Yard: Signs of Life

So what exactly is happening in the yard?

The lawn is dotted with dandelions. Evan loves dandelion greens, but we can't eat these leaves straight from the ground or we'd get lead poisoning (more on that later). Last weekend, he collected some seeds and planted them in a container to grow dandelions for eating.

We killed off other whole sections of ground cover last summer by ripping out weeds and having pots and a table in the middle of the yard. Now we're trying to fix that by planting grass seed - perennial rye and pasture mix that Evan's parents gave us.

A few perennial wildflowers are reemerging - coneflower, bee balm and something that is black eyed susan or daisy respectively. Around them I scattered marigold, blue cornflower and cosmo seeds. I collected perennial seed packets too because seeds are cheap and I wanted lots of flowers, but only recently realized that perennials don't usually bloom the first year. So I'm kicking myself for not buying more established perennials when they were on sale last fall.

Radishes on the left, arugula on the right. Hope they keep growing.

I planted three mums in the fall, but only one came back, which my mom said is normal. The tall plant seems related to sweet woodruff and hopefully it will produce little white flowers like a wild baby's breath. Those are stinging nettles poking out of the fence. I kinda hoped they wouldn't come back because they really do sting and are a gardening hazard. And again, I can't make nettle tea because of the leaden soil.

Dusty miller thriving after the winter and hostas returning.

The garlic I planted in the fall is going strong, as is kale.

Potted herbs that survived the winter: Catmint, marjoram and parsley. The rosemary and regular mint did not make it. I kept meaning to bring them all inside overwinter but was too lazy to clean off the dirty pots. I'm tempted to put the catmint in the ground. I hear it will spread invasively, but what's so bad about that?







What's peeking up in your yard? Tomorrow I'll show you the bulbs!

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Gardening Brain

I have a bad case of what I'm calling gardening brain. Over winter, while the natural world went dormant, so too did my thoughts about it, leaving me free to think about the rest of my life. But now, for the first time, I'm landscaping, and it's overwhelming. It may be a small yard, but I'm dreaming of looking out my window and seeing greenery and flowers everywhere. I've planted a few things in pots before, but now I'm going back to my flower strewn childhood roots and putting things in the ground, and it's become a preoccupation.

It began in February while it was still snowing, and I created spreadsheets outlining overambitious plans. I sketched out a map that I'm mentally reevaluating as I go along. I'm puttering around in the yard getting too lost in what I should plant where, in what pot or what bed. I'm moving plants around and reseeding when things don't come up quickly and trying to decide whether it's worth it to plant another kind of vegetable seed or pick up another ornamental plant. Evan says he'll get mad if I move another plant around, and then I make him dig holes so I can do it anyway.



On my daily bike rides through the city, I'm paying attention to what's growing in a way I never have before. I'm noticing not just that the daffodils and tulips are up, but the less showy plants next to them too, and how they're arranged. I'm realizing that landscaping is a personal choice chosen from endless possibilities, like fashion, and I'm trying to absorb inspiration from everywhere - from the shady brownstone front yards, the sidewalk planters, the foliage peeking through the fences of community gardens, from walks through the botanic garden. You can be lazy and have a few shrubs or pansies in mounds of mulch or you can work lush magic. I see all the plants and I want them too.



But it's early spring, seeds are in the soil, little sprouts are coming up, my yard isn't thriving yet, and except for the bulbs, there's just a lot of dirt. I'm impatient to know how it's going to grow. I could speed things along by buying lots of already grown plants. But the problem is that gardening can get expensive quickly. As a renter, I'm trying to balance my desire for all the plants with the reality that I'm frugal. There's a wide gap between what I would do if I owned property and what I should reasonably do with this rental property since I don't even know if I'll be here long enough to see the perennials bloom next summer (probably, but who knows). I don't want to invest too much of my time and money - just enough to have enough prettiness.



So I'm sowing seeds, buying starts selectively and reminding myself to wait and see. It's all an experiment, and I must be patient and happy with the daffodils that are blooming and not sad at the dirt that's not.

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Failed Fall Seeds

In a past move, I gained a yard in August, but didn't plant much, thinking the growing season was almost over. I came to regret it, as fall went on and frost didn't hit until November. So when I moved into this apartment last summer, I quickly got to work in early August planting for a fall vegetable harvest.


Radish greens with no radishes underground


Poor little broccoli that died at that size.

I'd done alright growing a few things from seed before, so I thought I would try growing it all from seed rather than starters, since it's so much cheaper -- especially having just spent a lot of money related to the move. However, it was an experiment that largely failed. I direct sowed a variety of cool-weather vegetables - carrots, leeks, kale, mixed greens, arugula, radishes, broccoli, delicata squash, and more, but they all sprouted into little seedlings and then just stalled out.


Kale seedlings, the one plant which actually did get bigger (though not big enough for harvesting) and survived the winter.

I'm not sure why. It shouldn't have been the soil, because I used soil from a few different sources. Maybe it was that I didn't add any compost to the soil myself, but the potting soils I bought had organic matter mixed in, and the garden store owner told me I didn't need to add compost. It may have been the weather, since there was a storm that beat down the two-week oldish seedlings, and they never really recovered. After a couple more weeks, I planted new seeds, but they also stalled out, and I think there was another storm that didn't help matters. It's possible it was something called damping off, which can happen when soil is too wet and fungus attacks the young plants...which is worrisome since the fungus would still be in the soil this year. Another theory is lack of light, since there are several trees overlooking my yard, and trees are at their leafiest in summer when the seeds were planted.

