The Privilege Is All Mine



On our travels of the last 7 days, we met with several good friends, many of whom had brought up the recent NY Times article about people stealing vegetables and fruit from community gardens. I ended up saying the same thing enough times to think it worth me repeating it here, and do so partly because I am surprised at how much the article goads me.

Sometimes I feel the average NYT garden writer is a dim bulb with the proper connection. I say this because I often wonder what they are thinking. Why is this a story? Seriously? This is a story? All the news that's fit to print? Your the New York Times -I want to see stories about people stealing justice, people stealing the security of the masses, but I don't really think that people taking fruit here or there is a story. Unless the writer makes it a story, does some leg work, finds someone who steals fruit to tell the story. Dig into the complex world of community garden haves and haves-not. It is a limited resource. Who gets to garden anyway?

So there is a story, just not what we've seen in print -the set up, the anecdotal evidence, the website with advice, and the shrug. Folks seemed to bring up the article in conversation as if there is a lesson there for gardeners. Maybe they feel it supports their own bias against such communal enterprises. Is the community garden fodder for the touchy debate about private versus public? What of ownership? What of access or agency?

I happen to find that there are those who complain about theft at the community garden and those who don't, or at the least, brush it off. Plant enough for everyone say some. I think you would be less than mammal not to feel the pull of that ever ripe fruit, hanging there, begging to be picked. I feel it. Pick me, it calls, pick me. It's fine, they'll never come and then I'll rot with flies and maggots and wouldn't that be a shame? Pick me.

I've seen the semi-lock down of the Floyd Bennett gardens and the total lock down of countless others. Our garden is generally open. There are those at Tilden who talk of fences and locks, those who have noticed the incredible rise in beach-going visitors this summer. Yet I argue against defense. We are not free when we are fenced in and locked up.

Hmm, but people stole the tomato. They lifted a cucumber. Oh yes, people are bad -at least some other people (right -it's never me, us, but them). So I consider how fortunate I am, that my access to a garden isn't a right, but a privilege in NYC, and no amount of petty pilfering will lead me to give it up. And if the theft became alarmingly wide spread, noticeably wholesale, I would know well to think that something was terribly wrong with the world in which I garden.


Over Reach?



I do find it a shame that both Central Park and Prospect Park are ordered closed tomorrow -Saturday. I also find it a shame that the greenmarkets of Saturday will be not happening. We can well predict the timing of this storm to be at the earliest Saturday evening. Greenmarkets are well wrapped up by 4pm and why not hit the park this Saturday morning before all the weather, if not to at least get a vision of it before it thrashes.

Beaches, well fine, I get it. The high surf, etc. But I will still make an honest attempt to get to the beach farm tomorrow to harvest before it all blows over. Will the Fed be as panicky as Parks?

I tell you, I depend on my rational attitude when it comes to this sort of thing, but all the chitter chatter, all the suggestive hyperbole by governors of mid-atlantic states, makes me anxious. I think what I could use is a little quiet on the emergency preparedness front. But I know it's not me they're talking to; it's an all day convince 'em committee, trying to reach that fart who never listens.




Gone Far Enough




Irene continues to weaken. Wind shear is tearing at the storm as it approaches N. Carolina. The storm hasn't had a true "eye" since yesterday. Now that all the media outlets are in on the show, they cannot back peddle on warnings lest they be responsible for the outcome. I take this storm seriously, as any storm, but let us rationally view all the warnings and orders issued today from various government agencies. The government must order evacuations in our post-Katrina world. It doesn't matter how many times we've sat in our low-lying homes through a variety of tropical storms, without being forced to evacuate. It's what government needs to do. What you need to do is view this coming storm with respect and rationality, and a mind for the dangers this storm truly represents.


Irene will dump lots of rain, causing street flooding all over the area. It will swell rivers, although probably not to historic levels. There will be wind, more constant than we're used to. Certain low-lying areas will see some tidal flooding, particularly the Rockaways and Coney Island. Irene's large size and slow movement have put lots of water in movement, and that will find its way to our shores. The Rockaways are no stranger to tidal flooding -it happens a lot in late fall and winter during Nor' Easters. I believe it's this forecast of tidal flooding that is putting the city to mandatory evacs, even though the actual flooding may be significantly less than the statistical potential of Irene.

