Brooklyn Dahlia

First Gardener

2009-03-21T00:11:00.007-04:00

Despite the sprinkling of snow in New York, spring officially sprung on Friday. At the White House, Michelle Obama broke ground on her new garden. Spinach, broccoli and a bunch of different berries will be planted in the 1,100 square foot presidential vegetable patch on the South Lawn as the weather warms up. The enterprise will also include a bee hive. In the coming weeks, I will be considering what to do with my much smaller patch in 11206. I do love Mrs. Obama's gardening gear as captured above (from today's New York Post) though my get-up will be quite different when the time comes to break ground in Bed-Stuy.

Presidential Flora

2009-02-16T10:52:00.006-05:00

Happy President's Day! By the summer, we'll be seeing and/or enjoying the Obama flower. Royal van Zanten, a Dutch flower farm, is creating a special white chrysanthemum in honor of the current President. The farm has also made Reagan and Bush flowers. The latter did not do too well and was taken off the market.

Nothing to do with gardening: Hawaiian Shirts

2009-01-05T21:50:00.001-05:00

But something floral nonetheless... The man who brought the world Hawaiian shirts has passed on. From the LA Times, his life in review.

Worth checking out: Food-related Christmas hopes for the President-Elect

2008-12-24T14:29:00.004-05:00

From today's New York Times, 'Is a New Food Policy on Obama's list?' An illuminating breakdown of interests and an apt follow-up to Michael Pollan's earlier open letter to Obama ('Farmer in Chief') on fixing food policy in October.

Outside Counsel: Giant pumpkin from the Namkung Orchard

2008-10-18T16:46:00.007-04:00

Above is a giant pumpkin from the patch of one of my gardening muses, Joanne Namkung.

"It weighed in 50lbs but I am going to go for 100lbs for next year!" says Joanne, who has a lush English garden, an impressive orchard and vegetable patch on the grounds of her lovely hilltop home in Orange County in California.

My own pumpkin growing efforts have been a little less successful. Lots of blooms but hardly any fruit. I found this one below today. Fingers crossed it will be ready in time for Halloween!

Nothing to do with gardening: Obama in front of No. 10 Downing Street

2008-09-25T19:02:00.003-04:00

I first spotted this image plastered on a platform at London's Paddington station. It turns out that the ad (?) is all over London's Underground. The above is from today's Metro. No tagline. No product being advertised. Just a tantalizing image of Obama in front of No. 10 Downing Street, the residence of the British Prime Minister.

Some especially fragrant English roses

2008-09-22T12:16:00.004-04:00

Roses in Hyde Park in London. I've been on hiatus of sorts from the BK yard due to day job, which has kept me busy (and the weeds growing happily) and brought me over the pond. This was taken after a fashion show in the Crystal Palace in the park.

Conuco Farm Visit

2008-08-27T09:12:00.020-04:00

This past Sunday, I went to visit the Conuco Farm, which supplies to my Bed-Stuy CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program. After a two hour drive to New Paltz in the Hudson Valley, we arrived and met Hector Tejada, Conuco's farmer-in-chief. After a tour of the farm, we picked cherry tomatoes, had lunch and then went on to an orchard nearby. I also managed to pick Hector's brains on the (slightly sorry) state of my farm/garden. More on that in another post. More pix: here.

Topiary elephants, fashion and a crucial cause

2008-08-06T15:45:00.007-04:00

A small list of my favorite things (in no order at all):

1. fashion

2. wild animals

3. topiaries

All of the above can be found in a very different fashion show on in the U.K. and Ireland right now. Thirteen full-size topiary elephants will tour the nations to raise awareness about the plight of the Indian elephant, which is "intelligent, engaging...but endangered," according to show organizer Elephant Family. In support, designers such as Diane Von Furstenberg, Alberta Ferretti and Alice Temperley have dressed the green beauties in wraps. I am especially feeling the hot pink tassels on the Calvin Klein number.

Garden Cliff Notes: Michael Pollan lecture at P.S.1

2008-08-04T18:37:00.003-04:00

Michael Pollan's The Botany of Desire treatise provided the philosophical inspiration for my garden, which is now almost quarter farm. This Friday, he will speak about how plants see things at P.S.1's newish urban farm installation (it's productive). It's one of the many summer garden events I plan on attending for education. Here's a helpful calendar of more local events via the Bed-Stuy blog.

