a bunch of bread delivery trays to construct a cage of sorts.

Then a nap, then Jeff came over to check out the diggings. We gossiped, ate sfogliatelle and then Jeff helped me clear vines out of the back corner.

After he left, I cut back about half of the grapes. Not sure if I’m doing it right, but I found multiple instances where canes that I pruned last year grew several fruiting canes. Tomorrow, I’ll do the rest.

I went upstairs when it got dark, and the cats had already gotten into the seedling cage. Paul and I made it stronger. We can no longer open the freezer without removing the top cover, but hopefully it’ll last longer. Grrrr.

A long day of bees and scheming about destruction.

It’s a large number to think about on a human scale

Why are we still in this war, and why do we still need so much damn oil? Spent some time as I do every once in a while, thinking about the number of dead soldiers, and putting faces on the number by learning about the soldiers killed.

Sgt. John C. Osmolski was called “Squirrel” by his friends.

Too many.

This is a blog about gardens, though. So I will not talk about oil, but my tomatoes and beans will get here without a truck.

I’ve been enjoying the freakishly warm weather, planning the garden and fretting that the early spring means I should plant earlier. Paula went to round of classes at botanic garden on Saturday: I’m excited to hear about her learnins. It has been warm enough that the compost has thawed. It smells clean and fresh, like oranges and rainy leaves.

I had my wisdom teeth out wednesday, and I thought I would have plenty of time thursday to plant the first round of seeds. Nope.

Instead, the truths of the Star magazine felt very important and complex, and I watched so much TV that I grew antennae.

I cleaned off the table for seeds to start and have assembled the following jumble of junk in which to plant: - venetian blinds for seed markers

• paper pots and egg cartons for planting in

• bread crates to build a KittenRepellingCage to protect seedlings

• bright yellow construction mesh to reinforce said Cage

And I keep buying seeds.

I did do a big map of garden for garden class, which I will scan and put up. I learned some stuff from class, mostly to think about how to use the space. Really use it. And that I should feel good about working with what’s there.

I will plant tomatoes today or tomorrow: what say you Hubert? Is it time?

I almost slept through my first garden planning class today.

The kitten figured out that by knocking the alarm clock off the table, she shuts it off and can walk on my head and snuggle with me longer. Awww.

So I raced up to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden for Day One of Designing a Brownstone Garden, and skipped coffee, breakfast, and all manner of required grooming. I did wear a big pink ribbon so no one would notice my fuzzy hair or the big kitten scratch on my nose.

The class is more formal than I’d thought, and we have been asked to draw out a map of our garden space for re-working. The teacher did not mention vegetables once. However, there is lots of time for asking questions about the space we have and the constraints specific to gardening in the city. I am not concerned that he will suggest that we landscape a sweeping prairie vista or plant thousands of bulbs if we truly want to commit to a color scheme. We looked at a lot of slides of before (looked like my curret garden) and after (looked like Sunset magazine) shots of gardens he’s done and/or bid upon. I look forward to having a knowledgeable ear to advise on cutting back the grape. I think that I might prune it significantly if I can do it without killing the whole vine.

He did, however, insist that we come up with a Theme for our gardens. Uh-oh.
I hadn’t considered a Theme beyond my overarching philosophy of organic growing and responsible watering.

I’m pretty sure that despite a Theme, containers will still be ugly and a little clumsy. The point of this is the plants and their fruits. Maybe I should paint all of the wooden containers a unifying color. We do have some mis-mixed zero-voc paint at the office: a bright yellow called Yellow Finch, a coral pink called Petal .06, and oodles of flat white with varying tints of cream and blue.

Maybe I just need to rename it: Raucus Garbage, Dowdy Detritus, Exuberant Herbage or Castoff Containers Painted Bright Colors Distract You From Looking at Them. I don’t know, I like people to look at my containers and know that the box over there was a door and 2 futon frame pieces, that the prior tenant left a vintage toybox on the roof, and that once upon a time, an Italian neighbor made wine in his basement in that 5 gallon bucket from Hoboken.

Is Clever Salvage a Theme?

Jeff got me out in the snow to hear Amy Francheschini (Future Farmers) Michael Hurwitz (Director of NYC’s Greenmarket) and Kate Zidar talk about urban gardening at Housing Works in the city. After a long day, I wanted a cold beer, some kitten love and to yammer with Paul about the Big Snow we saw in Truckee and how this was tiny snow. So I went straight from work to sit in a giant pink-cheeked crowd that smelled of wet wool and hummus.

Amy Francheschini’s Victory Gardens 2007+ project in San Francisco is a large-scale version of what I’d envisioned for my project initially. Given some of the same statistics about food production in home gardens during World Wars I & II, she is growing a well-tested, common-sense urban farming campaign. She is specifically drawing on the inspiration and power of the wartime garden propaganda and casting it in modern terms.

I like knowing my idea is not unique, and that righteous people are equally galvanized by the wholesome, accessible images of the wartime Victory Gardens. And, as a California native, I am proud to know that despite the avocado-brained nincompoops clogging every San Francisco cafe, people like Amy are organized and getting some attention from government.