It started in a tooth.

In my right canine, it began with a twitch. The pain reverberated from the tip, like a vampire craving a fix, I can still feel the desire. It shook my gums until my whole mouth was in pain, aching for a taste.

It filtered into my dreams.

I woke in the middle of the night, startled by what wasn’t there, worried another would take it from me.

There were rumors in the garden, it wasn’t without validation. In the country you deal with deer, in the City you deal with neighbors– and a rampant squirrel.

It became necessary for me to attend to the garden daily. Really just to survey, not to harvest. To ensure it was still there, huddled at the base of the corn stalk, lightly shaded by the beans on its new bed of straw; Lil’ Red, a Sugar Baby watermelon.

A few days later Red’s friend, Goldy (a Gold Baby watermelon, of course), disappeared. Snatched at dusk, the last of her kind, we never had a chance to taste– Goldy’s sister was attacked one night by the above rampant squirrel when just a child, we do not talk of the day’s discovery. We were told a neighborhood trio came into the garden, helped themselves to a bag of tomatoes, and as they made their way out, spotted our Goldy and stole her away. I can forgive tomatoes, but not the disappearance of Goldy.

The cantaloupes, all but two (our mystery melons that must have sprouted from our compost), are all eaten by us or attacked, again by the rampant squirrel, who has found a liking to the sweet muskmelon’s odor and tears them apart unforgivingly. Thankfully, D and I finished off the sweetest of the bunch, the Sleeping Beauty melons, our favorite, before the Squirrel realized his good fortune. So now down to only two watermelons (and two mystery melons), we covered them from the eyes of thieves and squirrels with a bundle of straw, only making their presence more obvious it seemed. We came, every night, to ensure their safety and existence.

But I couldn’t take it anymore and I think it got to D.

We pulled Lil’ Red last week. Up from his plush straw surrounds at the base of the corn where we had attended him for so many months. We photographed him in our arms, as good parents do, and gave him a gentle washing.

Then… we cut and devoured him. So quickly, he didn’t feel a thing, honest. We raised each slice above our heads, cheering our good fortune, allowing his pink juices to dribble down our arms. Lil’ Red’s crisp sweet pulp filled our mouths as we happily chewed. He was delicious.

An important garden lesson: you cannot stop a cucumber plant from going crazy– Actually, you cannot stop any vining plant from clinging and climbing wherever it sees fit. But let’s talk cucumbers.

I planted an heirloom variety known as lemon cucumber. Lemon because the resulting fruit is fairly lemon shaped and ripen from light green to a bright lemon yellow. When I checked on the plant two Fridays ago there were a number of flowers waiting to burst with fruit. I left for a week to visit D in upstate New York terrified I would miss out on a massive cucumber harvest. (Seriously, I had three different dreams about lost or unattended garden bounty.)

While upstate, I purchased a beautiful 3-gallon ceramic crock pot from a lovely antique dealer– really a gift for all those cucumbers ready to spring to life. When D and I returned Sunday we headed to the garden for our first massive harvest: corn, tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplant and ever more basil.

We’re overflowing with cucumbers now and decided to take action. Garden cucumbers head to the crock for brining and CSA cucumbers get crock treatment or turned into the great little snack you see pictured above. I’ll provide a picture of the brined cucumbers once the pickles are (hopefully) tasty and ready for the camera.

Until then, satisfy your cucumber (and tomato) bounty with this fresh and easy snack. I used a hearty cranberry-walnut bread as the base. Any other good bread will do, or go without bread, using the cucumber as a base. Top with any fresh herb and voila, a tasty garden treat.

Cucumber Bites
Serving Size= 5 piece. Prep time= 5 minutes.
5 small slices, or 2 larger slices cut small of cranberry-walnut bread
1 cucumber, sliced 1/2-inch thick
1 vine ripe tomato, sliced 1/2-inch thick
salt/ pepper to taste
5 slices, 1/4-inch thick, feta
fresh thyme for garnish (parsley, chives, parsley or cilantro will work too)
lemon spritz (optional)

Method: Toast bread until golden. Layer bread with cucumber and tomato. Season with salt and pepper then top with feta and a sprinkle of herbs. Add a spritz of lemon over top for some added zip.