I do take exception to NPR announcers' (and whomever else is saying it) use of the phrase "storm of unprecedented, historic proportions." The only thing unprecedented about Irene is the widespread governmental response, the closing of public transportation and mandatory evacuations. Moving the National Guard to Long Island -err that is awfully unprecedented, and certainly lacking proportion. Hurricane Gloria was sure to hit Long Island in 1986, and the guard was not sent in. We had a week without electricity, and they still didn't send the guard in. 

I'm glad they are giving till 5 pm to evacuate the islands because I have major plans to hit the beach farm tomorrow to pick some tomatoes before they are knocked and rotted by this mean ol' Irene.


The Adjustment




Irene will peak over today, then, begin to weaken as a significant portion of the storm goes over land. It is a slow moving storm, which can create more damage, but also weakens it over the long term. The constant churning of the ocean brings up deeper, cooler water, which inhibits the heat engine that a tropical cyclone depends upon. The slower the storm moves, the more cool water is worked to the surface. Additionally, the storm is working towards cooler waters, and that will influence it's strength.

The land will do much to disturb the storm's structure, especially as it is moving fairly slow. My prediction now is that Irene will hit the metro area (that includes Jersey and LI) as a low level hurricane, but quite possibly as a strong tropical storm. Now, what matters most is exactly which direction it moves. To the west of NYC, and we will see more wind and more coastal flooding. To the east and we will see less wind, less coastal flooding (but some!) and more rain flooding. New Jersey, the Hudson Valley, CT, etc. should expect anywhere from 5 to 12 inches of rain depending on the speed of the storm at landfall. Add those quantities of rain to what these areas had two weeks ago, and we have a scenario for some heavy flooding.

Subways were out of service on the morning of August 9, 2007 due to rainfall from one thunderstorm. We should expect the same, or that they will curtail service before it happens. Certain bus routes will be shut down, if not all, by Saturday night. The Gowanus area should expect serious street flooding as happened during that one thunderstorm in 2007. Other areas should expect the same. The Belt Parkway will have closures due to rain/coastal flooding. Certainly other areas will have the same problems. Roadway storm drainage is calculated to handle set volumes due to cost constraints. The price we pay for this is flooded roadways.

Avoid parking your car under large trees and don't sit in them. Large limbs will fall. Trees are not likely snapped at the trunk like they are in tornado winds (which are tightly wound and almost instant), but the winds will thrash the trees until some give way, often due to the water-logged soil. However, canyons of buildings facing the right direction will funnel the wind and increase its potential for local damage.

Power may go out, but not for very long. Cell phone coverage may be intermittent. Piped gas could be affected. Water may need boiling if water mains become inundated with combined sewage overflows, which mix storm runoff with sewage because the system is not designed (cost, age, etc.) for these potential water volumes. This is why we buy bottled water before tropical storms. Storms that are in a category beyond what our infrastructure was designed specifically to handle render our infrastructure useless. This is what we prepare for in a city.

Not because it is the apocalypse. Not because of what happened to New Orleans. This won't be that. Irene is no Katrina. It's simply because we haven't built around the conditions of tropical storms which are rare in NYC, and often overshadowed by Nor' Easters.

Hurricane Bertha took a similar course in 1996. After hitting the Carolinas, it diminished rapidly. Maybe it is 1999's Hurricane Floyd that Irene will emulate, with a path that is uncannily similar to Irene's projected path. Floyd was a lot stronger in its Bahama cycle, but otherwise parallels Irene. Do you remember Floyd? Vaguely? 



Floyd

Projected path of Irene



Its Only Hype When Nothing Happens



The newest tracking for Ms. Irene brings the eye of the storm over central New Jersey. This is bad for Cape May, Atlantic City, The Del-Mar-Va. But it is also bad for NYC. Here's why.

The windy side of a hurricane is the east side. The windy side pushes more water, a lot more water. In addition, the currents flow east to west along Long Island's south shore. New York Harbor, in fact, the whole of the NY Bight is a crotch, or a funnel, into which this windy side of the storm can push a whole lot of water, especially during astronomically higher tides. Again, too soon to say, but this can be bad for all of NYC's coastal residents, and possibly no good for the beach farm (shan't I think of myself?). I believe we need an 11 feet over high tide to swamp the beach farm. 


