Lettuce is my Wool Sweater

When I was very young (let's say seven or eight but don't hold me to it) I watched a film on Sesame Street about how a wool sweater is made.  It had a charming narrative: two little girls on a farm tell their mother they want sweaters.  The mother has the father shear sheep, she spins and dyes yarn, and knits them cute little sweaters.  At the end, the girls are wearing their sweaters and are are very, very pleased.

The reason I still remember that film is because I was struck, even now, at how it was all done at home, from start to finish.  The girls simply said they wanted sweaters and the farm, their home, produced them.  They could actually point out the sheep the wool they're wearing came from.  If I had wanted a banana, the most I'd have to do is walk to the kitchen and peel it.  The most my mother would have to do is walk to the store and carry it home.  Which reminds me - there was a commercial in the 80's for Bermuda tourism... or was it Barbados?  Maybe it was neither, I don't remember.  Anyway, it was about a two second shot of a little girl, reaching out from her school bus to pick a banana off a tree and the voiceover said something like, "...grab breakfast to go..." to demonstrate how simple and lush the surroundings were.

It's examples like these that make me wish what I wore or what I ate, or any object touching upon my quotidian activities was more basic, closer to its origins.  Having said all this, I've been racking my brain for the last hour trying to write an elegant transition to what this whole post was supposed to be about, which is, if I'm making a sandwich or something, it's kinda cool to just go downstairs and pick off a few leaves instead of having to buy a whole damn head of lettuce.

Here they are pre-pick:

Here they are pre descent into my belly:

They're Here!

Whenever I get an idea to do something, it normally means I have to buy something to carry out this idea.  I was reading an urban gardening book I borrowed from the library, and it mentioned liquid fertilizer.  The section I was reading wasn't particularly about growing edible plants so I got concerned that the fertilizer they were recommending might not be safe for herbs and such.  Whenever I get product curiosity I normally head to Amazon.

Before I continue, a disclaimer.  Yes I put links up to certain products sold on Amazon.  No, I haven't sold out and am allowing evil to run rampant around my humble little blog with hardly readership by letting Amazon or any other commercial venture post remotely relevant ads indiscriminately.  The links are an easy way for me to show you what product I'm talking about.  They're usually items I have, or am thinking of buying, and if I do have them, it will likely be that I really did order the thing from Amazon.  So if I think something sucks, I'll say so, but I'll still put the link up because I want you to see what I'm talking about.  

I searched for organic fertilizer and came across this.  It's not liquid and I had no idea how it was supposed to be used before I bought it.  Turns out you're supposed to mix a cup and a half of the stuff with 10 cubic feet of soil.  Well, I don't even have 3 square feet of gardening space so I wasn't sure how to spread the stuff out at first.  Plus, it seems you have to do it before you plant.  Oh well.  I'm still going to try mixing the stuff with the organic soil I bought to try out a second wine box bed.  

"Did you say you bought organic soil?" you might ask.  Oh yes I did.  Just one bag of it, which might be exactly what I need to fill the other 6-bottle wine box.  I want to see if rich organic soil really will make a difference in growing herbs than the top soil my co-op laid down.  For now I tried mixing a little bit of the fertilizer with a little bit of the soil and made a big mess by my door.  I hope I don't clog my dustbuster.  

Wine Box Experiment

Last week I discovered some db had put rocks in my plot.  Well, I had planned on putting a border between my neighbor's plot and mine anyway, since there's supposed to be a small pathway between us.  Still, no need to do it for me, thanks very much.

It meant I'd have to move my strawberries and a few other things, which was very well, since I was going to do some wine box experimenting.  A friend and former colleague of mine from my last job at a wine company told me he was using wooden wine cases to grow herbs in his Brooklyn backyard.  I had a few, so I thought this would be a good way to do mini raised beds (my ambition next year is to turn my whole plot into a raised bed).

These are the boxes I had to work with.  Two single magnum boxes, perfect for herbs.

And this one, a 6-bottle case, I decided to use for the strawberries.

It was not easy.  First of all, to make room for the path, I had to remove the lettuces, both strawberries, and three perilla.  Then it took me a while to decide where to place them all.  Should I rearrange everything?  Strategically place those I would access more than others closer - but how would I know when they'd get big enough?  Plant based on size?  This was hurting my brain.  I think I must have stood there for about two hours staring, shuffling, bending down, until I decided fuck it, I'll only move whatever I have to, replant the strawberries and herbs in boxes and call it a day.  By the time I was finished, I'd worked up a good sweat.