Haul: Giant zucchini

2008-07-31T10:50:00.006-04:00

A really huge specimen plucked yesterday (above with the rest of the haul).

Supporting bigger plots of green

2008-07-30T12:02:00.011-04:00

Last Thursday, I attended the Prospect Park Alliance Junior Committee summer soiree at the park's charming boat house. Having covered many a benefit in a previous life as a Style.com scribe, I've always thought that this do is the most fun one in the city. This year's theme was Beach Blanket Bingo. As always, the crowd was cool (locals supporting the best park in NYC!) and fashiony (Junior Committee co-chair and Vogue features director Sally Singer, Vena Cava's Lisa Maycock etc). Plus great cocktails, music (courtesy of Southpaw) and boat rides over the moss covered lake as the sun set. My friend billed the atmosphere: Gatsby-esque. But Brooklyn of course. For evidence, see this.

The babies: Bell Pepper

2008-07-24T14:37:00.006-04:00

The other day, I bought a red bell pepper for almost $2 from the local supermarket. One. Not an organic one at that. This little one and its kin now growing in my farm should save some $$ in a few weeks.

Gardening in Lights

2008-07-24T14:18:00.006-04:00

More lawn news... songstress Lily Allen is apparently interested in grass, according to the U.K. Daily Mail, which dutifully reports that she bought a new lawnmower. The paper ties it to her former predilection for another type of weed. Naturally.

Garden Cliff Notes: Anti Lawn

2008-07-16T11:52:00.018-04:00

If you can get past the ironic/dodgy cover of Obama and the missus, there is an illuminating piece about America's fixation with lawns in this week's New Yorker by Elizabeth Kolbert.

- the relatively manicured yard in early June -

The author chronicles the rise of lawnism and the anti-lawn movement as championed by Michael Pollan (whose The Botany of Desire is the spiritual/intellectual inspiration for my garden) and others.

Early on, my fellow gardenista Jenn suffered from lawnism. The Connecticut-bred Jenn furiously seeded and mowed the back and front lawns. Then she broke her arm about a month ago. Things have gone to seed since mowing is not my forte.

But it turns this is not so bad for the environment and the blades' sex life, according to the Kolbert piece and Pollan's Why Mow? treatise.

- the (wild) grass today -

Outside Counsel

2008-07-15T10:31:00.008-04:00

This cucumber looked plump and ready for salad but the mini white thorns threw me. Supermarket varieties don't have them. Then I spied a similar-looking cuke on a post about mini gardens by the Germinatrix on her blog at Domino Magazine. I asked and here's most of her answer:

1. Pick when color is uniform and deep green

2. Thorns: "They will smooth down totally if you run your hands over the mighty cuke."

3. Harvest earlier rather than later. "Whatever you do - don't let them get yellow! That is the sure sign of an old, bitter cucumber... and who wants that? Not me, not in my cucumbers, or in my men!"

She said it! Who's to argue? I made a rather more freestyle cucumber sandwich (untoasted and with grape tomatoes) for lunch.

Nothing to do with gardening: Growing askew in the Ivy League

2008-07-14T11:30:00.005-04:00

Nothing to do with gardening but this article on the disadvantages of an elite education by William Deresiewicz in The American Scholar is about nurturing (or lack thereof) of minds in Ivies. Shatteringly enlightening.

Origin of the Species: Jalapeno

2008-07-09T18:26:00.009-04:00

I thought I had killed this pepper tree by transplanting it out of the shade of the giant zucchini bush. Then today, I noticed this fellow.

Namesake: Xalapa, Veracruz in Mexico

Provenance: As above. The original origin of the chile/chilli/chili is Peru or Ecuador.

Distinguishing marks: Scars. The more scars, the spicier. But on the Scoville scale of fieriness, it is average, coming in at about 5,000 between the 1 million unit and top ranking Naga Jolokia and the zero ranking bell pepper (also growing in the backyard farm).

Stats: Grows to 3 inches and turns red as it ages. Like all other chili peppers, J has anti-cancer capasaicin.