The storm is a little weaker right now, and may only intensify a bit before hitting the Carolinas. If the eye stays over land, then it will weaken significantly during that time, although retaining enough strength to still be a menace to our untested infrastructure (remember how a good amount of rain can shut down our subways?) and coastal areas.

Use this tool for checking your elevation. Just place the black cross-hairs over your street. Then buy a jug of water or two. 





The Probable Storm



I've lived in this region my entire life. I've seen four or so hurricanes, some tropical storms, and my share of long-lasting Nor' Easters. I've also sat on the shore waiting for one highly-touted storm or another, and getting to see little more than gray skies and choppy seas. It's as if the coastline was formed in defense of storms and we live at the apex of that defense. 

That is not to say it is not possible. It is, although NYC tends to be on the soft side of storms (although not the dry side -lookout Jersey) that do hit. The likely paths of these storms are a recurve back out to sea (often hitting Cape Cod, Maine, Nova Scotia) as the systems get pulled into a north-east moving low pressure or pushed off coast by a mid-continental high. These are the likely scenarios. But, and it is early, it seems to me that there are indications that this storm could actually hit our area this weekend, maybe Saturday evening/Sunday morning. Here's why I think it may hit the metro region as a hurricane.

Sea surface temperatures well above eighty degrees F as far north as Delaware. 

 These high surface temperatures keep a storm going strong as it travels north. 

 
An envelope of moisture, which keeps dry air from entering the storm, and low to moderate wind shear. High wind shear tears at the structure of a storm.

The most common computer models are generally in agreement. The red path, the GFS model, has prominence amongst the weather geeks.

Those models lead to a forecast path like this one, where future uncertainty is depicted as a wider path. Notice how the hurricane is centered on the GFS model's predicted path.

Here we have the paths of similar storms in the month of August over 150 years. This is useful as it generates a sense of historical probability, if not predictability.

Here is this evening's weather map. It shows a weak high pressure over Louisiana, and a low passing over Canada and the Midwest. Normally I would say this low pressure would pull the system out to sea with it as is often the case.

But that low pressure system seems weak and may actually help to pull the system towards the coast as the low pressure lifts further north into Canada.

The Jet Stream looks like this, which is not unusual for August. September is high season for Atlantic coastal hurricanes, but by mid September the jet is dropping lower into the states, and has greater chance of steering the storms -and that is usually out to sea. If the jet stays like this over the next few days, it has less chance of doing just that.

This is a map of storm surges for Brooklyn, some of Queens, Manhattan, and Staten Island. Red indicates the affected land area at high tide from the storm surge of a category 1 hurricane should it hit squarely in our area. The orange, a category 2 storm. Category one and two storms are the most likely based on the history of storms to hit the region. Category 4 and 5 are extremely unlikely because the water temperatures simply cannot sustain that kind of a storm.

It's too early to make an accurate prediction, but my instinct is to watch this storm closely as conditions are as favorable as they could be for the storm to hit Long Island or even NYC. It is a large storm with a larger than average tropical storm force wind field, so one way or the other, NYC will feel the effects of this storm. The beach farm, located on the map, will also feel the effects. Wind blown plants, heavy rains, and possible salt water flooding depending on where the storm goes and its intensity as it does so.

Update 8/25/11 AM: I feel more confident in saying that we should batten down the hatches. Should the storm path bear down us, bring in what is loose. If you have a car, try to get it in a garage, or at best park it away from trees. Tie up your trash pails to railings. Stake garden plants firmly or allow them to lie on the ground. Most will recover. It is hard to imagine this as a leaf-stripping event, but things will fall. Stay inside. Have a hurricane party.


Thanks to Wunderground.com for making weather maps accessible.


Rain Date With Broccoli


We spent the day at the beach farm, alas, no photos. We're still hauling in green beans by the quart, eggplants left and right, and carrot season has descended upon us (fat orange tops poking above the black earth). I've never had luck with carrots before, but I gather some things do get better with age. 

We pulled the cucumbers after harvesting 3 or 4 worthy remnants and planted snap pea seeds in their place. The paste tomatoes are ripening, but are not there yet. The others are producing one here, one there, with the exception of the cherries, which always provide. 

