"Plants"

I had a friend tell me yesterday that I came off as actually insane, but that it's okay because I acknowledged it. So in that continued spirit, I know I'm pretty crazy. I prefer to think about it in the passonate and driven sense and not the creepy and restraining order sorta way, (not that I've really given you any reason to believe the former, instead of the latter), but for my sake, let's pretend.

I have basically finished planting my garden and aside for some anal retentive weeding and watering, it's mostly up to the plants to grow big and make babies. Babies I will eat. Right? Cause tomatoes are plant babies no? Anyway, because I've got nothing to do in my little plot my sights have turned elsewhere...(queue the dun dun dun music [is that music? a tone maybe? Whatever it is, make that noise in your head, riiiight NOW!])

So the garden is faced with a fence that's probably 12 feet high, with a smaller gate meant for people and a larger gate meant for vehicle access, behind the fence is a common area garden that's 4 or 5 feet deep. I mentioned in my last post a grassy area that will probably become my summer/fall project, this is part of that are. And well summer/fall is officially now. I had planned on doing this slowly so perhaps maybe people wouldn't notice, I certainly don't want to make waves. I spent yesterday sorting through the pile of potted "plants" that dominated the area. I use the term "plants" in a very loose and generic sense, it's not an animal and it's in a pot, so it's a plant-sense.  I kid you not, half of them are filled with dead or dying plants, another quarter are filled with living "plants" and by "plants" I mean weeds, actual weeds. Yep, welcome to the community garden where we grow dead things and weeds! The last quarter had plants that were alive but missing a label. YAY PLANT MYSTERIES! Still unsure about whether these were the property of a crazy hoarder gardener, I just divided the living from the dead and weeds and figured I'd let them sit for a few days and see if anyone moved or claimed their "plants". I honestly gave myself a day before I couldn't resist and just tossed them all in the garbage, cause I'm crazy and now is better than later.

Luck would have it though that the "Guy in Charge" wandered by and marveled at all the work I had been doing, so I casually asked what the pile of "plants" were doing and what was going to happen with them. (I'm very good at this sort of thing, the: "Hi, this is all garbage, you know it's garbage, I know it's garbage, I'm going to throw it out, I hope that's okay, but if it isn't, I'll do it fast, so it doesn't hurt as much, because this is garbage, garbage.", ie. being a WASP.) Again, luckily he just sort of confirmed that some things were plants the garden got for free and some were just random things to fill in the place in front of the gate and some things he didn't know about, but that "I COULD DO WHATEVER I WANTED". Yeah, I know. I literally laminated that shit and put it in my wallet. I near immediately ripped out all the weeds in the plot next to the fence, planted Marigolds plants and seeds and Four O'Clock seeds. Summer is now folks, we have to hit the ground running! Tomorrow I throw out all the "plants".

The Grand Reveal.

Guys, I finally figured out how to make the internets work. Yeah. I know. And I'm entirely sober doing it. Tomorrow, I might even clean my room. Behold the power of over-caffeination!  Besides my mastery of the internet I also spent most of the afternoon in the garden, where excitingly things are starting to sprout and grow! This is mostly a photo update, so please forgive me for destroying your data and everything, but today is the day! The big reveal and some pictures of seeds sprouting!

Essentially this is the layout for the plot, it measures 20 feet by 5.5 feet, the foot path is on the north side of the plot, which corresponds to the left side of the diagram. I'm the first plot, so I have access to it's entirely length, from a patchy grassy area. Between the grassy area and the plot, there's a raised planter that up until now was full of weeds, it's now the home of some perenial ground cover and an herb garden I planted yesterday (It is roughly the top row in the diagram).  I figure my labors should be rewarded and the reward will be tons of dill. The grassy area has turned into my summer/fall project. Right now it's dominated by a dozen or so pots of living/dying plants and weeds that the garden got for free from someone. I obviously can't help myself and you all know me better than to not anal retentively organize and sift through the mess and make some order of it. (I actually spent part of today transplanting some perrenial ground cover plants into the border areas near the foot path and used this really awesome app to help identify some of the plants.)

So here's the layout of the garden! Hopefully it's pretty clear, after the photos there's a short description that might clarify things a bit.  