Here's what it looks like now:

I kept some of the rocks the offender left, except I placed the tops of my magnum cases, essentially flat wooden boards, below the rocks to provide more of a straight guideline.  I moved the cukes to the corner next to the criss-cross border (bottom left) so they could climb it as they grew.  The strawberries are now in the 6-pack Sassicaia box, and the herbs, rosemary, cilantro, and basil are now in the Monfortino case, leaving a little bit of room for some mint I'm getting from my friend Jennie who in turn will receive some of my perilla.  My lettuces are now next to the chives I planted in the Finca Dofi box, although I fear, a little too close to each other.  The squirrels have already gone at the newly moved eggplants, digging little holes where they shouldn't.

Only problem now is there's a huge gap in the middle.  I was going to scatter the perilla there, but I just didn't have the lower back strength.  If I can give away enough perilla, maybe I can do find something else to plant.  I've been thinking of getting more herbs: sage, chervil, marjoram, thyme, tarragon.  I do have one more 6-pack box, and I ordered some organic gardening soil on Amazon I'm still waiting for (see link above).  Maybe I'm getting more into this than I expected, but I'm (foolishly?) optimistic about my little plot.  Here are some more pictures.


I did a bad job replanting the chives but they are so hard to hold down!  Either the roots are sticking up, or I'd have covered all the green parts.  It was hard to line them up straight.  I think the lettuce is too close.

Strawberries in their new home.  I left room on one side in case I get more.

A close up.  It might be easier to have them in a box when I wrap wire mesh around them to protect them from the squirrels.

Herb box:

Cukes repositioned:

Evil squirrel holes near my repositioned perilla.  It's hard to see here because of the shadows but trust me, they're evil I tell ya!

The rest of the perilla are doing just fine:

WTF?!

Gardening is supposed to be relaxing.  But when you are dealing with portioned out spaces among a group of people, inequalities and liberties taken are inevitable.  So far, I haven't had any problems... until now.  Someone put rocks in my plot.  I think I know who did it but I won't dwell on that.  All I'm going to say is I would never, ever put shit in anyone else's plot or touch their plants.  I'm really careful to avoid any misunderstandings that I refrain from even storing my tools in the communal storage bins.  Not happy with people putting things on my side of the border.  Enough said.

To end this post on a positive note, here's a picture of some lettuce I picked over the weekend.  I washed them and made a salad:

RIP Ian Curtis

This has nothing to do with gardening, but I thought I'd mention that 30 years ago today, Ian Curtis hanged himself in his own kitchen at the age of 23.  His music was unlike any sound at the time: pure, introspective, angry, and seminal for a completely new sound to come.  It's incredibly sad and a waste, but I also think, inevitable, given his situation and the depression he suffered.  Joy Division is my favorite band, and when you listen to their music today, as well as that of Warsaw, their first incarnation, it still contains the same purity of words and sound, lacking crappy adulterations such as overmixing that seems to be de rigueur in pop music today.

Did I mention it's tiny?

Love her or hate her (I'm meh), I admit I went to Martha Stewart's site to get some ideas on what to plant when I joined the gardening club.  (If there are hipper sources for this kind of thing I don't know them.)  I pictured myself surrounded by a cornucopia of heirloom tomatoes, rainbows of peppers, cukes and squash of all sizes, and couldn't decide from the dizzying selection of seeds from Martha's recommended list of purveyors.  Then when the garden was divided up and I saw the location and size of my plot, I was crestfallen.  It's not that I got the worst of the bunch - the plots were divided up pretty much equally.  Mine is in the middle, not getting the most amount of sun (those most east get the last bit before it disappears behind our building after noon), but not getting the least either (some don't get any).  I'd say, on a sunny day, I get about three or four hours, but once  11:00 rolls around my little guys sit in the shade.

So back to Martha.  This is what I wanted.  Instead, my plot is less than 3'x3', next to a chain fence which I fear, doesn't protect my little ones from getting peed on, by human or beast.  Although her vegetable garden guide is really informative, it put me off at first because it was clearly written for people who have more space and resources.  I wasn't going to buy hoes and buckets and test the soil for pH and drainage.  I certainly don't have a tool shed in which I could grow seedlings under lights and there's no room in my apartment for that setup.

Feeling a little dejected, I closed Martha's site and stared out my window at my plot below.  I pictured my neighbors with shiny gardening implements, expertly caring for their plots, knowing how to organically do this and that.  I noticed some people getting started in early March.  Flowers and greens started showing up little by little and I stared at my piece of dirt wondering how the hell I was going to grow anything.

Then my mother called me with a lot of enthusiasm in her voice, telling me how this market by her in Flushing was selling seedlings of the kind of vegs my grandmother used to grow.  I wasn't feeling it, but she came by carefully transporting the little ones on the 7 then dragging me out to get cheapo garden tools, only the bare necessities.  It didn't matter that I didn't have a trowel with a handle carved by an obscure aborigine tribe sold by an uber-upscale boutique in London.  Did my $2 trowel with the plastic handle suck?  Yeah.  But it got the job done.  My grandfather salvaged sticks and string to use in his garden from his walks around the neighborhood.  My grandmother cut her chives from the garden with the same pair of scissors I used to make school projects.  Maybe it's ghetto, but then, I live in one.  Sort of.