All those blushed up tomatoes looking for attention have nothing on the eggplant. Her velvety leaves hide her delicate fruit from the passerby– so shy! Like a proper lady, she never goes out without a hat for the occasion.

So far, the garden has offered up three solid eggplants. One Black Eggplant, one India Paint and one Rosa Bianca. The only problem is that it is not enough. I crave more of the earthy flesh! If all my tomatoes turned into eggplant I would be a happy camper.

Below is a garden growing montage. One that displays (most) of the vegetables growing fairly. You’ll still notice a favoritism on the eggplant– as well as the watermelons. But corn is represented nicely here, as are the beans.

Although it appears everything is happily growing along, initial pictures are deceiving. Take a closer look at the zucchini (middle). Notice the brown around the roots? About two weeks ago I saw small white maggots on the stem near the root. I pointed them out to D, noting we needed to take action. D’s response: Those are good, they’re natural. I read the book about soil, it’s okay, just let them be.

I had my doubts on that one. When are maggots ever a good thing when food is around? Stupidly, I let them be.

I returned a few days later to find the zucchini bush in a sad state, teetering on the brink of death. This picture represents what I thought to be the last of the run. After some research I came to believe those little buggers were root maggots, sure to devour and kill my crop, attacking at the root. I contemplated mail ordering beneficial nematodes (uh, what?), but decided a first step was a concoction of onion-garlic-hot pepper. I liberally spritzed and sneezed it on everything in site.

My next return was a happy discovery. Whether the maggots also sneezed their way into oblivion, fried in the 95 degree heat after I moved the leaves aside exposing them to elements, or, forbid it, hatched and flew away, they were gone. The zucchini has survived, albeit, a slight amputee.

Next is the corn. I thought everything was going along smoothly, though D is worried about tasseling– most veggies have their male/female parts right next to each other, making pollination easy. But corn has tassels at the top and silks on the husk. Each silk is linked to a corn kernel and must be pollinated from a tassel above to produce an edible kernel of corn. In large fields, tasseling happens by wind (or bugs if they survive the pesticides) or any other method I am not aware Big Ag does to tassel. In small plots, tasseling can be done by hand. Hopefully, our 18 corn is a large enough plot to tassel themselves, I have noticed many a bee hanging out on the tassels.

While D is worried about tasseling, I noticed the corn pictured in the middle right the other week. Who got a hold of that one! And there best not have been any kernels on that exposed cob!

So that is the growing update. I have eaten more than my share of zucchini for a lifetime, a few eggplants, and a severely under-ripe melon I picked in sheer excitement (I stir fried it up with the eggplant). And a pressure canner has arrived, ready to be put to work. Grow baby grow!

It has been forever…

The New York City school year wrapped up this week and I’ve been busy planning a farm-to-school nutrition education program for public school 4th graders, starting in fall 2008. This project, a one-month food advocacy course, led by the local organization Just Food, a visiting 17-year old cousin from Tennessee and weeding my garden– despite D’s assurance that gardens need no work once planted, consumed my energies these past weeks. (And the beautiful weather, of course.)

Food is to come and perhaps a special appearance by D describing his new kombucha project.

In the meantime, you can see the above picture of how much the City Garden has evolved from week one and check out these interesting links below.

In the picture, corn at back, silks are already starting to show! This past week we planted beans at their base. To the left of those (off camera) are my tomatoes, basil, Brussels sprouts and D’s tobacco. Already making excellent headway. Just in front of the corn is eggplant, and mixed peppers (sweet, hot and paprika) are in front of that. Then winter squash to the right, lots of grass yet to be pulled, and the two lighter plants in the front are watermelons.

Links…

My food advocacy class provided this great link, On Day One. What do you want the new president to do on his first day in office? My favorite is linked here: turn the white house lawn into a garden, providing local food to the white house and local food pantries. You can place your vote, or submit your own, on a number of topics.

As a reaction to turning all our lawns into gardens, here’s a piece from Alternet: Turning Your Lawn into a Victory Garden Won’t Save You– Fighting Corporations Will.

