August Garden

Our garden has really taken off recently. Actually, it's a little out of control. Everything is bigger and taller than I ever expected.

I found out that nasturtiums love the North. This is a climbing variety that is winding through the chain-link fence on one side of our garden, and on this side it's tumbling over the brick edging and climbing all over the yew bush.

Zinnias!

I don't think Chris is completely happy with how wild our garden has become, but I love it. Most of our backyard is concrete, and it makes me happy to see all of these plants bursting out of the garden space, even if it is a little unexpected.

I grew everything here from seeds. It was hard to picture exactly how the garden would turn out when I was planting tiny seeds back in April. I mean, I didn't think the Mammoth Russian sunflowers would actually grow to be 12 feet high...

The New York Botanical Garden

Welcome to the Bronx.

You didn't know it looked like this, did you? I didn't either. We went to the New York Botanical Garden to see their Edible Garden exhibit.

I liked this idea for a vegetable garden design:

Another design idea I loved, but didn't get a good photo of, was growing corn in a (huge) container along with peas or another climbing plant so the climber could use the corn as a support. We are definitely growing some corn next summer in our garden.

I also liked this idea for pruning (training?) an apple tree along a fence--easy picking!

This lotus was part of a beautiful exhibit of aquatic plants.

After the gardens we walked to the Little Italy of the Bronx, along Arthur Avenue, which was rumored to be waaaay better than the Little Italy section of Manhattan. We had a good dinner at an Italian restaurant, but my favorite place was the Madonia Brothers Bakery, where they fill your cannolis while you wait. If this place was in our neighborhood I would be in big trouble.

Next up will be some photos of our garden. It is doing well, thanks to Erik, who watered for us while we were on the Outer Banks.

A Garden in Brooklyn

I've been gardening away in our little backyard. I've been planting seeds, pulling weeds, watering, fertilizing, and transplanting little tomato and cucumber seedlings up to larger containers. We're not planting our vegetables in the ground because Greenpoint is on top of an oil spill. Apparently our neighborhood is a Superfund site. Although that kind of sounds like a good thing, because it has the word "super" in it, it's not because it means that we're on a national priorities list of hazardous waste sites. Yippeee! Seriously, I saw a map once and our apartment isn't right on top of the spill, but better safe than sorry. 

For a wasteland, the soil is fabulous! After planting seeds once the chance of frost had passed (not that long ago), we're finally seeing some results. Hopefully the following will serve as the "before" shots and I'll have photos of blooms to share in the summer. 

The sunflowers are off to a good start. 

The Hyacinth bean vine is just starting to take off. I was unsuccessful with my first planting, but then I discovered the trick to germination is soaking the seeds for 24 hours prior to planting. 

My favorite are the nasturtiums, which seem to love New York so far. When I grew these in North Carolina they did much better with a little shade, and really took off when it cooled off in the fall. 

Before we moved in our landlady had planted the garden with some rose bushes, shrubs, and an evergreen tree. After we moved in she planted a few more roses for us and they are all doing well and about to bloom. Here's one of the established rose bushes. 

I've really been working hard on the garden, and I was ready to take all the credit for the results when the vine next door started to bloom. The lot next door to ours was obviously tended to by a gardener at some point. There are containers lining the fence and a garden plot that must have been carefully cared for once. But the only human activity I've seen over there has been limited to a smoke break or mop bucket emptying by one of the Yummy Taco (a terrible restaurant around the corner on Manhattan Ave.) employees. So my pride in my work was really put to shame when this showed up next door. 

We're making arrangements

Today we experimented a little with arranging some of the flowers I'm growing for the wedding. This is one of the fun wedding planning details that I need to invest my time and energy in, instead of letting Miss Manners* get me down. 

I need to be more vigilant about cutting the blooms, because removing them means the plant will put more energy into creating new blooms. Plus, we can surround ourselves with beautiful, homegrown fresh flowers in the meantime. 

Remember the seeds that I planted? Almost all of the containers are blooming now. We have zinnias and globe amaranths. The only seeds that aren't blooming yet are the cornflowers and coneflowers. I love the color combinations in these arrangements. 

My mom did this arrangement. It was her idea to use the spiky greenery and the thyme. I love it! I took this into work so everyone can enjoy it. Maybe it will help us all get through this last week of August. 

The zinnias are supposed to bloom through the fall. To be sure we have some nice blooms for the wedding I need to do a second seed planting. I planted half of these in early June and the other half in late June. I don't want the plants to be spent by November 8! 

*This book really has a lot of very sensible advice. Advice like: the wedding is not a show you're putting on, the wedding day should not be the best day of your life, the wedding day is not just the bride's day; are all ideas that I can get behind. Only when I got to the chapter on engraved invitations, and how engraved was the only way to go, and how gauche any other option would be that I got a little P.O.'ed with Miss Manners. Which isn't very mannerly, now is it?