The harvest is all in, with the exception of all the delicious herbage and greenery that I am using as cover crops this year due to unknown toxic loads. (Still unable to find a lab willing to do small scale test for under $500.)

Time to evaluate this superweird gardening year in order that next year be more successful. To note, we had a million rainy days this summer, (yes, one million) which mucked up the whole works including washing away the seeds, rotting the seedlings, incubating our largest mosquito population ever, and delaying the warm stuff. I also felt like nothing put down deep enough roots to hold water well, so when the rains slowed, everything wilted in a day. (This is Catscience, so please ignore if it sounds nuts.)

Total harvest was around 100 lbs, so all in all, a good year, with some surprise underdogs. (*=successful plants from last year, repeating this year; **=plants started last year, but squished by cat-love or melted in great seedling death of ‘08)

• Multicolored Pole Beans: WINNER! Multiple poundage, lots of variety. Early plantings rotted, so direct seeded in early May with first harvest 7/4.
• Scarlet Runner Beans: WINNER! Planted 5 year old seed packet, maybe even from my garden in SF (10 years ago). Same as pole beans. NEED MORE SUPPORT, maybe horizontal next year.
• de Bourbonne Pickling Cucumbers: RIP: rain. Direct seeded. They came up (or other variety did), but no fruit. Lots of flowers.
• Little Leaf Cucumbers: RIP: rain Direct seeded. Three stunted, ugly fruit that tasted like soap. Lots of flowers.
• Northern Pickling Cucumber** See notes on other cukes above.
• Red Russian Kale: DANGER/POISON Easy to sow, easy to grow, still going strong and beautiful. The first few harvests were tasty until I learned about danger of cruciferous family taking up toxins.
• Be my Baby Cherry Tomato: RIP: Every last one washed away.
• Genovese Basil* WINNER DANGER POISON. still going strong
• Thai Basil* WINNER DANGER POISON. still going strong
• Borage* WINNER! As noted in prior posts, seedlings easily rot from top watering and torrential rains, but easily recover, self seed and pop up in every crack. Direct seeds were in bloom by mid-June. A happy volunteer that I will gladly host forever. Probably best to tie up because it looks terrible when it falls, and can knock down bean vines because it’s so heavy. First two plants carpeted with aphids, but after a couple weeks, I didn’t see another aphid. There were ants, though, but couldn’t see that they were farming them.
• Flying Saucers Morning Glory RIP: rain. All but one seed rotted, but it was beautiful sprouting out of burned out guitar planter in late August. Blooms were about 4″ across, streaky and stunning.
• Daddy Mix Petunia: RIP: rain
• Pink Wave Petunia: RIP: rain
• Mission Bells California Poppies: RIP: Rain. We do not have this kind of rain in California, and they never popped up at all. So, not poppies but poopies.
• Beneficials Mix (to draw nice bugs): Middling results. These were damned impossible to tell from weeds. Yes I know they’re weeds by another name on purpose, but still… Some pretty pink and white flowers. I noted a couple tiny waspy things on them that weren’t drawn by other flowers, but the bees preferred the borage and lemon balm by far. Bachelor’s buttons included, which I loved. Also, the easternmost bean container’s leaf cutting mystery coincided with emergence of the white tufty flowered plant. Useless info without photos, I know. Next year.
• Black Beauty Zucchini: RIP: rain
• Bouquet Dill* RIP: rain
• Lemon Cucumber* RIP: rain
• Chadwick Cherry** RIP: rain
• Pronto Beet RIP: rain
• Butter & Eggs Marigold** WINNER! One of few plants that survived transplanting. Very leggy, needs to be planted with lower growing ornamentals or basil? Not anything super dense, though, because choked out last year by pink petunias.
• Caserta Zucchini** RIP: rain
• Cascadia Bush Snap Pea** WINNER! Several pounds harvested, DEFINITELY plant on St. Patty’s day. (added note to calendar to remind me every year.) Organic peas never dropped much below $5/lb, so a significant money saver. Plus, they’re delicious.
• Scarlett O’Hara Morning Glory** RIP: rain

Perennials

• Concord Grape: WINNER! Over 40 pounds harvested. 27 pints of grape juice canned! Harvested about a week late due to rain.
• Rosemary Alta: RIP: rain
• Mints: (some survived, not sure which) Only icky mint survived. Bought new one at farmer’s market. WINNER!
• Lavender: (seems to have survived) RIP: rain
• Paul’s Glory Hosta: Still going strong. Not too much blooming because of the rain.
• Chives WINNER! This the first year I cooked with the flowers. Very nice for fancy pasta salad.

