The Gods of Curb Finds.

Sometimes, I think to myself "How the hell did I get here". And I don't mean that in a geographical sense or anything like that. What I mean is "How the hell did I find myself dragging a wheelbarrow, half in the bag, down a block in Brooklyn, mosquito bitten,  to scavenge flagstone from a house reno?"

Let me explain. Today I had some running around to do, and briefly, while I was home, brought the dog out for a walk and while we were out happened upon a lovely pile of flagstones, they might also be called slate, but they're thick slate, not the measly stuff you slate things with, but the tough thick stuff that you walk the street in hooker heels with.  Sadly, neither without the time or any fellow gardener to snatch the stones and schlep them back to the garden I (foolishly) placed my hope in the gods of the curb finds and went on with my day, hopeful that I'd be able to dash back once I got home.

The Gods of the Curb Finds are a vicious and vengeful sort. They will not hold stuff, they will not give what you beg to find. They are fickle and they are cruel. They will bless you with the discovery of a gorgeous shelving unit ONLY when you have your mini schnauzer (who loves to stop and smell EVERYTHING) and they will laugh and enjoy the sight of you as you invoke your Momma Bear strength to carry said shelving unit with one arm while Miss Daisy smells every rock and tree and creature. And despite knowing how cruel the Gods were, after walking a friend who had come over to try some of the tomato jam that I spent 4 hours making, with some Hungarian Rose, I ran to the garden to borrow a wheelbarrow to ferry the stones back. WELL, as we enjoy collecting (hoard) dead plants and weeds, we also in the garden like to hoard wheelbarrows. Literally, there are 5 wheelbarrows in the back. None of them have inflated tires, one has an entirely flat tire AND NO HANDLES. I know. One day I'm going to drag them out to the curb. ONE DAY.

And so after all that, and doing a pretty damn good (horrible) job at walking (dragging) Barrow (yep, I shortened that, we're on first name basis after our ordeal) down the street, guess what was gone from the curb. Back on the list of curb wants goes flagstones. Sigh. I will go comfort myself (and my mosquito bite covered legs) with Camembert and Tomato Jam and Hungarian Rose. Life is hard.

This post is brought to you by a giant glass of wine.

I found a body in the garden today.

No. I'm serious. I found a dead body in a plastic grocery bag in the front garden today, tossed over the fence.

What sort of body? The world will never know, unless of course one of you, braver souls than I or two other members of the garden and two of New York's finest, want to untie the tripled bagged garbage bag and open that sucker up.

I joked, and still do, that this community garden is straight out of the movie The Funny Farm. Last week, lightening struck a tree in the back, today I found a body or chunk of body, a hooker's arm, or maybe Fluffy. I really have no idea. I'm terrified what will happen tomorrow.

Basically, all week I've smelled a sort of sweet stench of decay, what I imagine (and now know) that death smells like. I first blamed it on the girl next to my plot. I knew she was (finally) convinced that she needed to fertilize her plants and figured (feared) she had gone the blood and bone meal route. Terrible idea mostly because both of those just draw in our furry rodent friends and they both (surprise!) smell like death, cause well that's how dehydrating blood and pulverizing bone works. I was absolutely convinced everytime the wind blew a cloud of death towards me that it was her. Absolutely convinced, but there was just something missing, a piece of the puzzle, missing, nothing near her plot smelled like death, I even smelled the dirt, nothing, yet still DEATH.

Well today I had to get into the garden and get some WORK done. Having sent my friend packing on her cross country road trip and the garden in desperate need of some LOVE, especially after yesterday's frenzied 'THE GREEN BEANS ARE DONE AND OVERWHELMING ME AND SO THEY MUST GO' fest, I got down to business. Almost immediately DEATH smelled everywhere and still convinced that my neighbor, in her imagined free love and crunchy granola ways, brought the smell of death into the garden, I just tried to get on with my day and breathe out of my mouth.