Any gardeners out there have any suggestions for what I could do differently this year?

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Yard Last Summer: Before and After

As I prepare for the season of gardening ahead, I realized that I did not write a single post about my new yard last summer, probably because I was too busy working in it to write about it. It's a grassy 70 by 20 feet, which is big for New York standards and gives us a good amount of space to work with. Unfortunately, the lush and shady trees make gardening a challenge. I also think the patio is awkwardly small - something we're trying to improve this year. It's a constant experiment and work in progress.

Before: the first time we saw the yard last June

After: In Late August, after cleaning, planting and decorating

We moved in to the new apartment in late July, and the apartment had been vacant since April or May, so the first step was just to clean up the overzealous weeds and trim the grass, which my boyfriend did using a scythe and a pushmower. I also dug out lots of weed roots using a trowel.

Under the weeds, I found the remnants of an old raised bed. However, without knowing the provenance of the soil and it being in a shady spot, I chose to plant ornamental plants rather than vegetables in the bed. I did a lot of digging to put impatiens in the ground and decided that I'm never again planting annuals in the ground as starters - only as seeds. Perennial starters - like the hostas and dusty miller - on the other hand are worth it, since they will come back again this year.

I planted an assortment of flowers and herbs in pots, which did fine, and fall vegetables from seeds, which didn't grow (post to come). In the back of the yard we keep a compost bin made out of a trash can (which also deserves its own post). While we trimmed back a lot of weeds, we left the lovely ivy already growing and expanding along the fences on both sides.

Evan's parents gave us a bistro table set, which is perfect for dinners for two. They also gave us the chiminea which extends the use of the yard into cooler mosquito-free fall and spring times. It's technically illegal to have open fires outside in New York City, but the chiminea is much safer than a firepit, and it's only an issue if neighbors complain to the fire department, and so far, so good. 

For entertaining, we made a big table by putting an old door on top of sawhorses. We found several wooden folding chairs on craigslist, that we keep stashed away inside and pull out for extra seating for dinner parties or backyard gatherings. My images of actually having outdoor dinner parties around this table, however, were quashed by tropics-level mosquitos (someday I'll write about that too).

It may still be snowing, but this year, I'm already scheming up what are probably over-optimistic plans of more flowers, more vegetables and fewer mosquitos.

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Turning Up and Down the Heat

In past winters, Crunchy Chicken has encouraged people to join a Freeze Yer Buns Challenge to lower your thermostat as much as you're comfortable. I always wondered, given the opportunity to control my heat, if I would keep my home cold.

Now, for the first time in my adult life, I have an apartment where I get to control (and pay for) my own heat. What I've found is that because our heat is not that expensive, my selfish desire to be warm wins out over my recognition that it's an indulgent consumption of more resources that I need.

Head over to the Green Phone Booth, where I reveal how much I pay for heat, to set off a discussion about the costs and temperatures of our homes during wintertime.

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Recording

I just returned from my boyfriend's parents' house in New Jersey, where we set up a home recording studio for the weekend. I'm working on recording a new solo album, and they have a baby grand that is in great condition for being a family antique. Evan has done plenty of recording before, but never piano, so we wanted to give it a try.

Unfortunately, I got a cold right before the weekend, and a lingering stuffy nose meant I can't use the vocal takes. At least we got down piano tracks that we can hopefully make something of.



To save money (that is the point of home recording!), we took public transportation rather than rent a car to get from Brooklyn to New Jersey. Evan somehow found a way to pack all this gear into a manageable load of backpacks and bags. Of course, we didn't end up needing all of it because we didn't record voice, but no harm done. (Thank you to friends for lending equipment and Evan's parents for lending their home.)



Next step is to record the vocals at home and see if it all sounds good enough after mixing to be released to the world. I've been wanting to record these songs for a while (it was on my list of 27 things to do before turning 28, but I never got to it with all the moving), so I'm anxious to get it out there.



Playing on a piano also made us debate whether we should get a piano for our apartment... Practicing on a keyboard is just not as nice as a piano, but pianos are typically associated with a level of permanence that is hard to feel in the transience of Brooklyn apartment life.

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Reducing Plastic

I was recently reminded by an article in the New York Times about the dangers lurking in plastic. It highlighted a study which "found that endocrine disruptors that are sometimes added to PVC plastic cause mice to grow obese and suffer liver problems"...suggesting that endocrine disrupting chemicals such as BPA and phhalates may be related to American obesity epidemics, among other health issues.

What you may not know is that these endocrine disruptors are found in everyday products all around us, from BPA in plastic water bottles, aluminum can linings, and grocery store receipts to phthalates in plastic wrap, PVC building materials, shower curtains and even children's backpacks (ahem, Disney).

Meanwhile, it was promising to see another study showing how quickly people were able to reduce their levels of BPA and phthalates by avoiding them for just three days. While I try to limit my own exposure to canned foods, I have been using plastic quite liberally for food storage. I've decided that one of my 2013 resolutions is to reduce plastic in my life. Read on for  in post at the Green Phone Booth to learn more about how I'm planning to kick plastic to the curb.

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