Family tree: A type of Capsicum

Diaspora: The world via Christopher Columbus. He came looking for (amongst other things) the super-luxe good of the time, black pepper but found the red version. He added the 'pepper' suffix and spread it to rest of the world, including Asia. More recently, specifically and unscientifically, jalapenos have journeyed far and wide thanks to American fast food chains like Chili's.

The kicker: For J junkies, the euphoric high comes from capasaicin, which is also used in pepper spray. The overindulgence cure? Forget water and go for booze or milk, according to folks who know much more than me at Jalapeno Madness.

Nothing to do with gardening

2008-07-08T18:28:00.001-04:00

Until the backyard harvest...

2008-07-05T16:29:00.018-04:00

I am getting vegetables from my local CSA.

For a bargain investment of circa $300 in Conuco, an upstate New York farm run by a farmer of color, I get a box of vegetables once every two weeks through October. Being away two Saturdays ago, I missed my first box and it went to good use at a food pantry.

Today, I managed to get down to the Magnolia Tree Earth Center."It's very green today," said CSA adminstrator Lauren Melodia as she packed my box under a mural of Hattie Carthan, a Bed-Stuy tree champion and environmentalist from back in the day (b. 1901, d.1984).

My monochromatic box included kale, broccoli, bok choi, kohlrabi (!? must google later) and sunflower sprouts.

Origin of the Species: Dahlia

2008-07-03T16:49:00.000-04:00

Namesake: Anders Dahl, 1751-89, the Swede botanist and pupil of plant-naming guru Carolus Linnaeus (more on him later)

Provenance: Mexico, Guatemala

Stats: Fat sectioned trunks with fatter blooms. Petals range from skinny, spiky things to lush pompoms. Some blooms can allegedly grow up to 12 inches.

Family Tree: A branch of the Aster family

Diaspora: According to a Brian Killingsworth article in the American Dahlia Society, a box of dahlias were shipped from Mexico to Holland in 1872 after the first wave of European interest in flower waned . All but one bright red bloom survived. How not to love a wily survivor! Now everywhere and Brooklyn.

Reasons for Urban Gardening No. 1: Cut roses for free

2008-07-02T22:51:00.000-04:00

All those rose poems finally make sense.

Sacred Emily

Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose

Loveliness extreme.

Extra gaiters,

Loveliness extreme.

Sweetest ice-cream.

Pages ages page ages page ages.

- Gertrude Stein

Sunday drenching of baby dahlias

2008-06-29T14:59:00.000-04:00

After today's downpour.

IKEA recognizes

2008-06-28T18:04:00.000-04:00

This landed on my stoop last week. Can't argue with the sentiment!

Inherited roses

2008-06-28T17:34:00.000-04:00

These are a legacy of the last gardener to live in the manse. There are four bushes - producing peach, fushcia, yellow and white roses. I have yet to learn their real names. In any case, they started blooming out of control in the front yard in early May. We had cut flowers in the house. I made a cute hand bouquet for a friend's birthday. All things I never imagined I'd do in New York City.

Tilling the ground

2008-06-28T17:05:00.000-04:00

Hard labor of rototilling went into prepping the ground in late April. We - me and Jenn, the co-creator of Jardin du Bed-Stuy (JdBS) - hadn't a fig/clue as to what a rototiller was before the garden adventure began. It turned out to be a pretty mean machine, especially since we had to cart the small monster from the tool rental place (blissfully only down the block). We did good. The tree-like weeds, which had been growing since last summer, were banished.

The preamble

2008-06-28T16:47:00.000-04:00

Le jardin du Bed-Stuy began with Home Depot-acquired bulbs, which looked like bits found in boys pants. The images of dinner plate dahlias, unfurled pink Sarah Bernhardt peonies and gaping yellow day lilies on the bags were irresistible in sad and chilly early April.

The dahlias and peonies went in the ground in mid-April. By May, three dahlias inched out of the ground. The peonies, my favorite blossom, didn't. Mildly heartbreaking. The dahlias, however, soared and thickened at their green trunks. They are now about 12 inches tall and about to pop any day now.

Having thrown away the bags, I had no idea what color the flowers will be. Either purple or white, we'll have to see.