A taste of what’s to come:

Homemade goat yogurt
Strawberry madness
Berry crepes
Simple Summer Appetizers
July 4th Food ideas

In elementary school we had all-school spring and winter recitals. The school music teacher challenged us with songs that often times went over our heads, and were pure enjoyment of our parents. Most notable was the Beatles, When I’m 64, where we spent weeks on definitions and proper accents of words– not exactly something a second grader is keen on. Many other songs have stuck with me, like Les Miserables’ Castle on a Cloud and Fifty Nifty, which continues to amaze friends at parties. One of my favorite songs we learned was the Garden Song (a clear vocal YouTube rendition here).

Inch by inch, row by row, Gunna make this garden grow…

As one might expect, land is precious in New York City and there is little of it to go around. When I tell people I keep a few buckets of plants in the front of my apartment they are amazed I have outdoor space for even this small project. This year, after much deliberation, D and I were lucky enough to acquire a plot at the 2-year old Two Coves Community Garden.

All it takes is a rake and a hoe, And a piece of fertile ground.

But still, there are some who cannot comprehend how dear land is in the city. In my neighborhood especially, there is little green space. A community garden is an anomaly because it takes space that could potentially be used by many (say as a park), and divides it into individual plots (unless a whole community gardens one large plot together as I have heard happens in many Detroit, MI community gardens).

Someone bless these seeds I sow, Someone warm them from below.

The plots at Two Coves are refreshingly larger than at most other community gardens, averaging about 10 ft x 10 ft (my space is about 10 ft x 15 ft; because there are 2, sometimes more, of us working it). Most other gardens I have seen are around 4 ft x 4 ft. Even so, when I told my father, who grew up in the City and understands land value here, I had a plot at a community garden, he asked if it was a 100 ft x 20 ft plot. That would be the size of an entire lot!? (That also can easily sell for a few million dollars depending on the area!) I hardly have something that size.

‘Til the rains come tumbling down…

In the past, my bucket “garden” was mostly greens that can grow in partial sun. This year it has become mostly herbs. As food production goes, it is fairly minimal. As members of a Community Supported Agriculture group, D and I grappled with questions of why we would need more vegetables. But as people who one day want to leave the City for some land and have a garden of our own, the answer eventually fell to yes, this garden would be our land of experimentation (and maybe some canning produce to bring us through the winter).

Pulling weeds and picking stones,

Of course, gardening in New York City is not like gardening in your private backyard. There are members who view the space as therapeutic alone time, while for others it is an opportunity to vocalize their garden knowledge. For better of for worse, you have the opinions, suggestions and advice of each and every gardener in your small plot of land. I love these differences of opinion and welcome everyones’ advice, pulling from it what I may to help my own plot grow stronger. Over the season, I see us forming a garden family, with each gardeners space an extension of the personality that helped grow it.

Man is made from dreams and bones… Feel the need to grow my own…

This year, D and I had a late start and I purchased most of our plants as seedlings from Silver Heights Organic Farm. Hopefully next year we will have enough produce to harvest some seeds to plant next season. We are hoping whatever does come to fruition will be enough to can or dry for supplement through the winter. We are growing:

4 sweet corn varieties
4 bean varieties (we will be planting the seeds in another week at the base of the corn)
2 tobacco varieties
3 winter squash varieties

* Note that the above 4 are known to Native Americans as the 4 Sisters. They grow in harmony with each other, replacing nitrogen in soil, used as natural coverings to keep out weeds, and as natural pest control.

4 eggplant varieties
4 pepper varieties (hot, sweet and paprika)
2 varieties of canning tomatoes
2 Brussels sprout varieties
2 watermelon varieties
1 cucumber
6 heads of bok choi
2 bushes of currants
misc herbs: basil, oregano, chives, lemon balm, catnip, summer savory, purslane, chamomile and a few others (these will be planted near partner plants to work as natural pest controls.)

Of course, in on all of this are my composting worms. Happily munching away at my food scraps to create more organic fertilizer for everything. My next goal is to convince the garden we should get some city chickens running around!

I’m guest blogging over at Sustainable Table. My first post is all about vermicomposting (worm composting). Truly, not as disgusting as it sounds (or looks). Since picking up my worms I have swayed many unbelievers– including D who first thought my worms totally gross and now gets extremely mad if we forget to feed them or throw something out that could be destined for the worms.