 

The actual plot from left to right (North to South) starts with a netting for cucumbers to grow up, the cucumbers, of course, pickling and slicing, then tomatoes, (twelve in total!), there's some green beans mixed in between the tomatoes and summer squash, that will hopefully give a quick harvest before either of their neighbors start getting demanding for space and light. Also, between the potatoes and strawberries and potatoes, are spring/early summer vegetables that by late summer will be replaced with a crop of broccoli, kale and bok choy. If you've got any question about the lay out leave a comment below! Here's a photo standing on the North side, looking through the netting:

NOW, exciting things are also happening in the garden in the seed department. So far we've got glimpses of life from the Green Beans:

 

And we've got Arugula sprouts!  (Please forgive the terrible shadows. It ain't easy taking pictures of Arugula sprouts, those guys are TINY.)

And last, but certainly not least (cause growing potatoes, sort of ridiculously awesome) Potato sprouts!

Hopefully now you have a sense of what's happening and how things are laid out. And yes, I know it got a bit ridiculous, but the plot is literally bigger than my bedroom, what would you have me do with all this space?! I've been denied fresh vegetables for years. A BOY NEEDS HIS TOMATOES.

Strawberries!

Two weekends a month I get to hang out with the coolest ten year old I've ever met. Steven and I are each others respective big and little brothers via Big Brothers Big Sisters. We were matched just before the most ridiculous winter I've had since moving to Brooklyn and so most of our outings have been to museums and movies. Today though, in continuing the long line of child labor in my family, we got to hang out in the garden! I had managed to keep unplanted a bit of land between the squash and tomatoes and so after I picked him up we went to Home Depot, where we wandered around the plant section so he could decide what he wanted to plant. Being a kid after my own heart, he went with the best choice, strawberries! I can't help to be a bit proud that instead of the typical grade school ambition of green beans he want for something a bit more challenging and hopefully rewarding in the yum department!

After we got to the garden and we read the tag for planting tips and instructions we got to work and after the ridiculous thunderstorms and rain of the last two days we got pretty covered in dirt. Once we got the plants in the ground, plus one extra that went home with Steven in a pot, we planted a few rows of green beans and spinach. We also ran into our plot neighbor Christina, this is also her first year so we'll be stumbling through community gardening together! A pretty successful day in the garden and we managed to dodge the rain too!

Here's Steven mid-strawberry planting:

So that's about it of what's happening in the garden. Nothing has sprouted from seeds yet, but I don't doubt the soaking we've gotten in the last week will mean little leaves will be poking through the soil any day!

Rain

    I lied to you. I don't have a diagram. I can't for the life of me figure out how to get this sketch program to make pretty pictures of things and so it's going to have to wait until I can achieve the proper drunkenness to figure out how to make technology work. In the mean time I promise, there are rows and vines and trenches, TRENCHES! I know. Growing potatoes apparently involves digging a trench, I'm skeptical. I figured most of the garden already thinks I'm insane, so having a trench makes perfect sense in the grand scheme of thinks and at least if Queens ever decides to invade I'll either have potatoes or a place to hide, potentially both!


It's been thundering and raining on and off all day, which is of course what happens the day after I spend an hour and a half going back and forth to the spigot with a pilfered bottle of Dasani water, watering each and every plant. Now of course it would make more sense to use one of the three hoses laying around the garden, and normally I'd admit that sometimes I like to do things the difficult way, because I'm stubborn and my father's son, but no, each hose had its own special way of getting me dirty and wet. Before I tell you about the hoses let me preface this by saying for some reason although the city can't pressure the water enough to get a decent shower, they do a great job at making sure the Community Garden has water powerful enough to power wash paint off metal.

 The first hose I tried had rotted and decayed at the nozzle end so that the only way to prevent it from spraying out the side and soaking me, was to hold my hand over one end, while also keeping the nozzle sprayer held open with my other hand. If I didn't do both, I got sprayed from crotch to neck, so after turning on and off the water it looked like I quite enthusiastically pissed myself. The second hose, which I had to drag from the other side of the garden and untangle from a random fence had it's own delights in store for me. For some reason it had a splitter attached to the end and I couldn't figure out how to remove it without actually removing the end of the hose but I assumed I could just close off one side and screw on the nozzle to the other. That is of course how it would work with a hose that hadn't sat out all winter, instead there was literally no "closed" position for the splitter, so the only way I could use this hose involved holding one hand over the end of the "closed" end, which more kept the water from spraying in my face than stopped it from coming out of the hose. It also meant that where once I stood on solid dry ground, I now stood, in wet shoes, in a mud hole. The third hose I don't want to talk about. I should have taken the fact that it was tied up with a piece of fabric (who ties up a hose with a shirt sleeve?!) as a sign that I should've left it where it was, but instead while it worked perfectly fine, I'm pretty sure it's previous life involved pumping crude oil because I ended up covered in grease.

