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

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.

Garden Cliff Notes: Anti Lawn

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 -