So many have changed their tune that at our last party I had a group of 8 friends standing around our worm bin asking questions and participating in a feeding (I kid you not and swear most parties do not resort to worms for entertainment or conversation).

Composting is a great solution to stamp out our dependency on synthetic fertilizers, especially petroleum-based ones. It is easy to accomplish in any space– from small scale apartments to large farms. What to do with the compost? Your houseplants and garden will love the rich compost you provide for them. Not much of a planter? Donate your harvested compost to a community garden, neighbor or friend who does plant. You’ll have a friend for life (and maybe some veggies out of the deal!).

Vermicomposting is ideal indoors in a small apartment or house. You can find these, dare I say, fashionable, cedar worm bins on ebay (my friend L has one and loves how it blends into her decor). I have a basic plastic bin with a lid I bought at a discount store for about $10. A bin that will fit under the kitchen sink is a perfect size for a small family.

There are no noticeable bad smells associated with vermicomposting. The only smell will be a sweet Earthiness, and only noticeable when the bin is open, during feeding time. You can still go on vacation when you have your worms and they are not nearly as difficult to care for as a cat, dog, or even fish!

Head over to my post on Sustainable Table: Vermicomposting 101 to read the ins and outs of vermicomposting.

It’s almost August and I’ve mentioned only a peep about my bucket garden. It has been growing strong since it last popped on the screen back in March. Time flies.

Back then, I planted my kitchen herb garden as I held out for weather to agree with my outdoor buckets (above). The update: A few noble patches sprouted. I grew excited. But they quickly retreated into the black earth. Just a quick tease. Hello. Goodbye. Not enough sun? Did I open the window for a cool breeze that hit them at just the wrong moment of development? We will never know.

Thoroughly jaded, I went to the local bodega to purchase baby herb plants: rosemary, cilantro and basil. I planted them in those same little death inducing containers and stuck them outside on the kitchen windowsill. (By this time May had slipped in and the weather was more agreeable.) They were going strong. The cilantro was a power house, added to guacamole, lime shrimp, fish tacos and as accents on salads. The basil grew and grew. The rosemary was forest-like. So what happened?

I entrusted these herbs to my mother… I returned from California and spotted a dry and whithered cilantro, a faltering basil, and a limp rosemary:

Didn’t you water them?

No, but… well… It rained today.

This from a woman who coos and mists her orchids nightly. I was able to nurture the basil and rosemary back to life. The cilantro’s charred skeleton remains on the windowsill. A testament to abandonment.

But the buckets… Ah the buckets outside. Those are another story.

I am a lazy gardener. But I prefer to call it survival gardening– for the plants, not me.

After last years garden died out it wasn’t until one of those 70 degree days in December that I got around to pulling the dead stalks and tilling the earth slightly. Come March, when seeds arrived, I was gifted some compost from a lovely friend, mixed it in, threw seeds on and sprinkled them slightly with water.

I haven’t touched the buckets since. No pruning, no weeding, no watering (okay, maybe 2 or 3 times I did drag buckets of water outside to water my bucket garden). See, survival gardening– only the strong plants survive.

Despite my lack of effort, for this, the third year of the bucket garden, I have a small, slow-growing colony. Left to their own devices for the bulk of the summer, through storm and sun, my plants surprised me. For weeks now I have been walking past my buckets running errands or catching appointments saying, “tonight I will weed you, no worries.” The night would come and go and I would promise the buckets tomorrow, tomorrow again. Finally, the weeds grew so tall and strong I could hardly make out the plants from the invaders.

I returned from the fish monger and could stand it no more. I plunkered down for some serious weeding. To my great surprise my plants pushed through: arugula, radish, endive, Swiss chard and mixed lettuce. I applauded my darlings, took a picture (above), then retrieved my shears to snip away for a salad of my delayed efforts.

The City Gardener is back this year and better than ever– well, we’ll see about that. I am hoping the last freeze has past– a wicked hail storm last week makes me glad I didn’t go out planting when it was 70 degrees F the week before. What a way to kill the greens. It’s a mild 54 today so I did some preliminary indoor work: thyme, lettuce leaf basil, lavender and a little cat nip. We’ll see how it develops in the kitchen window (above).

