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Garden by Gardenfreude

A couple weeks ago, I had the pleasure of visiting the garden of new friends in the neighborhood, WT and Erich; I met them at our last WHA blogger social. They are the forces behind Gardenfreude, a terrific Astoria blog about food, health, gardening, design, and knitting. I hear they are excellent knitters and make some amazing sweaters and things over the winters (I, on the other hand, can make a scarf and a hat, but that’s about it). They are also passionate gardeners, and we three connected over gardening and food especially.

Their garden is quite large, especially for NYC standards. They have an arrangement with their neighbors to use their yard, which gives them a lot of land to work with. In face, they currently only use half the yard, but have gotten the green light to use the rest of the space, so they have plans to expand next spring.

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Garden Update – Sprouts and Starts

This past week I started planting my greens in containers on the back deck.  They are easy to grow and they progress pretty quickly. The idea of having fresh greens right outside my back door is really appealing, too.

I’m happy to report that all my greens have sprouted! The thyme has also sprouted, and this year I’m determined to not let it fry in the sun. I am impressed and happy that leftover seeds from 2010 sprouted, too.  That would be the lettuces and braising mix that I got from the Hudson Valley Seed Library.

lettuce sprouts
Lettuce sprouts
braising mix sprouts
Braising mix sprouts
sylvetta arugula sprouts
Sylvetta arugula sprouts

Thyme sprouts are so cute!

thyme sprouts
Thyme sprouts

I’ve also got tomato starts and peppers that can go in the ground soon.  I am excited about eventually trying all these different peppers and tomatoes. Here’s hoping I have a bumper crop.

tomatoes and peppers
Silver fir and stupice tomato, and peppers

My garden plot downstairs is also doing well – I’ve got two tomato plants in there, and have direct sowed some basil seeds.  I also planted some “bees friend”, calendula, and borage.  I’m hopeful that this will bring me more bees to help pollinate!

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Garden Update – My, How You’ve Grown!

Thanks to all this recent heat, my garden is coming along – the tomatoes especially are enjoying the hot weather  they are sporting nice healthy greenery and thicker stems.   I was able to get out early on Sunday and do some weeding, which makes a world of difference!

garden long shot

My tomatoes have started to take off!  From top to bottom – Amish Paste, Prudens Purple, Silver Fir.

Tomato Collage

I found two tomato volunteers while weeding!  One is bigger and healthier than the other, but I hope some daily TLC will help the straggler along.

volunteer tomato

volunteer tomato 2

I’m really looking forward to seeing how these little guys will grow up.

My cucumbers have flowers!!

cucumber flowers

These four plants are coming along.

4 lemon cukes

I got to plant something new this weekend, too – a beautiful little spicy basil plant, compliments of my friend Harlan.

spicy basil in the ground

My containers are doing well, too.  Clockwise from top left: lavender flower, more spicy basil, thyme sprouts, tastoi.

container collage

Because of the hot weather, my arugula sent up flowers for about a week; if I had let it continue, it would have gone to seed.  I harvested the remaining leaves and turned under the roots and stems (thanks to fellow gardener Jen for the inspiration).  I’ll plant lettuce or braising mix in its place this weekend.

arugula on its way out

Finally, there is a very cool decrepit outbuilding on the property – I love how the ivy is growing up it.

ivy

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Garden Update

My garden now exists fully in two spaces – upstairs on the deck outside the dining room, and downstairs in the yard, in a corner plot.  Being able to plant in the ground is a huge deal here in NYC, so I am really grateful to have this space.  For now, though, I’ll focus on what is growing up on the deck.

My arugula is growing like crazy!

arugula

It seems to like the soil it’s in and its placement on the deck.  It’s constantly sprouting new growth, so I expect to have baby arugula all summer.  I like to eat it with a simple vinaigrette made with olive oil, fresh squeezed orange juice, salt and pepper.  For vinaigrettes containing citrus, I find it imperative to use freshly pressed/squeezed juice – it tastes fantastic, for one, and you bypass the whole pasteurization thing present in ready-made juice at the supermarket.

