Designing Weeds



They're known as hell strips -in this case a bus stop hell strip. Today it leaped out of place as background -the unseen, and I couldn't have planted it better. First, it's all weeds, and they take care of themselves. Secondly, a designer's sensibility seems to be at work. A mass of warm-weather Mallow, soon to be flush with pink flowers, companion-planted with the atmospheric, flowering stalks of the cool-weather mustard called Shepherd's Purse. For some that would be enough to carry the strip, but not this strip, no. Adding contrast to the wispy flowering stalks and mat-forming masses of round leaves are the strongly cut leaves of the upright Mugwort in brilliant green. And as if that is not enough, nature conspired to accentuate the whole of it with a large-leafed Plantain on one end and a spidery daylily on the other!

Common Mallow, Malva neglecta
Common Plantain, Plantago major
Shepherd's Purse, Capsella bursa-pastoris
Mugwort, Artemisia vulgaris
Common Daylily, Hemerocallis fulva

Late Freeze Upstate


With the garlic and shallots well over 12 inches tall, this late season hard freeze can turn out to be a real sucker punch. Close to the ground there is lots of heat from decay, moisture and rotting straw, but up in the air much less protection. I am not too concerned about those cloudy nights so much as the clear ones. Stillness and clear skies is the recipe for a real freeze. At this point the forecast may be an overstatement, but it is hard to discern from balmy NYC.

Incidentally, a brief discussion about the weekend's late season nor'easter at wunderground.com. They are also the first official source (beside me, haha) to mention that we are in a short-term moderate to severe drought condition. The garlic farm area weather forecast for the next 5 days:


Tonight
Partly Cloudy 30 °F
Partly Cloudy

Tomorrow
Rain 52 °F
Rain

Tomorrow Night

Chance of Rain 39 °F
Chance of Rain

Friday
Chance of Rain 52 | 28 °F
Chance of Rain

Saturday
Partly Cloudy 54 | 27 °F
Partly Cloudy

Sunday
Clear 50 | 27 °F
Clear



Garlic Green



The march of garlic.

Griselle, or French Grey Shallots. They are spidery and prolific, I very much enjoy these.

Tuscan, a turban variety will harvest early. I am growing these at the beach farm as well.

All garlic is doing better upstate than at the beach farm. There are several reasons for this:
  • Colder weather kept the garlic from sprouting last December-January.
  • There has been much more rain and even some snowfall upstate.
  • Geese didn't eat the fertilizer or smash the leaves while doing so.
  • The soil is practically pure compost.

The corn gluten meal was evident a month after I spread it. In this row it appeared to be working, but that could have only been because the soil here is pure compost and virtually without weed seeds.

This row, which you can see has only some compost mixed in, contains some corn gluten too, but also the menacing sprouts of crab grass. May weeding will be rough. It took me about four hours to weed this month, while last month took about three. Next month? The straw definitively held down the weeds, but made weeding those that did sprout much more difficult.

Thankfully, fearful that it would be cold, I brought my trusty thermos filled with hot, hot coffee.

The sun occasionally came in and out, warming my rear as I weeded. It wasn't all that cold, and I never needed more than my t-shirt and windbreaker. These are a porcelain variety and are most vigorous.

The blue-tinged leaves of this rocambole are beautiful.

Some varieties have been performing poorly. From the many tossed before planting, to the many I pulled for being stunted, to the lackluster growth in general, I can only blame myself. When I realized that the three varieties growing less than perfect were from the same farm, I revisited that old dictum -you get what you pay for. None of these three will be available for seed this year -they will be food. I will purchase high quality stock to replace them, killing the cost savings of growing a season's seed stock one's self -penny wise and pound foolish.

Everything else is looking quite good. Some varieties are a little small, but again, this is due to the original seed stock. Although some farmers sell at seed-stock prices, their product fell short of seed quality. In this case the quality issue was smaller sized bulbs and cloves. The healthiest garlic grows from the largest seed stock. Large seed stock garlic is more difficult to grow because it requires a certain amount of care and attention that, at scale, translates into higher prices. In the garden it is easy as pie.