Seeds from Baker Creek arrived a few weeks back: Oriole Orange Swiss Chard, Sugar Snap Peas, Curly Endive and Rocket Arugula. No tomatoes since I don’t really get enough sun and the squirrels and old women tend to be a nuisance. I also threw in some Sunchokes that my uncle in California sent over. They look pretty undesirable from above ground so I shouldn’t have a problem.

A local composting friend is so kind as to donate me a bucket of compost. Once it gets granny carted over… let the gardening begin!

The above photo proves that every living creature loves fresh grown vegetables– Even better if we can agree to love different parts.

There is no time like the present to begin planning your garden for the coming summer. My wee bucket garden (see last year’s progress here) will make a comeback this summer with some much needed reinforcement from the local CSA I’m helping to start up in my neighborhood. I am happy to report that the farm my CSA chapter is pairing with is located in wine country and perhaps with a little convincing, I can get my farmers to set me up with a wine supply! If not, I am happy to visit the farm on strawberry picking days and swing back to the vineyards for some bottles on the way home.

For those who are unfamiliar with CSAs, it stands for Community Supported Agriculture and is available in and around most cities. A community gets together and pairs with a local farmer, agreeing to pay the farmer in advance to receive a “share” of produce throughout the growing season. With this system, the already expensive and laborious process of organic farming is ensured to be profitable for the farmer, allowing them to concentrate on farming, not worrying about the possibility of selling land to developers or something else.

The greatest benefit is that the local CSA chapter gets to know their farmer while building a community that is often lacking in urban areas: you know where your food is coming from on a more personal level than a green market, you are supporting a local farmer, you’re eating healthier, fresher food, etc etc. If there is an excellent season and a bounty, each CSA benefits. The downfall is if there is a drought, flood, etc, you suffer just as much as the farmer. Also, there is less choice than a greenmarket: you get whatever the farmer is growing. I still believe the benefits outweigh the negatives in this age of industrial uncertainty, and besides, fresh food just tastes better.

Local Harvest provides additional information on CSAs and how to find one in your area.

This summer, because of my CSA, I can concentrate on growing some of my favorite items that my farmers will not be offering me. I still must keep in mind tomato thieves and the more unusual chickenwire thieves (which I now suspect might have been for a Meth lab)— how the imagination wanders when perpetrators lurk nearby.

Last year, with some advice from a fellow blogger, I ordered seeds from Baker Creek Heirloom. They have a fabulous variety of basic and more unusual (heirloom) plants. My radish plants did fairly well last season and I will order more of those, though I might try a new variety. Final order report tk in the coming days.

When ordering seeds, keep in mind the amount of light your space gets. My outdoor space is fairly shady and I have to make due with this. No worries, there are plenty of plants that do well in low-light conditions and should be mentioned in the plant’s description, my favorite is arugula. Also, don’t forget to check your planting zone and match it up to your seeding times. This also helps when finding plants that will grow in your area.

If you live in an urban area and are looking to start your own bucket garden, Texas A&M’s Agriculture Dept offers some pointers with hilariously outdated computer clip art. Another good site I found has great tips for more unusual growing containers (from discarded tires to wading pools and feed sacks). The site really encourages community gardens, though the information can apply to setting up a personal garden in limited spaces. Keep in mind that the site is a bit old and can get a little hard to navigate. The National Gardening Association is another great resource with tons of general information.

If you have a large space for a proper garden. I’m jealous– Go find your own help! (Or use some of the references above.) Get excited for the growing season to come.

Last year, I read so much about the little Sunchoke that I grew overwhelmed with joy when they finally appeared at the market. I bought a bunch and made some hearty soup that whisked away cold days. The sunchoke is hearty, sweet and not only tastes great raw, but is a great substitute for the potato.