   So yeah, having left the garden day two looking like I pissed myself, rolled around in the mud and then changed the oil in my car, using a bottle on day 3 made a lot more sense, I promise. Thank god the forecast calls for more rain. We won't talk about how I might've asked my Dad if I should cover the rows of seeds with a towel to protect them from the pouring rain. I think moving forward, we should just accept that fact that instead of 28 cats I have plants and sometimes I worry.

The Ground is Hard

    If there’s something I remember about childhood forced labor, I mean gardening, it’s that the date when it’s usually safe to plant things outside happens to fall on Mother’s day. I remember this mostly because the Fire Department my father was a volunteer at also held a Mother’s Day plant sale, where usually the children of the department members would tag along/become convinced that unpaid labor was exciting, and help sell. Yeah, I’m pretty sure that it was also a borderline child labor sweatshop, but outside and for a good cause, so totally okay. If there’s one thing I excel at, (aside from emasculating men at the hardware store, which is a story for another day) it’s selling azaleas to people who don’t want or need them.

    Having said that, NYC is so large and full of heat absorbing concrete that it’s actually warmer than 45 minutes east of here, which is vaguely where I grew up. This means that the last frost date hits much earlier than outside of the city. Yay heat island effects! This also means that I was way behind schedule and now that I had a plot and a key, SHIT GOT REAL.
    The first afternoon I turned over, by hand the plot, which for reference is about 20 feet by 6 feet. Yeah by hand. I’m not even sure farmers do things by hand anymore, they have donkeys or machines or donkey machines to do these things. And this dirt was hard, rock hard, like spent the last year making sweet love to concrete and their love child was the ground I was hopelessly trying to make into black gold, hard. Black gold in the nice rich soil sorta way, not the Texas T, moving to Hollywood with granny sorta way. But hoe I did. Please note hoed side and non-hoed side, NOTICE HOW ONE SIDE LOOKS LIKE CONCRETE??

    Two hours later, covered in dirt, sweaty in impossible ways and my back, actually broken, it was PLANTING TIME. After Saturday afternoon was a bust, because apparently 2pm on Saturday actually means 3pm on Sunday, I had salved my angry/enraged/broken heart with good old-fashion consumerism. I BOUGHT PLANTS. Tomatoes and cucumbers and squash and seeds for all sorts of things, so I got to plantin', which did not help with the whole covered in dirt part. So dirty.

    Next time we'll have the grand reveal, I'm writing up a diagram of sorts and we'll have photos of PLANTS IN THE GROUND.

On Being Creepy

"Dear Brian, You are a nice and also very serious person. In study hall, I saw both sides. I know you can’t stand incompetence but I know that you will be patient until the world catches up." Love, Mrs. Harris 2003, High School Yearbook.

She at least got part of it right.

There are two things that I consider non-negotiable. Being regularly on time and doing things you say you’re going to do. In my ideal world everyone would do what they said they would and the bitches would be on time. The following is a tale of neither of those things happening and how sometimes for no reason at all and certainly not because I’m losing my cool, my left eyelid twitches. I assure you neither of these are related. I’m just training for the eyelid Olympics. We gotta beat those Russians. Yeah. Good. Glad we’re on the same page.

Alright, so last we left our dashing and brilliant hero, I, errr, I mean he,  he  was dealt the double blow of produce that literally was going to rot in the store AND barely three windows in which to grow any sort of vegetables that might salve his tomato craving broken heart. (That’s not to say he didn’t try, but that’s more a snifter of port and a cosy blanket sorta story, stay tuned!)