Around 5 o'clock it was time to head back to Brooklyn. The plot seemed quaint, diminutive even, despite four hours perpendicularly bent. Old straw and rain made the mulch warm to the touch,  my nose close to spring's sweet decomposition. I don't recall who said that farmers' do not aestheticize the land, do not pull up from work to notice the sunset; those are the ideas of poets.

Next week I will be meeting with the Peconic Land Trust in regards to participating in their farm program. One full season of small-scale growing incomplete, I can hardly imagine what scaling up ten times will mean.


Quietly Heating Up At The Beach Farm



All the lettuce has been planted.

Cannot believe how fast the broccoli rabe has budded -must have been the warm, dry days. It's the best tasting rabe I've ever nibbled.

I pruned back our sage and as happens, it has gone to flower.

IDed this once before, but now cannot remember.

The greens have really taken off. Thanks to the warm weather and last week's clipping, some of the red-leafed variety are setting up to bolt. This is a really big bowl -about 8 big salads' worth.

Otherwise it's quiet at the beach farm. I sit on the ground scissoring lettuce leaf and chard, eyeballing the garlic, wondering why the snap peas grow so slow. The cilantro is finally at an edible size, and basil has been planted. I hooked up my watering system, quite tentatively, but to issue something should this heavy rain we just received be the only rain. All is well at the beach farm.




Drought and Flood




When I looked at my phone today to check the weather, the radar image provided a glimpse into something I have rarely seen. Total rain. There wasn't a break within 100 miles of the radar. Last night's and today's rain reminds me of a year as a teenager when it rained, almost like clockwork, every weekend for 6 weeks. These storms were like April nor'easters, windy and raining for two or three days, driving the moisture through our poorly-sealed, south-facing windows. Those storms traveled up the coast, much like today's storm.

Radar at 8pm, Sunday. Courtesy wunderground.com



The Golden Gooser



I've seen this vehicle around lately, in Prospect Park and Central Park. 

There's a secret war on the geese of New York. He rides in his kayak, and it looks innocuous enough, but it's all about getting the goose.  From whom, exactly, is the pressure coming to extinguish the geese? What is the cost of the man in the kayak versus the cost of leaving the geese in the parks in a time of smaller Parks budgets? Why do we need a 'specialist?' To detach officials from the unpopular destruction of geese? By the way, it has little to do with airplanes -no goose has been gotten at Gateway, where we watch low-flying planes take off every other minute.

Are the birds are striking back? Did you hear of the kayaking gooser that was retired by a swan? Maybe the swans think they're next.


Greening



Much like the flowers this spring, the leaves seem to be taking their sweet time. The zelkovas in front of my apartment leafed out overnight. A day's rain is on its way, if it hits us right. Moisture is slowly tracking eastward, funneling toward the northeast from the southwest. It will be our first significant rain in several weeks.

April's May



Tradescantia, or Spiderwort, named so to honor the English naturalists John Tradescant the Elder and the Younger. Who knew? I prefer the moniker Spiderwort, most likely named because its leaves resemble the legs of spiders. I did not plant this Americas native* in our front yard garden, but there it is. A little weedy; meaning it pops up here or there. It does not like the heat of a summer sidewalk, preferring a partly sunny, moist woodland edge.


Aphids on a gloriously green, 'New Dawn' rose. Hey, birds, come on back!


The geranium and the carpenter bee. A myth or maybe a children's tale?


*Americas native -there are several Tradescantia native to both North and South America. Mine, while unknown, is likely a cultivated native of the northeastern American continent -such as Tradescantia virginiana.


Carpenter Bees Do It


On Sunday morning I was out grousing about the trash and dumped potting soil. I realize now that picking up trash is gardener's work. No one else seems to mind, or maybe they see litter as humanity's flower and, as you know, one should never pick the flowers. But I digress back to grousing.