Over the holidays I was around San Francisco visiting family. My uncle is taking a Master Gardening class and over the years built a substantial garden on his property. It is one that I am extremely jealous of and if he happened to have an avocado tree I would seriously consider moving in. Still, it does include blueberry and raspberry bushes, plum trees and strawberries all for my grandmother to make jams from (nothing but fruit and sugar, not even water she’ll proudly tell you multiple times), tons of nasturtium flowers (that my uncle says proliferate like weeds), herbs of all kinds, artichokes, sunflowers, grape vines, tomatoes, a massive worm farm for compost, roses, a myer lemon tree and sunchokes.

He showed me around his garden saying most of what he has is just for play: he plants things and watches how they grow, rarely harvesting anything. One morning, I nabbed one of the last non-flowered artichokes for myself and boiled it up. I don’t think there is anything more tasty and satisfying than eating something straight from a garden. He showed me the sunchoke bin, telling me they grew so robustly that the bin almost burst. He dug some up to show me there was literally wall-to-wall sunchokes growing underneath the dirt.

The next day while sauerkraut and ham was being served, I ran out to the garden and grabbed a handful of sunchokes and clipped some lavender leaves. I sliced the sunchokes thin and sauteed them until crisp with lots of butter, garlic and the lavender. My grandmother and mother were both pleasantly surprised at this previous unknown vegetable and refused to share them with anyone. I was pleasantly surprised at the mild taste of the lavender with the sunchokes.

My uncle gave me a bag of sunchokes to take home and plant in my own (pathetic in comparison) bucket garden. They are perfect because from the outset they appear to be weeds– perfect in a city where old ladies steel my tomatoes and chicken wire. They are safely hibernating and will hopefully produce well come harvest next fall.

In the meantime, it’s difficult to let a bag of fresh organic sunchokes go untouched. I made this salad for dinner the other day and D surprisingly applauded it (when I initially told him the ingredients he said the salad sounded like “weird girly veggie mush”). I’m not totally sure I know what that classifies as (I think zucchini is on the “veggie mush” list though), but once he ate this he assured me he would eat it again– especially the sunchokes!

This is a visually stunning winter salad. It is hearty and really shows off that winter food can be just as beautiful as summer food. It also has fabulous texture layers and an interesting array of flavors. If you are dexterous you can cut down on cook time by sauteing the mushroom at the same time as frying the sunchok (since the sunchokes only take about 2 minutes in the oil).

Sunchoke Salad
Serves 2. Active time= about 30 minutes.
* 1 cup green beans, cut into 1 inch spears
*1 head endive, sliced thin
* 1 yellow pepper, left whole
* 1 portabello mushroom, sliced into 1/2 inch shoots
* 1 cup vegetable oil (more or less depending on pan)
* 1 sunchoke, well scrubbed and sliced into 1/8 inch rounds
* 1 tablespoon goat cheese
* 4-6 grape tomatoes

1) On the serving plate/ bowl, arrange green beans and endive.
2) Prep: Set a paper bag in a bowl aside. Set paper towels on a plate aside.
3) Roast the yellow pepper: Using long metal tongs, set pepper over burner set on medium-high flame. Rotate the pepper until all sides are blackened, about 6 minutes total (this only works with gas stoves as an open flame is needed. Another option is to dry roast the pepper on a non-stick pan until blackened). Place the pepper into the paper bag and seal. Set aside. This completes the pepper’s cooking.
4) In a small pan on medium heat, saute the portabello mushroom. While the mushroom is cooking, put the vegetable oil in a medium sauce pan on high heat. While oil is warming, finish the mushrooms, cooking until reduced and darkened, about 8 minutes. Arrange the mushrooms on the serving plate.
5) When the oil is hot, fry the sunchokes quickly, removing when they turn brown around the edges. About 2-3 minutes total should turn them crisp. Remove from oil, place on the napkin covered plate and sprinkle lightly with salt.
6) Remove the yellow (now blackened) pepper from the paper bag. The skin will begin to flake off. For fast removal, place whole pepper under lukewarm water, gently rubbing ashes from the pepper. Dry off and slice into 1/2 inch spears, add to serving plate.
7) Sprinkle grape tomatoes over salad arrangement. Add goat cheese in a single lump. Spear sunchokes into the goat cheese to allow the sunchoke chips to stand verticle. Top salad with olive oil, a light sprinkle of salt and a spritz of lemon (optional). Any more dressing would ruin the flavors in this salad.