I'm not sure what caused me to look up, or how a bag buried in the branches of a shrub in the front garden caught my eye, but instantly I knew. I had found the source. Well, long story short after getting two other members who lived nearby to come help and then collectively having a moment of WHAT IF IT'S A BODY we called the precinct who told us it was definitely a 911 call. I think the 911 operator thought I was insane, "Yes, no it's in a grocery bag, but it's double bagged and smells like death, there are flies everywhere, so I assume it's something that's not alive anymore. No, I have no intention of opening it, cat or not a cat, but it could also not be a cat and in that case I'd feel guilty chucking someone's bits out without calling someone whose job it is to open bags of mysterious smelly things." She told us help would be on its way and to call back if things change. Sure Lady, if the bag starts coming to life we'll call you back and let you know the zombie apocalypse started. Right.

The police eventually pulled up and we were told to bag it and let sanitation take care of it. I decided not to suggest 'IT MIGHT BE A BODY' because it's never a good idea to suggest to the police that the bag that smells like death, could have a body in it, because it might and then you're suspect number 1 and well I still had a cucumber trellis to stake. Some surprises are better left un-had.

In other news, my tomatoes have fungus and my legs are covered in mosquito bites. Like I said, this post is brought to you by a giant glass of wine (and Nicole, thanks for the wine!)

Mission: Accomplished.

It's always been about the tomatoes. Unless you grow tomatoes in your backyard, or if you live on a farm (and in that case, why haven't you invited me??), you just can't get a good tomato. Tomatoes you get in the grocery store are either a dull red that are hard as a rock or a beautiful red that are mushy as hell, whichever way, they're at best tasteless and at worst, plastic flavored. Unless you have some magic grocery store produce guy who conjures produce from heaven, those are your choices for tomatoes. It's really a consequence of the modern Agro-industrial complex, which demands year round produce in huge yields all at once. Most commercial tomatoes are picked green and pumped with ethylene which causes them to turn red, often times while they're in transit or far from the farm. Further, because tomatoes in the wild (like most plants) grow and produce fruit overtime and not all at once, modern industrially produced tomatoes have been breed to produce fruit all at once. What this has created is a hard, tasteless tomato. Now, of course, Farmer's Markets which offer fresher and tastier tomatoes than grocery stores, exists, they are both obscenely expensive and not as fresh as walking two blocks, picking a tomato off the vine and coming home and eating that fucker. 

And that's exactly what I did Monday night. My very good friend Nicole, who writes an awesome blog about vegan food and travel came to visit for a week from Berlin and while the tomato I planted so it would have fruit to eat when she was here, wasn't ready, two others were!

 Nom Nom Nom Nom
 It will be a matter of a few weeks before there's an epic avalanche of tomatoes and I'll be canning and jarring tomato yums well into the night. 

We made a really awesome pasta dish and while I'm totally game for pickling and preserving and showing that stuff here, I'm going to jet you over to Nicole's blog for the delicious tomato yumness that we made. You can find it here.

I'm having a moment

I'm having a moment.

I am not a very organized person, but I like to say (and to an extent, believe) that my chaos is planned. Growing up, as a result of my parenting, of course, my room was a mess, a royal mess. Like if the Queen was caught in an orgy, high on coke, dressed in a furry outfit, mess. But there were paths, I knew vaguely what was where, albeit crumpled on the floor, there was order in my chaos.

Now certainly as I've grown up, I've become better at periodically battling back the mess and making more order of the chaos. I like piles. Piles make any thing look more organized. It's perhaps a crutch to keep me from freaking out at the chaos, because in some small way, there is order, my order, in all the noise.

This is not the case with the garden right now.

I believed the cucumbers would stop at the top of the trellis. Where they would go after that, I have no idea, but they would stay where they were told to be, piled if you will, and though sprawling, they would be ordered.

I believed that the green beans would grow quickly and compactly, ordered between the rows of tomatoes, neatly in front of the potatoes and then they would be done and we could move on with the summer.

I believed that the patty pan squash would grow up and swirl neatly out, displacing the beans and the arugula, as their own season faded, politely taking their places, that were kept warm by them, earlier in the summer.