I planted 9 broccoli plants and 6 cauliflower, which I found in Maine of all places. I did get to have a moment with the grower-seller lamenting how impossible it is to find starts in the NYC metro region in August for fall planting, how August in Maine is the best time because of the temps, the blueberries, the lack of bugs, and now is even more so because I know I can find brassica starts for planting in NYC. The way life should be. 

I bought 24 plants. What was I thinking? I planted 15, gave away 6 and housed the rest in their containers, set into the farm soil.

This was our view, and lighting, when we arrived last rainy Monday.

And this our tent about to rise.

And here the two bundles we bought for two fifty each, money placed in the can at the driveway.

The tent, the next morning, bright white fog in place, still raining...



The Cleome



On a rainy, rainy day.

We're back, and getting used to it. I'll have some photos from our no-name camera, some better, some worse; but you'll get the picture.


Snake Park



It's actually called Lanape Park. We pass it on the way to the beach farm. From the road all you see is a giant snake and white eggs that spray water. I liked that sense of menace mixed with the absurdity of eggs that spray water, although it seemed a little scary for the little ones. I got my camera working, so we finally decided to stop and take a closer look.

From the road we couldn't see the turtle, the mother of the eggs that happen to be hatching.

Its hard to see, but the mouth has a nozzle that sprays water. Meanwhile the snake is coming for dinner. I still like it better from the road. Something about eggs that spray water tickles me.

Check out these cigars. If the snake didn't scare the kids, maybe these ghostly faces will. Seriously, how did this pass the committee? I understand it is supposed to suggest Native American-ness (spirit poles?), but it ends up being just weird. What exactly were kids supposed to do with it? We couldn't spend too much time figuring it out, as adults aren't allowed in playgrounds in NYC. At least, not unless they are towing a kid themselves, which we weren't, and so we spirited away to the beach farm.




Sick Monk



One by one, over the last month, and after incredible spring growth, the Monkshood, Aconitum, has been wilting to death.

It starts like this, and ends like that brown crumpled thing on the left. Any ideas about what it could be? Water is ruled out. Root insect, disease, or competition not ruled out.




We Rode The Giant Water Flume



...all the way to Maine. Our campsite is wonderful, well-selected, salt water bay just 100 feet away. We arrived near dark, set up camp by rain and dark, cooked a really not at all bad Portuguese chorizo (so the wrapper said) chili over an eye burning, lung charring, smokey damp pine (2.50/bundle, local driveway, leave money in the coffee can) fire. The rain kept me up at night, and then the light, the early morning light! This morning, the rain let up enough for us to start a new fire, have eggs and Christmas boerewors (that's what we're calling them), bread, and good coffee. 

The incessant rain has led us to hiding in Bar Harbor, drying my joints out, in a coffee shop full of drenched north faces and beans. We bought some candy like good American tourists, but here is what we're looking forward to: lobsters, mussels, and clams delivered to our campsite by a local trapper. Only five fifty a pound and delivered at 5 pm. We'll do this tomorrow, when the sun is scheduled to shine. Not looking forward to stabbing the lobster in the head to kill it before grilling. Betsy's killed chickens so maybe she'll take a stab at it.  

There is an incredibly brilliant cleome outside this bakery, but that may be the rain talking. Photos will be few and faulty, as our camera literally has no name. Time to brave the rain again, figure out how we will spend the remaining light of day. 




The Tipping



The leaves of tomatoes speak softly of their distress. The cucumbers with mammary tops and nippled bottoms. I know to pull them in one week's time. The beans will attempt a second flush, always weaker than the first, and they too shall then be toppled. I know where we are, no need for the Romans. We've moved this August into autumnal territory. I felt it today in the cooling air at the farm, and the graying dismal sky, the tinge in the sycamores' greens.

In this moment we are reducing tomatoes to sauce and blanching endless green and yellow beans for the freezer, converting bunches upon bunches of various basils to pesto. We are also packing for a camp trip to the even cooler coast of Maine, where late August can reveal the hints of autumn more clearly. We have rustled up a small and undistinguished camera of unknown brand and have meats parboiled and frozen for the fire. Soon I will make bread, eat shellfish grilled over coals, and have a sense that the not-right boerewors will be made right enough with eggs at breakfast. We will bring tomatoes and eggplant and garlic. We will visit old friends, inland, on a lake. And we will return to what awaits.

