Ramps!





Instead of going to the studio today, I gardened, then walked to the farmer's market at Grand Army Plaza. Its ramp time, I bought two bunches, a splurge just this once until next year. Clean them well, saute with shitake mushrooms, a little butter, prosciutto or pancetta and toss with a good pasta and some EV olive oil. Yummy.

Angeliqueomania, Anomolas, and Mystery Ferns



I can't stop looking at these tulips. And that leads to photographing them, doesn't it. And that leads to showing them on the blog.




Another of my favorite plants is the Climbing Hydrangea, Hydrangea anomola. Its really all year something else. I pulled two out of a garden that I knew was going under the bulldozer (cause I planted it myself!). I put it on the fence of the side yard. Only down side is that people snap the branches a lot.


But what graceful form, gestural.


Another plant, a fern I pulled out of that very same garden is coming back this year. I had my doubts because it is planted in the front yard, in sun all day except for the last few hours and is tucked between heat holding wall and sidewalk. But there it is, making its way back.

Pressing My Monetize Button

My friend, fellow artist, and funny guy Tim has been pressing mine for a while now. Lately he has bragged of his 103 dollar check from ad sense. Tim has a blog on soft drinks called softdrinkreviews. Seems innocuous enough, but go there, dig in, read on, and you may just laugh your soft-drinking ass off.

His ad sensations are placed right under the title. Its clever play for him and one that reaps minor financial rewards.  I am poor at making money from what I enjoy, so I will stay poor. Tim, keep those hundreds coming. 

80's What?!!

Weather Underground is reporting it will be in the lower 80s all weekend. Get those vegetable starts out of the cold-frame on Friday then!! Also, don't be fooled into planting tomatoes too soon. Wait it out, proceed with caution.

Stroll up Prospect Park SW



This garden I liked. Some trees will be too big soon enough, but I liked the effect, loose mixture of lots of plants. There was more to the right, but the photo was no good.



Massive root and trunk.


Do these "gators" really do anything besides just look trashy? I'm not sure I've ever seen one filled with water. Without water, they're just bags stuck to a tree.


This combination of dead grass/weeds and fence really inspires me to garden.


When will this fad die back. It sprung up a several years ago after a long hiatus. Who invented this stuff -someone from Georgia or Oklahoma where the soil is as red as this mulch?


Hi Time For the Garden



As you can see, my garden is long and skinny. Its filled with many plants. This is the time when I get lots of comments or just see people stopping and looking. Its a good time for the garden. The leaves are new and fresh, the bulbs are giving flowers, the roses and spirea showing rich, red new leaves.

But get in closer and you see the tulip 'angelique,' still blooming after four years. Many tulips do not reliably come back and others are eaten by the squirrels. But angelique has come back again this year and lookin good.

Its double form is a vessel for all its colors, greens, yellows, pinks, and whites.


But they're not all thats begun to bloom this week. The Siberian Bugloss, False Forget-Me-Not or the Variegated Heartleaf Brunnera. Whatever you call it, its blooming now.




Weekly Vegetable Update


Broccoli 'Calabrese' looking good, hoping it doesn't get too warm too fast. The two largest are the over-wintered ones.


'Sugar Ann' snap peas putting out flowers now. I have to keep myself from just eating the vine!


The asian greens mix and Italian arugula have true leaves now, I've tasted them all.


Oh the tomatoes. I fish fertilized again today and do hope the burning you see isn't from the feeding. All but the 'Black Russian' tomato are overcoming the previous burn. I'm still holding out for it though. Basil 'Genovese' in there too. J & L around the corner is already selling 18 inch bush tomatoes, complete with flowers.

I must remember, because I certainly forgot, to seed the 'Salad Bush' cucumbers and cilantro 'slow-bolt (yeah, right)'.

Supporting My Corner Nursery


I went over to J & L today to let them know how root-bound that weeping cherry was that we bought there on Saturday. The owner was there and we got to chatting about business, local nurseries and growers. In a lot of ways, to a guy who's been around the Brooklyn landscaping block, it comes down to the numbers. Business is slow. Its a good time to get city contracts, private 10K type jobs are little to none. Nursery business is swift, people buying lots of little things. I have noticed a pickup of customers at J & L and I can attest that this weekend was quite busy at Gowanus too.  J & L sells quart-sized perennials for 3 and 4 dollars, gallons for $8+.

I worry that he's getting older and hard times might move him toward retirement. I really like living a half-block from my garden needs. So I'm going to give them all the business I can afford. Including bags of compost to fill these tubs I got from the boxwood shrubs I planted the other day.


New Front Yard


Yesterday I planted a new front yard. I had this insight to share, a definition of a garden: A garden is a place that has easily-dug soil. That's it.

But its not a garden until this is true. What I did yesterday -not a garden. Not even now. But a front yard with new plants. If you have to work as hard as I did with a shovel and a maddox, its not a garden -yet. You have to make it one.

Together with two, at one time three others, we drove to the Red Hook Nursery District and then our local J & L. Five shrubs and 25 perennials later, but emptied-handed when it came to the desired tree, we took on another passenger and headed to J & L. There they saw it -the perfect weeping cherry tree. Nothing attracts a new yard builder like a weeping cherry tree in April. They had one in back, full-flowered branches weeping nearly to the ground. I could tell it was in a pot too small for its 2.5 inch caliper. As I tried to steer them back to the younger, more spindly cherries, they gravitated back to their desire. Sold!

The tree was some of the worst pot-wound, root-bound I've ever dealt with. I hacked until I worried, then planted the sucker. They were watering in at 9:30pm. What a day. Today I am shot.