I believed that the potatoes would grow tall, flower and then fade, leaving behind mountains of potatoes, ready for the fall.

The tomatoes, I had such faith in, there was to be this genuis method of staking, weaving twine between the vines to hold them straight up, compactly and uniformly, held taunt by stakes placed at either end. They would reach upwards and be graceful and weave themselves effortlessly through the twine.

These are all things I believed. I had faith. There would be piles of vegetables and it would be ordered. I would conquer Mother Nature and make order of her chaos.

I will pause now and allow you to quiet down with your laughter. Done now? Great.

As I'm sure you've guessed by now, the garden is anything but ordered. Shit has literally gone bananas. I've taken to just walking through the garden staking plants up and tying back plants with twine and bamboo poles. Trying desperately to pile plants on top of themselves. It's not really working. Yesterday, in a fit, I ripped out two basil plants that I had planted next to the patty pan squashed, but that had now been subsumed by the squash. It was entirely reactionary; I put them in another part of the garden, but today they looked miserable. I can't blame them. 

Of course, this is a blessing, an actual gift, but it would have been nice if perhaps stuff stayed politely piled on top of themselves. Neatly. Really, the only thing that is at all ordered is the little herb garden I've planted on the side, in neat little bunches.

Tomorrow I'll have a really awesome post, where I'm not having a nutter panic attack episode. I promise. Stay tuned.

Bam: Canned Beans.

Today was a really great day. It's been pouring here on and off. One minute it's bright and sunny and the next it's the end of the world and you can slice the rain with a knife. The rain is good for the garden and the drop in temperature means that the tomatoes will set more fruit. They get very annoyed when it gets hotter than 80-85 and refuse to do anything. Me too, Mr and Ms. Tomato, Me Too. So during the burst of sun I dashed into the garden and decided the green beans had gotten big enough and it was time for pickin'. I got nearly a shopping bag worth of beans out of the first spit of beans that I planted way back in May, and there's still some nearly mature beans (which I'll probably save until my friend Nicole gets here) and a bunch of little baby beans. This harvest means I'll have fully recouped my money for any bean seeds I bought. If I haven't mentioned by now, with the odd cucumber I've gotten out of the cucumber vines, I've also recouped all the money I spent on cucumber plants. So far Mr Garden is pulling his weight.

What really made the day great though is I finally was able to accomplish one of the goals I had set out to do with this garden, pickle and jar things. Now I've made a couple of quick pickles with the few cucumbers I've gotten, but I'm talking water bath, mason jars, the full deal. A few of weeks ago I had bought as\ really awesome book (Food in Jars by Marisa McClellan, who has a really awesome website and whose recipe for Dilly Beans I used). Although I spent some of the later afternoon whining to my sister about being too tired (yes I complained about being tired to a mother of a 10 day old, either I'm a very brave man or my sister is a very forgiving soul, perhaps a nice combination of both), I decided tonight would be the night. And so bam:

Dilly Beans. Now I've got to wait 2 weeks until the flavor fully develops but I'm a sucker for anything dill flavored, so I'm excited to try.

Right now I'm debating how much more to show on here of what I can, just because I like to give canned stuff as part of my holiday presents to folks (I like giving DIY sorts of gifts more than just buying crap, it feels more heart-centered). We'll see. I know I will do a post or two of the tomatoes I can and it looks like by the end of the month I'll be swimming in tomatoes, so expect that at least.

Wonderful things.

This blog post is incredibly delayed. So much has happened in the garden and in life in the last week, a single post won't even do it justice. So as to not rank anything in importance, I'll start with the beginning of the week.

