the big day

Tomorrow is a big day.

It's my last official day of The Unusual Urban Garden as I know it today. SAD!! I'm still going to come back and harvest some things via my wonderful neighbors. The new tenants are excited about gardening, so that makes me really happy! 

Mica's peeking around the soy beans up top, then my massive mess of cherry tomat's and my wonderfully lopsided growing cucumber! My FIRST cucumber!!

dragon in the sky

I went outside into the garden at dusk to water the plants and hang out in the garden a couple nights ago. What I thought were giant hummingbirds immediately started buzzing past my head. I sat on the porch and watched 5 of the biggest dragonflies I have ever seen fly around the yard for a good 25 minutes. They were still spiraling around when I went in to start dinner. There were some fireflies and a bright red cardinal hanging with us for a bit... who would guess this is Crown Heights Brooklyn? Loving nature in the city. 

two smoking barrels

Gardening is a little like a Guy Richie film...

Just kidding. But seriously, you've got to fight to keep your plants. Rose and Erin were in Brooklyn this weekend and Rose told me to spread ash around the base of my plants to keep the slugs and snails out. Good thing we have a double barrel smoker in the yard! I also made a perimeter around the base of the containers.... double security system. As you can see from the bottom picture, the collards were destroyed (again) recently.

hey fatty, get outta here

Back up 2 weeks. Let's sum it up by saying I haven't been home much... the past week I was out of town for work. Fast forward to today. 

I went to check on the plants as soon as I wheeled my suitcase in the door, kissed my man and gave mica a squeeze. In the garden I pulled 20+ caterpillars off my vegetables, but not before they DEVOURED my kale and collard greens. The aphid situation is still a disaster - I squished close to a million. I did see ladybird hanging around the aphid feast which made me happy!

So, my months of gardening have resulted in some fat caterpillars and some green stalks. At least someone enjoyed the green goodness!!

bee's knees

My sister is visiting this weekend from Chicago - she just finished her finals and is celebrating with me here in Brooklyn!! Yay!!

Today we went the the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens centennial celebration - BEE DAY!! Their bee themed birthday party was filled with lots of fun things to do... music {the Django Experiment}, gardeners, honey of course {New York City rooftop honey}, art and lots of fun things for kids. 

We spent hours there learning about keeping hives from the local bee keepers (bee keeping just became legal in NYC in 2008, which is really exciting!!), looking/smelling the flowers, listening to music, etc.

Pictured above is my lil' sis Annie by the centennial birthday sign, who has a really cool blog, winged correspondence, check it out; some pollinatin' bumbles; a bee display; a display of seeds from local flowers that attract beez; me having a moment with some tropical flowers; lil' bug takin' a snooze in the leaves; obligatory antennae pic; sister's being sisters; and more tropical flowers.

Photos by Annie/Liz

buongiorno ziggy zag

 According to Wikipedia, morning glory is a common name for over 1,000 species of flowering plants. I was researching whether morning glories are native to New York because I see them everywhere. What I did find out about these Ipomoea purpurea (this might be what mine are, but there are numerous species) is that they reseed easily, so, although they are an annual they easily come back year after year.

This is my DIY planter box beautifier. Some zig-zaggy twines for my buongiorno glories to climb. You can easily make this yourself with some twine, wire nails, a hammer and scissors. Make fun shapes or spell a word... something creative. I think this will make my garden boxes pretty, but beware of the nail heads jutting out - I hammered mine flat against the wood but they are still a little dangerous. 

I just read a really intense thread on Morning Glories vs. Field Bindweed. Field bindweed is an invasive plant that hurts crops. "Biological controls" were used to combat this conceivably destructive plant, meaning a moth was imported and released to kill this invasive plant. What a horrible idea...We have a problem with a non-native plant so we bring in a non-native moth to make our problems down the road worse. Awesome planning guys.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that whatever is growing in my urban garden is a) not toxic to grazing animals (because I don't have any) and b) isn't affecting any farmers crops. Whew! So, I guess I don't have to worry too much. If you want to take a look at the thread, you can read it here.

herbal armor & dirt lines

I haven't been updating the urban garden blog as much as I would like, but it's growing like crazy! Ben (my neighbor) built 2 new boxes!! We are experimenting with sizes. The big one is split in half and really tall because I order sweet potato tubers and then like deep soil. We spit that in half to cut down the need for tons of dirt, but I think we are a little shallow on the non-potato planting side. Oh well, I threw in the "Husky Cherry Tomato" plant I picked up at Lowes and planted the parsley that I started indoors a couple weeks ago. The were living on the edge being outside while I was away camping over Memorial Day weekend. I'm glad they pulled through! 

Pictured above: My dirty-ass feet coming in from working in the garden - my all time FAVORITE thing about gardening is getting a little dirty!! Any excuse to get dirty is fine by me!; my best friend - bug repellent, this is not a sponsored post, but if you want to sponsor me I could buy this stuff by the gallon! We have an army of mosquitoes in the backyard; Shots of the garden from my porch.

knotty twisty twirly

knots, twist & twirls

Last August, when we moved in to our Brooklyn apartment, the backyard was a jungle! It was pulsing with life - insects, bugs, snails, birds. The mosquitoes were out of control, but other than that I loved it! I hardly weeded because I would rather see lots of green, green, green than brown, brown, dirty ground! Plus, I don't know a weed from a flower shoot or something that could be beneficial to the bug and garden's eco system. I reigned in the madness, but just kind of went with the flow of the garden. 

Now, I am reading about polycuture gardening and it makes complete sense to me. [Side note: I think I might try it in the next raised bed.] 

Polyculture is agriculture using multiple crops in the same space, to imitate a natural ecosystem. Rather than monoculture, which is a single crop planting, the crops help each other! Whether it's symbiotic relationship is through: the soil - one plant sucks up loads of nitrogen (leafy greens like spinach and lettuce,) while another provides nitrogen, legume crops such as beans and peas put nitrogen back in the soil. Or maybe a low, ground covering plant helps keep moisture in for a tall, stalky plant. No matter what way you cut it, it's awesome and jungley and I don't have to weed as much! 

Pictured above are the beckoning tips of some twisty plants, the jungle floor - or the plants growing en masse, and the first splashes of color from a yellow cool bird-of-paradise looking flower with a knotted dying bloom.