As I made my way down the sidewalk, there were many, many carpenter bees. They live in the apartment building's sill, and this spring there appears to be many more than usual. I am quite used to them and consider them my unarmed guards. The males do not sting, but their curiosity and male on male aggressivity make apiphobes wary. I really like these bees. They exhibit very interesting behavior and tend to live, generation after generation, in the same location. Maybe this is why I think they recognize me -he who brings nectar (primitive-type bee speak).

As I was saying, I was making my way down the sidewalk, picking trash, and two bees locked together and had landed inside my jacket. Not until they landed did I realize this was not the usual battling males, but a male and female in the middle of Carpenter bee coitus. I have not had much experience with the females, but I know they have a useful stinger, and I didn't want to be where I wasn't wanted. I managed to slip off my jacket and drape it on the rail, but then I wanted my camera which was buried in a zipped pocket underneath their business. If it weren't for their preoccupation, I may have suffered a sting. Instead, two photos before they flew off, separately.

You can see how to identify the males from the females. The yellow or white patch between the eyes give the male away. If they are mating, their respective positions could tell the same.

Click on this one for full size.



Crisis Partially Averted


Wow. How did it happen? The other day I noticed the new static page linking to my art page was no longer above. I investigated, found nothing, and went to reestablish the tab. Somehow in this process, Blogger created a second tab for the Our Weeds page, one of the most popular items on this blog. I left it alone. Until today.

I deleted the one, thinking it just a duplicate of the first, but I did not go about with due diligence. I erased the whole effing thing. The other tab was a dummy tab and linked to nothing. I could not get the information back. Nowhere. In fact, not even a question in Blogger's help forums. No one has ever done this? Seems so easy to do. I was upset -so much work there. I wasn't about to remake it given all else there is to do now. Yet, the weed file is probably the most popular page I have. So I started digging. Caches were no help. Finally,
I went to my posts, because pages is a relatively new aspect of Blogger and my original weed file was a simple post.

Lucky me. An update I did last year on the page I also saved to the original post! Whew. Lost are any additions I made this year, and there were several, but at least those redo's are something I can accomplish. Wow, so where can we save this data if there is no way to retrieve it online?

UPDATE! As I look again, the links above have two OUR WEEDS tabs. This must be a Blogger issue. BLOGGER!




Game On



The weather was just right, and the cima di rapa was ready. Not quite the level of miracle, but after a warm, dry week and no watering, last week's planted rabe survived -hardy plant. I also had fennel herb and fennel bulb to plant, and lettuce of Boston and Romaine varieties.

In went the lettuce, planted wide in the tomato beds. Grow fast young lettuce!

And the cima di rapa, or broccoli rabe, planted in two tomato beds. We'll have a lot of this -all at once. I want to get smarter about succession planting, so that the best plant precedes the next crop, but also for extended harvesting. In this case, there is only time for one planting, as the tomatoes are growing rapidly.

The greens, a Johnny's mystery mix received from a friend with too much. We've been getting about 4 meals per week out of this tomato bed.

Nothing raises more questions at the garden than this modest strip of Allium vineale. Yes, I am cultivating the weed, the formerly cultivated, the cast out creation of our predecessors, and taste favorite of at least one blogging gardener-cook. I begin to wonder if garlic was selected for asexual reproduction, flowerless-ness, because of its inherent weediness when allowed to set seed? Did it take over their fields? The knowledgeable scoff, the uninitiated huh, and I get to feel like Dr. Frankenstein. I hope they don't chase me with flames and forks.






Never Seen This Coming



I would have never imagined this, and wouldn't have known were it not for my sidebar hydrofracking New York news alerts. In an effort to dispose of the salty 'brine' dredged up from the depths of hydro-fracking, energy companies are pitching to counties and municipalities the availability (no doubt for free) of their hard to dispose of, radioactive, chemical-laden, salt water waste product for use on roadways as a de-icing agent.