After putting all the tomato, squash and zucchini plants in the food pantry plot (henceforth known as FPP) and sowing rows and rows of beans and radishes and digging a trench for potatoes, the next couple days were the most trying since I finally got a hold of the garden gate key 'way back' in May. An extremely hot and sunny day left all the plants withered and dead looking and the earth cracked over and dusty. I was pretty heart broken and felt like the run of success that the original plot had been, had suddenly came to a screeching halt. Perhaps it's the New Englander in me, but I often am cautious about glorifying too much success, for fear of the old line, 'pride comes before the fall' being proven again. I was therefore, I thought quite lucky that a good soaking, a few prayers and fingers crossed perked up all the plants and after a week of some TLC (of both the Waterfalls variety and the tender lovin' care sort), the FPP is looking pretty great. The Potatoes have sprouted, the radishes and beans have all germinated and the Tomatoes, squash and zucchini seem to be taking, so in about 15-20 days, we'll have out first basket for food to bring to the pantry, radishes!

Here's a picture of the FPP from this afternoon:

More so, this past weekend I had the extreme honor of traveling north to see my Aunt marry her now wife, who she has been with for 17 years! The wedding took place just outside Augusta, which isn't very far from where my mother's family is from. This is the first trip that I can actually remember going on and it was a bit jarring and centering all at the same time. Inland Maine, where Augusta and my ancestral home is located, is centered in the middle of the paper and wood industry and for many, it meant good union protected jobs. Up until the Paper Mills took advantage of the slump the American economy went through in the 1970's and 1980's, and busted the Unions, a job in the mill meant a secure and permanent position in Maine's middle class. What exists there now is just terrible poverty. My great Grandparents' house looks run down, beautiful Victorian homes, adorned woodwork, sit with peeling paint next to double-wide trailers. It's just all very sad and in a way interrupted my previous imagination of a sort of classic New England image I had of where I came from. More importantly I think though is the resolve I also saw while driving through the backwoods of Maine. So many gardens, huge gardens! Each tucked into the yards houses in every neighborhood and along most every road, the realization that for many, gardening wasn't some frivolous hobby, but the only way of putting and keeping food on the table. It was a good reminder of the ancient faith that gardening really is and I am grateful for it.

Perhaps what is most exciting though is I became an Uncle on Monday! My Sister and Brother-in-law welcomed into their family a little girl named Caroline Mary, who is literally the cutest baby I've ever seen. I know. Everyone says that and I won't lie, I did for a second worry that there was the (unlikely) chance that maybe the baby would have features she'd have to grow into, or come out covered in hair or any a plethora of typical wrinkly newborn baby things, and I'd have to spend the next couple of months dodging the SHE'S SO CUTE line, but seriously this baby is absolutely gorgeous. I'm not entirely convinced that my sister gave birth to her and instead perhaps she took part in a con of the entire family, carrying an increasingly inflated basketball under her shirt and went out on Monday morning to Babies R Us and picked out the cutest baby they had. That's what they sell at Babies R Us right? Babies? I just assume.

And although my original plot has suddenly taken a back seat to all stuff babies, it too has exciting things happening. In just the weekend I was away, the arugula has given me another harvest of leaves, which equaled two dinner salads, the beets have finally gotten to the point of being thinned out (which'll happen tomorrow perhaps), the potatoes are just ridiculous now and have started showing flower buds, which is a good sign that little baby potatoes are happening below, the tomatoes all have at least 5 tomatoes or varying size and development, one plant alone has 21 tomatoes ranging from tennis ball size downwards, the cucumbers have exploded in growth, all the plants are covered in the yellow flowers and baby cucumbers, which mean cucumber sandwiches and quick pickles wont be too far away. The pattypan squash are HUGE and the male flowers have started flowers, and that means in a week or so, they'll be joined by the female flowers, which means I'll soon be pickling and jarring them too and the green beans all have purple/white flowers on them and come up to above my knee! Also, the little side garden full of herbs and a more arugula and romaine have come along nicely!

Here's a few pictures:

 Future cucumber salad!

This little baby has 21 tomatoes!

 

If you were curious of what potatoes look like (and what my pinky finger looks like) here it is! Future Gnocchi and roasted potatoes!

Baby beets, which to be honest I'm not particularly thrilled at their progress. I might pull them all up and just plant another succession of green beans. LAME


What an awesome week!