I went to the Center for Urban Pedagogy’s Goo Gone event the other day about the nomination of the Gowanus for Superfund status. Very well presented and attended. It did, however, put the fear into me about toxins that I might inadvertently be putting into my garden.

While my containers are all fresh new soil, I have been composting weeds and giant trees and grape offal that sprout from the actual soil between the cracks in the patio. Calls to CHEJ and a soil lab they recommended up in Boston have eased my mind a little, but they recommended testing for sure. Steven Lester at CHEJ pointed out that the fruits are most likely fine, as plants have a barrier that prevents heavy metals from being taken up from soil and deposited into their fruits, and that the larger molecules of concern (PCB’s and PAH’s, in this neighborhood) are too large to get taken up by most plants. He warned me that there are, however, some plants better at uptake than others. Thus, testing is a good idea, if only because dust and loose stuff from Gowanus could be blowing around the neighborhood.

I hope to hear from the labs on Monday. In the meantime, I will wash all the produce I eat, steer clear of the greens until I know more, and assume the best case.

Half a pound of various beans harvested. Paul has the camera, so no pictures today.
The scarlet runner beans seem to be a different variety than I’ve grown before. Rather than all purple beans, they are green flecked with little purple stripes. I am a fan. The yellow beans (no idea of variety) are long, flat, fuzzy and very sweet. Also, first squash and cucumber blossoms opened today. The spiky vine growing out of the composter identified itself with blossoms today: it’s a squash! Bees were making time with it today, so soon we will know what kind of squashlings have volunteered.

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.