guest blogger: the garden before the storm

From Boston:
My friend Erin and I officially began our outside veggie garden on Saturday. We used the raised bed that our friend Lauren had created last year and planted a variety of yum! Tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, cucumbers, and sage. We got it in just in time to let mother nature give our garden a good shower. It will be so much fun to watch our little garden grow!

thinning the herd

Babies Pak, Mustard, Kale & Escargot

Baby Pak, which sounds like a rapper name, was my very first mini harvest! I have been holding off thinning my pak choy because it seemed like such a waste to just toss little seedlings in the compost pile. Tonight I went out to look at the garden after being gone camping all weekend and the baby pak's looked like actual vegetables! I snipped a few, lightly sautéd and drizzled a little toasted sesame oil on top. Delish! 

I also have some chinese mustard greens that appear to be bolting. I tore some leaves and added that to my bean, kale and brown rice macrobiotic meal for some mustardy spice. Not sure what's up with the bolting, better do some research.

Pictured above is my first harvest of baby pak choy; the harvest of babies kale, mustard and pak; freshly rained on leaves, complete with fresh escargot; beautiful, artsy rain-makers that my cousin/big sister Alycia gave me for my birthday - a great way to water your plants while you're gone for a few days or a week depending on the plant's watering needs

parsley root, park benches and fresh juice

I started my weekend with juicing delicious orange juice and getting dirty in the yard. I planted container vegetables including an eclectic mix of cosmic purple carrots, southern collard greens and bok choy. 

Being dedicated to cleaning up our urban yard, I decided all the cement slabs that make up the pseudo-mosaic around the slate square patio need to be removed. I also cleaned up more cigarette butts and garbage that has accumulated since my last clean-up effort a month ago. Oh the joys of urban living! Apparently neighbors who live on the floors above think whatever goes our the window magically disappears into the clouds.

I had my furry friend keeping me company. Mica loves to tear around the yard to help aerate our "lawn." I say "lawn" because it's really just moss and renegade herbs that have scattered throughout the yard. Every foot or so there's a little patch of parsley oregano or dill. If I wasn't so disgusted with the leaching from what is under our topsoil, it would be quite the herb garden already!

Also pictured is some tentacled, dusty weeds, including a good-sized parsley root and the site of a future planter box.

blue curly dwarfs... smurfs?

Today marks the end of record rainfall for New York - yay!! I hauled my purchased bags of dirt to the backyard, gathered up my cigar box-o-seeds, broke in my new birthday gloves (thanks Mom!) and started some container plantings! I only planted in one container - dwarf blue curly kale (code for smurf food) and tomorrow morning I'll plant seeds in the remaining containers while the sun is out and warming up the dirt for the little seeds. 

Big thanks to the neighbors mom for giving us the containers! Coming up this week - planter boxes!!

seed a la frigidare

I spoke to the Kitazawa people today about my overly ambitious and seemingly novice seed purchase. I should really say over-purchase. The woman taking my call assured me that the seeds would keep for 2-3 years if stored in a cool dark place out of direct sunlight. You can even keep seeds in the fridge. 

Now I can keep my seed collection between the rice milk and the kale. Not at all unusual.

holy crap, i need a farm

They're here!!! My first shipment of seeds. What was I thinking? I got so carried away with ordering what I wanted I didn't think about where I would plant everything. 

Anybody need some seeds? I'll mail you a sampler! Seriously, email me.

cheap and easy

cheap and easy vegetables (or so I'm told)

I picked my seeds based on two things. One, I want to plant things that we eat a lot and already buy often. And two, things that are easy to grow!  

In my research I found the following as suggested "hard-to-screw-up" veggies:

• beets
• swiss chard
• potatoes
• garlic
• tomatoes
• summer squash
• zucks and cucks
• snap and snow peas
• radishes
• bush beans
• carrots

Planning For A Beautiful Urban Garden

Ethan with our friends fresh off the plane from living in Europe for 3 years have brunch in the backyard. August 2009.

I moved to Brooklyn last August (2009). We have a beautiful garden in the back of our Crown Heights apartment that we share with our next door neighbors. Last summer/early fall I spent most evenings after work weeding and cleaning up the existing garden, which consisted of herbs and a few flower plantings. The last tenant put up twine for the morning glories to climb and planted some daisies. I have been dreaming about starting my organic vegetable patch ever since. Right now I am researching my planting schedule and prices of seeds.

I am planning to have a container garden to avoid any dangerous leaching from the backyard ground. I began my own compost last September, but I am considering starting one that isn't in the ground for the vegetables that we will eat.

I want to have lots of kale and leafy greens as well as lots of root veggies that will take us into fall. Ethan and I have been really into the Macrobiotic diet, so I want to plant according to a healthy, well-rounded meal.

I'm reading Garden Anywhere by Alys Fowler for ideas on including nectar-rich flowers to encourage all the yummy bugs and bees to help my bounty grow big and strong. She suggests pot marigolds, california poppies, coneflowers, poached-egg flowers and nasturtiums.