So here’s where I’m starting. A few containers from last year, an ancient Concord grape vine, and a big cement slab. Everything is grey and it feels like snow today. The bright colored plastic junk stands out a lot more in winter. Maybe I’ll paint the fugly containers as this project progresses.

Here’s the composter, which currently lives inside a funny planter box that I made last year from old doors and a futon frame. It’s far too deep to be practical, and would require a giant amount of dirt to fill. I’ll rejigger it this year.

A shot inside the composter, frozen until Brooklyn is warmer. The unnatural blue bits are teabag tags from the office. Lady Grey tea was very popular last week.

Here’s the grape vine, and a shot of wires and vines all tangled together. Note the open telephone box. I wonder why verizon service stinks so badly.

And last, but not least, my 2nd compost pile, which is just leaves and sticks for now. I throw leaves and sticks to cover food I put into the binned pile: good habit for when it warms up to prevent flies and smells.

It’s a little forlorn, but winter isn’t permanent.

The compost was frozen this morning when I went down to dump the leavings from the office compost bin. Sad little teabag ice cubes, giant grapefruit rind popsicles, and spinach slush. I think that’s the end of decomposition until spring.

I hope the Idiotarod runners don’t turn into sad little teabag ice cubes tomorrow. Snow on the forecast.

I will judge them on their frost-hardiness at the finish line. Oh yeah. I decide.

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.

I want to be a gardener.

This blog is a way to document an urban garden that is cheap, organic, easy to maintain, and uses the materials I have and find on the streets of Brookyn.

I have no idea what I’m doing, but I like being dirty and I look forward to engaging with my neighbors about it. Getting out in the sun is good for me and will help me lose weight. I want to start a conversation about where food should come from with the neighbors peeking over my fence: the old Italian man next door who wants to tell me about the fig tree that used to be in the corner of my yard, the lady who remembers the tomatoes that came from down the street and the folks who run the guitar store downstairs.

This is my American garden, and I will not plow foreign oil into my soil.