As I continued making my visits to the garden, I started meeting other gardeners.  Most confessed they didn't really know what they were doing either.  I saw someone with her kids using an old spoon to dig.  Another watered his plot with a 2-liter Coke bottle.  This made me feel better.  I hope this gardening community keeps its rustic ways.

It's rainy today so no need to make a trip down with the watering can.  I took this picture this morning, but it looks the same now, except not as much traffic on the Williamsburg:

This is my view looking down onto the garden.  the one in the middle is mine, close to the fence:

This is a wider view.  On the right is another section for composting.  I only just got involved in it this past weekend and helped build the second round of compost bins (the first one I missed out on), these being made of discarded pallets and chicken wire.

Five Weeks Later

These pictures were taken two weeks ago when we had a super hot weekend. I don't like hot weather and I usually cheer on clouds and rain when they're in the forecast, but like a baby (sort of), my little plot has changed me (sort of).

Anyone who knows me, not even well, knows that I love cloudy weather. I just don't like bright sunlight shining down on me causing me to squint, even through dark glasses. I especially don't like bright sunlight shining down on me when it's particularly hot. I can't understand how people like it, unless they enjoy turning their skin into brown leather. A few years ago, I even developed a bizarre sun allergy that creates horrible blotchy little red bumps that itch like crazy if I've been in the sun for more than five minutes.

But now that I have my little plot, I don't hate bright sun so much, because I want it to shine down on my seedlings and help them grow. These pictures were taken after I'd come home from a sailing lesson that hot weekend (another long story, but in a nutshell I'm trying to be more outdoorsy - it was uncomfortable as hell baking in the sun on that sailboat) and I was surprised to see everyone doing so well, especially the lettuce. So although I cursed the hot sun that burned my shoulders through my dark navy shirt (!) I also thanked it for helping my little ones grow.

The lettuce in particular were looking quite healthy:

Next to them are two strawberry plants. (I had some room after I'd given some perilla away.) When my mother brought them to me, they had tiny berries. Then the evil squirrels got to them and won't give a chance for more to grow. I have to get some sort of sticks and bit of wire mesh for protection.

The perilla grew nicely as well. Since my first planting in late March, I gave away six of them to my friend Christine who's got a lot more sun in her back yard. I'm curious to see how they do compared to mine.

And the eggplant are also nice and tall.

I didn't take any pictures this weekend while I was helping with the compost bins but I did notice that my cilantro and basil are doing quite well too. I was worried about the basil because he's not getting as much sun as he should, but the leaves are coming in nicely, if not as nice as the organic raised bed plot next to me. Even the sad little rosemary seedling I bought has grown noticeably.

Incidentally, I received an email from the person in charge of the gardening club saying that some of us had ignored the original plans, not making enough of a walkway between plots. I was careful to leave some room, but probably not enough so I'm going to have to replant this week. I don't like digging these guys up too much - that may stress out the roots but it has to be done so I'll take more pictures and post them here so you can see their progress.

Beginnings

My grandfather was a gardening enthusiast. I didn't know him long - he died when I was nine. But I lived with my grandparents on and off during the first five years of my life and later, when we moved to New York when I was six, my grandfather came to live with us for a few months at a time. I remember my grandfather planting mostly shrubs and flowers in the little patch of dirt outside his house in the outskirts of Seoul where we lived. My grandmother helped, but she was mostly busy with household chores. My grandfather would take sticks he found and tie them onto twisting stems and branches to set them straight. He would spend hours clipping, trimming, bending, tying, and afterwards, come back inside with dirt covered hands, annoying my grandmother by not washing them thoroughly and staining her towels.

A little after my brother turned one, my parents left him with my grandparents and took me to live in LA. A year later, we moved to New York, and there I was read my grandmother's letter describing the seed-up-the-nose incident. When I was still living with my grandparents my grandmother had shown me a special seed. It was large, that of a flower whose name I don't recall now, but she split it open with her nails and inside was powder, which she rubbed on my face like makeup. It was a lot of fun and I'd always split it open and powder myself whenever I could find one. This was the seed my grandfather was planting, when my brother, by then two, was playing nearby. My grandfather must have gone inside for something and that's when my brother decided to stick one up his nose. From the letter, it must have taken them a few days to realize he'd done that because he never mentioned it. What gave him up was his constant sniffling. They took him to the doctor and all was well. My brother's 30 now and he hasn't stuck anything up his nose since... at least not that I know of.