Which is new bosses, and even new jobs, and much, much painting work ahead. And new upstairs neighbors with toddler. The beach farm, where mildewed cucumber vines will yield to fall peas, and leeks shall be seeded, and yet another, more serious attempt at sprouting broccoli. And the arrival of the garlic seed all the while my search for an adequate and free space to grow them continues. Posts are post-dated, yet may still be pertinent. 


Peak Produce


I had managed to get my camera to work this one day by banging the lens on a table. You will notice on every picture a blurry streak, center left, and a general sense of focus on the wrong objects. To get the images off the card, I needed to unscrew all the tiny screws from the case and yank on the plastic. Somehow, this made the camera stay on for download. It's getting bad folks. What's a blogger without photos?

Morning view towards the green beans, carrots, and bolting cilantro. Green beans are full tilt.

Glow worm (or Black Swallowtail caterpillar) on the carrots.

The haul. Somehow the picture makes it look like less. 

Still getting a good amount of blossom end rot on the paste tomatoes. Although we did just harvest the original flower sets which seemed unaffected by the b.e.r. There are quite a few tomatoes on these plants. One plant has maybe 40 tomatoes on it, all green, and with hope, will overcome the b.e.r.

The recent super rain forced many of our tomatoes to crack and burst. Their skin is the only defense against tomato raiders. Many insects find the flesh delectable, including little ants. I placed this in the sun, then hosed it out, appearing to rid it of buggers. This is one of the last two black russians, and there was no way I was going to lose it to ants. I cut out the crack and will eat it tonight. Delicious.

By the way, I consider ants a clean insect. If ants brought food to my table, I would thank them and eat.



Glass Act


I received a comment the other day with this info attached. If you live in the Fort Greene area, or you frequent the park, consider lending these civic-minded folks a hand.

"...my organization Broken Window is putting together a clean up of broken glass in Fort Greene Park. We intend to send the glass for recycling at a facility in New Jersey. I would love to ...get some kind of shout-out on New York City Garden, because we are still looking for more volunteers. Thanks so much!
Shana

Lord knows I've been cleaning up the broken glass in my small plot for years. I'm sure they can use all the help they can get. Check it out.


Allerton's Field Of Dreams


Betsy took me to Allerton Park, an estate in the midst of farmland and turned over to the University of Illinois by Robert Allerton, the heir of years of Illinois fortune making. There is evidence that the university has little interest in keeping up the form of this conservatively designed, peculiar formal landscape. It does, however, maintain 1500 acres of upland and riparian woodland which were impressive, if somewhat inaccessible to us due to mosquitoes and flooding. 

What most intrigued me was the sound of the cicada in the midst of this piece of central Illinois woodland, truly an island of trees in a sea of corn. I couldn't get over the remoteness of this estate, so out of place in it's current landscape of industrial farming.

They call this the fu dog garden.

This run was originally clothed in wisteria vines. It is now completely clothed in weeds -the vine: oriental bittersweet, Celastrus orbiculatus. The concrete and wooden tower in the distance houses cheap, gold-painted copies of the original statuary on black-painted plywood bases.

Most of the concrete columns are tipping, some arborvitae have been planted in semi-straight rows amongst the weeds.

Odd, no? The militarist pageantry is obvious in such formal language.

Nearer the house...

One room to the next, boxwood unhinged and, well, hinged.

Seems Mr. Allerton was fond of extreme verticality. It is present in most of his formal gardens. The original had tightly-trimmed hedging here, but I felt much relieved by its untamed state which lent a lightness to the space. 

Ugh, seems this red stripe of salvia just ain't working.

The statuary here is made of a concrete mixture or bronze and tends toward oddly-posed figuration.

 Death of a Centaur.



I think this one was called the Sun Singer.

I liked this hollow, although filled too much with daylilies. It led down to a man made pond, known to be one of the few cold water ponds in the region.

 The cold spring that feeds the pond emerges here.

Excuse the poor audio editing, as it has been looped. It was very difficult to capture the sound I wanted to reveal without picking up all the incidental noises like cars and horns and hammers. There is the cicada and then there is a more alien sound behind. Turn up your volume.