I am always concerned when anyone wants to plant a tree three or four feet from their house. But the desire for what they see now is so strong, it overcomes rationality, its an emotional decision. After all, there are so many others on the block and they are fine, right? And the neighbors, they love it. It got lots of looks, and even a few comments. Nothing pleases like a cherry tree in April.


Looking To Do Something Outdoors Today


SPRING BLOOMS AT GREENMARKET'S FLOWER MARKET AT BROOKLYN BOROUGH HALL

Come celebrate the season's perennials, annuals, bulbs, herbs, flats, house plants, cut flowers and more, at this special one-day market! 

For information on additional Greenmarket Flower Market dates and locations download our flyer.

Details:
April 19, 2009 from 8:00 am to 4:00 pm
Court St. at Montague St., Brooklyn, NY (Map)


I'll stop by this on the way to the studio. Enjoy the weather!

Quoting A Quote

Quote of the Week

"The ambition for broad acres leads to poor farming, even with men of energy. I scarcely ever knew a mammoth farm to sustain itself; much less to return a profit upon the outlay. I have more than once known a man to spend a respectable fortune upon one; fail and leave it; and then some man of more modest aims, get a small fraction of the ground, and make a good living upon it. Mammoth farms are like tools or weapons, which are too heavy to be handled. Ere long they are thrown aside, at a great loss."

Abraham Lincoln, Sept 30, 1859, Wisconsin State Fair

Is this true today?



Urban Farmer -Wasssss Dooowwwwnnn!


My tomato seedlings have been getting stockier, reaching up to the lid of the cold frame. Yesterday morning I stepped out to see that at least two of the varieties had fried tops.

When you go to the nursery, its easy to imagine that all the seedlings are all that the nurseryman started. But only the best make it to the tables and racks (if not, you just walk away, right?). At home, starting just a few seedlings, the pressure is on to get it right.


So was the culprit the cold temps two nights ago? It never got down to freezing that night and the seedlings were in the cold-frame with a bottle of warm water. Was it the diluted fish fertilizer I put on them a few days ago? Its hard to imagine that the 2-4-1 diluted liquid did them harm and why some yet not the others? The sun is getting stronger and despite low temperatures, in the cold-frame greenhouse its quite warm. The tomato tops are close to touching the polycarbonate. I suppose the culprit really was my carelessness, but I think all but one will recover.

Then there's the orange pixie problem. I started two of those in February with all the others. But they never passed an inch tall, stunted, wierd. Both fried in the cold-frame. This week a new one I seeded in a tp tube has sprouted and looks considerable healthier, although it is having trouble shaking its seed pod from its cotyledons. I've been tempted more than once to try to pull it off like a sweater stuck on its arms and head. The pixie is supposed to handle pots and planters well.
We'll see if it ever gets there.

I will move the tomato seedlings out to the ground during sunny days, cold-frame at night and rainy days. I hope I can get a good run out of my snap peas before I have to clear the way for these tomatoes!

Might Get Close to Freezing Tonight

If your tender plants are exposed to the wind and cold, cover them up tonight or keep some warm bottles of water near them. It may freeze, with much greater likelihood inland and in the northern parts of the city. I'm not expecting a deep freeze, but take precautions just in case.


Image courtesy of Wunderground.com

No Anomolies Here


The Climbing Hydrangea is leafing out. In my garden its the closest to a sure thing that its fully spring.

The Veronica weed is going crazy. Flowers closed for clouds.

I hacked the hedge rose "Knockout" hard. It was getting too big, pointed out annually by my savvy wife. My yearly light pruning seemed to only encourage a larger shrub. So, boom, hard prune.

This is the most abundant weed in my garden. Its a maple seedling. I pull these out of the vegetable planters, out of the perennial beds, out from under the rose, from under the Yew trees. I do it the whole of the growing season. Probably Norway Maple -an alien forest wants back in.

Daffy


The daffs are blooming well. Its been the right kind of spring in NYC as far as plants should be concerned. Rainy days alternating with sunny ones. Never too warm -spending flowers as fast as they come, wilting young leaves, and growing legs.

Do the daffodils get the respect they deserve? Often in mass plantings that highlight their color over their form and twelve inches above the ground, I don't think people get up close to them very often. These below smell wonderful. Get up close.


Small cups, pale yellow-medium cups, slightly deeper yellow

All the following are the same...

But in front of the dwarf spirea, a world of difference


Too Much Tweakin Bloggin

I think there are two kinds of bloggers: the kind that say to themselves, "I can't seem to keep up my posting" and the kind that says to themselves, "I can't believe how much time I spend blogging."

I've been feeling like the latter group lately. So while I was fishing around the Internet for info on a widget to add panoramic scrolling to my other hidden blog (sshhh), I found this site by this guy Kang Rohman. Somehow, through his bumpy English and sense of humor I managed to tweak my blogger site. I wanted 3-column stretch minima since I began, but the template was not offered. He showed me how. Now I'm beginning to see how the other blogger sites have their customized look. They know the html coding and are comfortable messing with templates. I wonder about all those Diggs and Technohootis and Deliciousnesses. I put this Spheroid thing on my site and now I want it off. Every time it announces its getting me the good stuff I cringe.

I've been using computers since I was about 14 (Commodore 64, baby!). But there were always those intrepid kids that seemed to be able to dig deeper into the machine and not fear they were going to break it. That's never been me. If it was, I broke the machine. But this time, success. Thanks to Kang!

Now the formatting is ideally suited to a larger screen. If you have a laptop with a 15 inch screen you may find it scrunched up some. Sorry about that, but blogger does its best to acommodate different sized screens. Now, back to posting....