New friends:

• Cherry tomatoes: as noted in prior post. Farmer’s market. Lots and lots of pounds. I failed at weighing them, but I would say upwards of 10 lbs, and with organic tomatoes in the $4/lb range because of late blight, definitely a money saver.
• Butternut squash (Volunteer) WINNER! I think this is my favorite argument in favor of composting. I didn’t plant this at all. I will say it’s a descendant of Hubert’s squash because the squashes were nice, but I’ve had other squashes since he forayed to the Golden State, so it’s parentage is in question. That said, 20 lbs of food from a plant that sprung wildly from a garbage heap is pretty f’ing awesome.
• Liriope From the Bronx, a plant with no home. Happy, if a little dry. A little boring, but surprising August/September purple flowers.
• Bleeding Hearts: Also from the Bronx. Transplanted just after bloom, unsure of color/variety. Should come back next year.
• Lemon Balm: another Bronx transplant. Seems invasive, but smells so nice, I don’t mind it yet. Easy to weed. Loved the wet weather, but roots seemed ill suited for dry spells.
• Thyme: DANGER POISON from farmer’s market
• New Rosemary: DANGER POISON

By next year, I hope to have the toxics issue sorted out, but it certainly didn’t make me want to dig around in the Gowanus-tainted dirt. It’s probably mostly fine, but small amounts of PCBs and PAH’s can be very bad for the living, and I’m not a fan of that kind of risk. All in all, very successful in hindsight, though the mosquitoes and potential PCBs made it tricky to work down there. The nice thing about gardening is that next year is only a few months away. I saved a bunch of seeds, which will make next year cheaper.

Santas Mary Beth and Mark got me an Easy Bloom for christmas. So this year I will have a helper in deciding if plants are sited appropriately. Flatbush Gardener posted a very helpful site to help me figure out when to plant my seeds. This year’s contestants are:

Seeds (mostly from Fedco

• Multicolored Pole Beans
• Scarlet Runner Beans
• de Bourbonne Pickling Cucumbers
• Little Leaf Cucumbers
• Red Russian Kale
• Be my Baby Cherry Tomato
• Genovese Basil*
• Thai Basil*
• Borage*
• Flying Saucers Morning Glory
• Daddy Mix Petunia
• Pink Wave Petunia
• Mission Bells California Poppies
• Beneficials Mix (to draw nice bugs)
• Black Beauty Zucchini
• Bouquet Dill*
• Lemon Cucumber*
• Chadwick Cherry**
• Pronto Beet
• Northern Pickling Cucumber**
• Butter & Eggs Marigold**
• Caserta Zucchini**
• Cascadia Bush Snap Pea**
• Scarlett O’Hara Morning Glory** (*=successful plants from last year, repeating this year; **=plants started last year, but squished by cat-love or melted in great seedling death of ‘08)

Perennials

• Concord Grape
• Rosemary Alta
• Mints (some survived, not sure which)
• Lavender (seems to have survived)
• Paul’s Glory Hosta
• Chives

I let the blog fall by the wayside as summer came to a close last year.

All in all, it was a successful garden, and I’m glad I documented the giant biomass with the Jenky Video.

My greatest triumph was the rainwater irrigation. I did not expect to be so pleased by it. The entire summer, I watered from the hose only twice. The rest of it was all drip and supplemental watering can from the rain barrel. Watching the rain barrel fill up in 10 minutes during a cloudburst was so exciting that I almost fell off the roof jumping up and down. The only stumbling block was that the emitters closest to the barrel clogged quickly. I am adding a Y-fitting with a 200 mesh filter this year. I think the cucumbers, chives and petunias needed more water, so I am changing the configuration significantly this year: the more water intensive crops will get flag emitters and I’ll run all the drippers on 1/4″ lines that come off a 1/2″ manifold. I should’ve done it that way last year, but my kit only came with 1/4″ lines, and I wasn’t sure if the whole project was going to work. A clear success, drip irrigation will get a small investment this year.