Can you imagine? And what did one county that has chosen not to prohibit this use give as the reason?

"...they weren't convinced there was a scientific justification for banning brine spreading or did not have sufficient information on the topic to move to prohibit its application." 


You see, this is the difference between us -when I do not have sufficient information, I say I cannot justify the risk, yet they prefer to use the stuff, despite not having sufficient information. In other words, it sounds to me like those municipalities are being forced to drink their own fruit punch, lest they admit to it's poison.




Earth To Iris

It smelled like rain, it even looked a bit like rain, but there was little if any rain.

The first iris has bloomed. The weather we've been having seems conducive to a really long bloom. I've seen forsythias still in bloom and the pink-flowered tree across the street has been flowering way longer than I am used to seeing.




Eastern Redbud, Cercis canadensis


NYC Tip




You have old potting soil, but that doesn't mean someone with a garden also wants your old potting soil indiscriminately dumped on their plants. The napkins and latex glove underneath aren't much help either.


Young Garlic



Last Sunday I bought some fresh, young garlic at the farmers' market. I mentioned to the cashier that their garlic was quite large for this time of year. He said that they had planted it early, looking over at his companion, then nodding yes, November. I thought that was funny. So I told him that I too had planted some at that time, but it was no where near this size. As I departed, he stopped me to say that they had used compost, some very good compost on their fields. 

In a day's time it shrunk by nearly a third. I sliced the roots from the cloves, exposing the pattern within. I sliced it into fried eggs in the morning and later, with olive oil drizzled onto pasta.





For Peat's Sake


I found this opinion piece in the NYTimes well-intentioned, but silly. I'll start with the laughable notion that anybody is really using peat for ground cover. Dry as a bone, it would blow away at the slightest breeze, it is nearly impossible to wet down with a hose, and it acidifies our soil that already leans that way. You might add some to the blueberry patch soil or your new rhodi bed, but it's hardly a common purchase and hardly something you can "fork."

Oh, wait -yes, the way we really use peat is as the major component of potting soil and starter mixes. Yep, but that wasn't mentioned at all.

If it weren't for the convenience, I wouldn't use peat one more time. Maybe I will use compost, without peat, for starting my seeds next year. If I fill any pots, I can do it with compost. It'll work, it'll be fine. We got used to peat because it holds water well after it has been wetted, is light weight in the sack, and it's ubiquitous in the marketplace. But it's time to stop, not because we must, but because we can. Compost is naturally full of humus, which is just as friendly to seed starting as peat-based starter mixes. I mean, we're not professionals, right? We don't demand 100% germination rates. And can't our potted plants survive a lower water-holding capacity soil mix? Sure they can, we've got drip systems attached. As for weight on our rooftops and terraces? How much more weight is a comparable compost mix compared to fully wet, peat-based planter mix? I cannot say, but we should find out.


Early Bird



This morning, while stepping out to move our vehicle, I noticed a group of house sparrows, fat as they are around here, fluttering about the shrub rose. I can't recall ever seeing any birds in the garden, so I thought it odd.

Keeping to the driver's seat, I then watched them move over to the New Dawn climber, this time pecking at the tips of newly formed rose buds. Aphids, of course. But why would these birds suddenly be taking an interest in aphids? They are always there, but again, I have yet to see any local birds care to be about these thorny bushes.

Then it hit me. They, the proverbial canary, are reacting to the utter lack of water in the neighborhood. Aphids are, not unlike last summer's tomatoes in that nasty hot and dry spell, a water source in times of scarcity.

We are in the midst of a garden drought -my coinage for drought conditions gardeners face when it doesn't seriously rain for such an extended period that we become deeply concerned yet the greater population has not begun to notice. With such glorious sunny days and full reservoirs, what's to notice? But a gardener's drought is often a farmers' drought, becoming a local foodie drought. And we wouldn't want that. So, even though no significant rain is forecast for the next ten days, I for one am hoping that forecast is mistaken.

Sparrows doing their good work.