When my parents bought a house in Elmhurst circa 1984, it came with a garden in the back. It wasn't big enough to play or run around in so I mostly ignored it. The creepy garage was much more fun. But my grandmother, who by then was living with us full time, had transformed the unused leaf-covered heap into two organic beds in which to grow lettuce, cukes, and other edible greens. This was before I or anyone else in my family even heard of the word "organic". There was also an apple tree, growing just beyond the fence that separated our backyard and a parking lot. Every late summer the back corner of our garden would fill with overripe rotting apples. One year my grandmother picked up the ones that were good and made apple butter.

The apple butter never impressed me because for some stupid reason, I thought those apples from were gross. They were misshapened, and not shiny and red like those at Key Food. When my grandfather came to live with us, the vegetable farming effort was full on. He'd take some exercise by hitting a tennis ball against the wall of the handball court at the park across Elmhurst Hospital, and then spend most of his day creatively twisting wire and bending sticks to keep the beds tidy. And he'd come in and annoy my grandmother by streaking her clean towels with dirt.

When I think of gardening, I think of these memories because they were the only moments of anything coming close to growing your own stuff to eat, or just growing anything in general. I grew up in NY most of my life and most of what I ate as a kid came freeze dried, canned, jarred, frozen, or powdered. I even got left behind when my family went strawberry picking one summer (that's a long story)! I never considered my grandparents' efforts to be noble - neither did they. I thought they were batty and wasn't particularly thankful or amazed at the fresh produce they brought to the table.

After my parents sold the Elmhurst house and we moved to Woodside, my grandmother went at planting vegetables all on her own. By then my grandfather had passed away and she grew figs, eggplants, perilla, chives, cukes and lettuce, and her towels were very clean. That house was also later sold and now we all live in apartments. When I moved out, I got myself a little rosemary bush from Ikea. It doubled as my Christmas tree one year but I must have watered it too much or something because it later turned brown and died. It seemed I could never keep plants alive, and I didn't know what the secret was. How much sun was or wasn't hitting my apartment, how much water to give something. I had no idea what type of plants needed what kind of care. So I gave up because I kept killing things, and I was far too busy, not to mention, away a lot, to deal with the wellbeing of houseplants.

When I bought my current apartment in a relatively obscure and bizarre little area of the Lower East Side seven years ago, my mother gave me a bonsai tree that she'd care for for almost ten years. Of course I killed it. She'd told me how to water it, drain it, etc. but it was too much information for my scattered little brain and I just didn't get around to it. Then I felt really bad. I still have the nice ceramic pot it came in. Then a few years ago, I got the green thumb itch. It didn't matter that I knew absolutely nothing about plants, how to grow things, soil, etc. There was a strip of land that stretched east-west between my building and the park I looked down on from my window. It seemed to be well tended, lush - there were plants, both in the ground and in large pots. There was even a patio table with chairs. But this area was locked and I wondered who was the lucky bastard who had access to this place, and why I couldn't get in on it? It seemed the perfect place to have a common outdoor space for me and my neighbors. I figured it belonged to the city and that was that.

Then last year I saw a flyer posted by my elevator about the formation of a gardening club. I went to the meeting and found out that that piece of land belonged to my coop! That meant I as a shareholder, also owned that land as well! Long story short, a year later, I have a small (too small, I think) plot of land in this area. And this March, I planted a few edibles in it with the help of my mother. My grandmother is the green thumbs of the family, having performed miraculous feats with dying plants with little hope of recovery. However, she's 92 and can't really leave her nursing home.

As a child, I'd see very little of my mother. She was always working or going to school so I didn't see her much in a solitary setting doing something recreational outdoors. So I was surprised that she knew something about gardening! She actually knew what would grow well in shade and in limited sun, which is what my plot is. She brought me the right kind of seedlings and told me where and how in my plot I should plant them. We stood in blustery March wind, me kneeling down and in relative discomfort, digging with $1.99 gardening tools I bought from the hardware store on First Ave and 11th St, and my mother standing on the narrow cement pavement, pointing out what should go where.

And this is what I ended up with:

You can go to my Flickr page for more info, but what you see here are:

Red lettuce

Eggplant

Perilla

Cukes

Basil

Cilantro

Rosemary

This is so exciting. I'm really a beginner's beginner but I'm out there watering and caring for my little plot, like picking out old cigarette butts out of the soil. All the dirty fumes from the Williamsburg Bridge wafting down can't be good for my little ones, but that's New York.

Most of the other plots are also planted by now, and I've met some of my neighbors going at it. I thought most were experienced but those I've spoken to have confessed they're not experienced or have no idea what they're doing, which makes me feel better. I'm also helping out with building compost bins in another locked area next to the garden. My plan is to use the composted soil next year when I build my raised bed.

When I'm out digging I think of my grandparents and how much knowledge I never bothered to absorb about gardening while they were out there doing this. My expectations for my own attempt is under control but I might be more ambitious next year with the raised bed. We'll see.