Though the vine was lovely, we only got two grapes. I believe I f’d up by pruning when it was too warm and all the fruit-force drained out the tips of the pruned canes. I submitted a question to the gardener’s question answerers at Brooklyn Botanical Grarden, and they advised me not to prune this year. I will try to layer some cuttings and make gifts for friends and maybe start over to get a more vigorous fruiting vine.

The compost went very well. I am in the swing of it, and feel good about it. At work, I kept a container in the freezer of all the compostables, and brought that home every once in a while. The best tomato last year was a volunteer that popped up in the aging compost at the end of the season.

All the tomatoes were knocked down by a big storm. The only other casualty was the Paulownia tomentosa, the giant weed growing by the fire escape. I wanted to see if it would grow to the 2nd floor. It was almost 15′ tall when it went down. Good compost fodder at a time of few browns.

The borage bloomed late, but the bees went haywire for it, and as soon as it bloomed, everything in the garden set fruit. This year, I’m starting it early to bring in the pollinators as soon as possible. Also, I think I saw a neighbor sneak in a 3 story beehive last month. Either that, or she bought the ugliest nightstand in the whole world.

Tuesday, I will go up to Build it Green for some windows to make a little greenhouse on top of my new raised beds. Unemployment has its perks.

The pickling was superb this year, and all gift pickles have been so well received that I have 4 people signed up for my Home Canning class already. (Yes, Mikeross, I’m counting you in.)

Tomorrow, I’ll post a list of this year’s intended crops. I’m more ambitious, but I know I enjoy the process, even the failures.

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.

Today I’m thinking about seeds.

They’ve arrived in the mail but are still in their little packets. Allegedly the rule is to figure out your safe planting time (after new plants won’t get damaged by the last frost). So I’m supposed to figger out what magic date was the last frost, count backwards through the germination and baby seedling time, and plant seeds that day.

Every time I’ve ever done this, I’ve messed up my seedlings most righteously.

• Plant too early, the babies are too leggy and spindly and weak.
• Plant too late, and they’re too small to be set out on time and tomatoes never ripen before September.
• Plant too close to the radiator and get great, early plants that fry to a crisp when the last cold weekend causes Saharan desert condition in the house in late April.
• Cat starts chasing soil gnats. Cat knocks petunia seedlings onto ground. Cat eats petunia seedlings. Cat pukes petunias and soil gnats all over rest of seedlings. Cat eats remaining seedlings when I try to clean up puke. Cry and lock cat in bathroom. Start again.
• Early summer rains allow only flood-resistant seedlings to survive. Drought kills rest of garden in July.

Hopefully I’ll learn better how to do this in first garden class in February. Have been collecting cardboard egg cartons for seedling starts.

Will try doing plants in homemade newspaper pots for easy transplant. Ma talked me through it the other night on the phone. In trial runs, it seems that brown paper bags and brown paper wadding is easier to make pots out of than newspaper.

I have a grow light bulb, and have scouted a place in house that is far from radiators.

Protecting the seedlings from Kitten and Big Cat, and later, Neighborhood Feral Cat is clutch. I’m working on a very cheap system of barriers using old busted out window screens with ag netting instead of screens. Testing commences on Superbowl Sunday, which is my favorite day to go to the giant hardware store: it’s all mine.

I’m starting this after I’ve started the project, but the basic plan is:

• Build a container garden in my Brooklyn backyard.
• Build the containers in which to garden.
• Plant the seeds (seeds ordered from Seeds of Change already).
• Take a gardening class so I feel more confident.
• Compost to make all the additional nutrients my plants need.
• Buy a few plants at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s spring plant sale (mint & rosemary and others that are slow to start from seed).
• Prune Concord grapes and maybe reinforce arbor where it’s buckling.
• Install a rain barrel and drip system from that. If there’s not enough rain to fill the barrel, I can fill the drip system barrel from my existing hose from the kitchen sink (there is no plumbing in the backyard, and running plumbing from the guitar store’s basement’ll be a pain).
• Use mulch to keep down weeds and reduce water use.
• Install lovely solar lights that Santa Husband brought me so I can work after I get home from work.
• Harvest! I was very bad about this last year.
• Manage garden in dead heat of July: this is when the whole shebang died last year.
• Make friends with neighbors and encourage them to dump water out of everything in backyards that might harbor mosquitos. Barring neighborly feelings and friendship, hop fences in middle of night and dump stagnant water.
• Make pickles and grape jelly from excess. (First, use 2007 pickles) Use less sweet recipe for pickles.