2014 Memory Garden

What’s the memory garden? This is a long-term project I’ve had in my head for many years, and will take years to realize. I thought it would be nice to include in my larger garden a collection of plants that were from places I’ve lived over the years, and I’ve lived in a lot. Collect a seed from, or take a cutting of, a noteworthy plant, perhaps a run-of-the-mill maple or an extraordinary palm, from an address where I’ve lived, and try to grow it.

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Wisteria, Stuyvesant Street, East Village, NYC, May 2014

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2014 Veggies – July

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Japenese eggplant, mid-July

By mid-July, we were seeing some mature Japanese eggplant. I like these guys. They’re ideal for the grill, don’t even really need to slice them. Anything that’s prolific and yummy gets my vote, and eggplant have been prolific for us. And yummy. Continue reading 2014 Veggies – July

2014 Veggies – April & May

It might provide a little context to show what the place looks like before we plant, each spring. More than a tad dreary, to be sure, but a blank canvas for what’s to come. At this point, I hadn’t had time to hide most of the ugly chain link fences that came with the place with a few reeds.

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Our Brooklyn slab in early April

I had moved the few flower bulbs popping up into their relegated corners to make room for veggies. The occasional early marauder could be spotted working their dark machinations.

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Squirrel digging for nuts hidden last year

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2014 Planting New Perennial Asparagus Beds

Spring 2014. Decided to try growing asparagus, which is something I’ve had my eye on for years. I suppose I could have tried it in a giant container before I had my own earth to plant in… but that doesn’t seem like the right approach for a longterm perennial. Asparagus grow as bundles of roots which send new shoots up every spring. If cared for, supposedly they can thrive for decades. So, off to YouTube I went in search of some advice from seasoned asparagus growers, which it turns out are in short supply in my neighborhood.

I soaked each crown in advance of planting. Each is a bundle of roots growing out from a single whitish bud, which is really a pre-asparagus shoot. I ordered 10 crowns, five for each side. You can see one of the root buds forming  little white shoot, somewhere around the middle of my index finger in this photo.

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Soaked asparagus crown

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2014 Home Soil Tests

Separating and drying soil samples for testing
Separating and drying soil samples for testing

When it comes to organic gardening, the wisdom seems to boil down to “add compost”. So the previous year, 2013, I added a TON of compost from various sources, along with several other healthy soil amendments to lighten and improve the soil. All in all, I added three inches of material over all the beds. I prepared for a bumper crop.

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2014 Seed Propagation and Sowing

It’s part of my philosophy of growing food that starting the seeds is a critical and beautiful part of the process, not to be skipped in favor of buying seedlings.

It’s also fraught with danger!

My first attempt to start indoors in my new location was an intentional experiment. I live in the city, on the ground floor. My kitchen window faces the back yard, south-facing, but is shielded on the left and right by exterior walls. At best I get an hour of direct sun in the spring coming through that window.

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Newly germinated seedlings

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