Anywho, I walk around my neighborhood a lot. I mean creepily a lot, I check out the neighbors yards, make judgey sideways glances at their paltry attempt at a front garden and take note of their wall hangings. Hi my name is Brian and sometimes I can’t help thinking that my neighbors yard needs, no, demands a handful of flower boxes and perhaps some better ground cover than concrete. I know. I have a problem. But all of this is okay because all these creepy neighborhood judge-fests are because I have to walk the dog. Girl loves to pee every two feet and I’m a sucker for a stroll. We know, we’re seeking help at our own pace, back off. So, on these walks I’ve noticed a few seemingly semi-public (as public as a 10 foot fence padlocked shut is) gardens. I knew I just had to get in one.

Alright new friends, now we’re ready to really share. Are you ready? I hope so. Something you should know about me: I am persistent. Imagine that Mom. Really, my mom, imagining her? On the side of the field, in the school office, at the doctors? She knows what she wants and dammit she’s going to get it. You give me a lady in a pantsuit with her eyes on the prize and the guts and gall to get it and I’m sold. It’s not that I don’t understand the word “no”, it’s just that until I hear that word accompanied with a reasonable and logical explanation I’MA HUNT YOU DOWN UNTIL I GET WHAT I NEED. I blame my upbringing, I know, I’m seeking help, but in the meantime crazybitchtigermom got himself a garden plot due to his persistence, so eat it.

For real though, the saga that was getting a plot in the garden was in itself a novella sized story of ridiculous. All told it took me 2 1/2 weeks of daily, if not twice daily, door knocking and bell ringing, a note posted to his front door, a note given to a neighbor to give to him and a note posted to the gate door to get a hold of the coordinator of the garden. I was clearly determined, fortunately having a scruffy mini schnauzer bopping along made my efforts seem less crazy garden stalker and more casual dog walker. Dogs really are the best way to completely normalize, bizarre behavior. Hoarding curb finds? Bring a dog! Being nosy and want to check the planning permits for a new building? Bring a dog! I know, I’m sick, very very sick.
The kicker of course comes that after finally getting a hold of him and being told “Meet at the garden at 2 on saturday” and after rearranging my weekend, HE INSTEAD WENT UPSTATE TO PICK UP HIS SON FROM COLLEGE. I know guys, at this point, both eyes, actually twitching. I won’t even mention that though his house phone had no answering machine and his cell phone voice mail box was full, the man knew what Text Messaging was AND responded, surprises all around.
 I’m still not entirely convinced I have a garden plot and instead am dreaming and will wake up, still creepily walking around the neighborhood, muttering about beefsteak tomatoes, dragging a now quite tired mini schnauzer.

Hi.

Hi. Hello. Hey there. Stay with me now, this is literally the first thing I’ve ever done on tumblr. I’m scared, you’re scared, let’s pour ourselves a big glass of wine and get through this together.
I live in Brooklyn, in a pre-war apartment that though it is blessed with space and closet space, is a bit short on the whole sunlight thing. Now, it isn’t dark by any means, don’t let me mislead you. I can grow a whole slew of houseplants, at points, my bathroom and bedroom have looked less like living spaces and more like an overgrown rainforest. I know, poor me, first world problems, party of me, humor me here though.
I grew up in suburbia on land that only one generation ago was virgin land. My father planted what seemed like acres and acres of tomatoes and cucumbers and bush beans, you name it, enough to feed us all summer and still we chased most of the neighbors around with surplus tomatoes and zucchini. What this meant is when I moved to Brooklyn I suffered from extreme shock. Do you know what they try to pass off as fresh produce in this town? It’s criminal.
Now, of course I get it, part of the deal we make in exchange for living in such a great city is we give up some of the luxuries in life: being able to sleep soundly every night, not knowing about the certain hot wet urine smell scent that permeates the subway, and paying less than $6.99 for a pint of ice cream. We accept these things for the greatness of New York. We do so gladly, or at least a scoff and a grumble and perhaps a sigh. There’s no place like New York and I love it, but a fella needs a tomato that doesn’t taste like plastic. What does he have to do, to have a nice sliced tomato sandwich that tastes like the garden? So far it seems, a lot.
That’s it. That was my first post. We made it! Now, pour yourself another glass of wine for a job well done, we earned it. Next time we’ll probably need shots though, we’ll be talking about the saga of joining my community garden.