As an aside, have you heard about pasteurized eggs?  So strange.  I can’t imagine wanting to eat them.

There are two herbs growing in my planter that I did not plant myself.  One is cilantro – I found it growing one day and have cared for it ever since.  I love love love cilantro, so I’m especially happy about this.

cilantro

The other is lavender, which I originally thought was tarragon.

lavendar

It smells amazing – not sure what I’ll do with it, apart from simply enjoying it with my eyes and nose.  Perhaps honey lavender ice cream is in store for us this summer, or some sort of cocktail.  I’ll have to look into it.

I started a couple of things from seed this past week, and they are in the initial sprouting stage.  First, I planted thyme in a small pot – I did this so that I can transport it into the house when it gets cold in the fall.  Thyme is my favorite herb to pair with winter squash, so it will be nice to have some fresh thyme when the time (ha ha!) comes to start roasting squash again.

thyme sprouts

I also planted tatsoi next to the cilantro.  Tatsoi is a very tasty asian green, similar to bok choi, and is very high in calcium.   I love growing greens because they sprout so quickly!  I’m looking forward to eating the tatsoi, perhaps even mixed with baby arugula for a nice fresh salad.

new tatsoi sprouts

And finally, the fruit trees are full of abundant green leaves!  The apricot tree isn’t going to fruit this year, but I have spied a few plums.  Here’s one of the trees from today:

trees

I just love all this greenery these days!  Soon, I’ll write about what’s growing in the ground.

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Gardening Progress

I thought I’d show you some pictures of what I’m growing these days.  I’ve grown everything from seed, and some things are progressing faster than others.  Right now the plants are in containers but I’ll transplant some of them into the ground or into bigger containers.  I am so fortunate to have some garden space at my current home, plus a large deck on which to do some container gardening.  Living in NYC, it is awesome to have this open space right outside my door.

Almost all seeds came from the Hudson Valley Seed Library, of which I’m a member, except for the Silver Fir tomatoes, which were shared with me at an urban gardening gathering last month.

First, my arugula.  It’s coming along quite well!  I’ll be keeping it in this container and hope to eat it as baby arugula; I’m not fond of arugula that is tool big or old.  I actually tried one of the sprouts yesterday morning and it was delicious – very green with some peppery bitterness.  It tastes like the real deal!

arugula long shot

arugula sprouts

I’ll have to thin it, and will eat the thinned baby leaves, yum.

I’m also growing lemon cucumbers, which is an heirloom variety of cucumber.

lemon cucumbers

These guys live in my kitchen window right now, and are getting big enough to transplant soon.  I also have a pot outside with two lemon cucumber plants, but these in the window are growing faster.  Go figure.  I always think of my grandfather when I consider lemon cucumbers.  I think he’d be happy that I’m growing them.

I’m also growing ground cherries and tomatillos.  These guys are slow growers and are still in the baby sprout stage:

ground cherry sprouts

tomatillo sprouts

Finally, I have four kinds of tomatoes growing, all heirlooms – Yellow Pear, Amish Paste, Pruden’s Purple, and Silver Fir.  I’ve planted them in paper pots (made from newspaper), and am in love with using these pots.  When I put them into the ground or a container, I can simply cut out the bottom and plop the entire thing into the ground – the newspaper will compost right into the ground.

tomatoes

I have plans to plant thyme, parsley, basil, and some braising greens.  Also some flowers – cosmos and butterfly flowers.  I think it would be nice to attract butterflies!

It’s been a lot of fun growing everything from seed.   It’s magical, the way they sprout up and then grow their second set of leaves.  It’s also the most economical way of acquiring plants and growing food.  I’m really looking forward to seeing them all continue to get bigger and then fruit.  And to eat it all!