Petunia integrifolia

Petunia integrifolia or Petunia violacea. This could also be a hybrid Petunia spp. These grow wild in our backyard and around the neighborhood, though they originated in South America. The leaves are a light green. The pale center contrasts with other pictures on the web.

Sabato di Pesto

A September Saturday was the perfect time to buy some pine nuts at Sahadi's and harvest the basil in the backyard. As for our other crops, the tomatoes fell to blight; and the squashes and sunflowers fell to the squirrels. But the pesto turned out great.
20 cups of basil = 10 batches!
There were 10 jars in all.

Downed Trees on Clinton

Our street was spared, but around the corner on Clinton, two trees in a row both came down in the tornado of 2010. Since this photo was taken, the stumps have been sawed to the ground.

Bambu

Until Oct. 31, weather permitting, a pair of brothers from New Jersey will be constructing and showing off their incredible bamboo structure. The scale is immense, overtaking much of a segment of roof at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Although the baby couldn't tolerate much more than 20 minutes on site, he did grant us access to the speedy elevator while others were turned away.

Clambake

No stranger to clamming, recently we tried a new way of preparing them. Baked clams require boiling first. Then they are covered with a mixture of cracker crumbs, butter, garlic salt, and parsley. With the final step, baking, they may have gotten a bit crispy, but they tasted good. Put alongside boiling and chowder, this is another good way to consume these wild caught chewy bivalves.

Soil Testing

Results for this cup of dirt were back within a week. I expected some lead, with the BQE and industrial New York as prime suspects, and moderate levels were found. It was in the low end of the moderate range, so it's not too concerning. The tomatoes, which would have been fine because they are a fruiting vegetable, unfortunately succumbed to a fungus, perhaps fusarium wilt.

June crops

Here's the first strawberry from the pot out front - not really much of a harvest - but the plants are ever-bearing so these small sugary lumps should be appearing all summer.These are garlic scapes, a bonus that I wasn't aware of a week ago. They are the flower of the garlic cloves I planted last fall. We cooked them with zucchinis on the grill. They added a mild onion/garlic flavor.

Hops Find Twine

At the current rate of growth, the hops will outgrow the beanstalks.

Striped Snail

Roaming in the back of the garden, not the typical brown shelled oozer. I think it is a Cepaea nemoralis.

Garden pic

The current state of the back garden as of May 24, 2010. Last year we hadn't even started yet. And the hops have sprouted. Today I planted morning glory seeds after work. They soaked for about 20 hours beforehand, which may have been overkill.

Brownstone Hops Farming

A couple Golding hop rhizomes.I planted them in the sunniest part of the back yard and improvised a twine course for the vines to climb once they emerge.

Upstate Ramps

These ramps, collected in Roscoe, New York, were being sold at the Union Square green market a couple weeks ago. I've been wanting to try them for the last couple years.I opted to saute them in some olive oil, bulbs first, then then tops. The green part cooks like spinach. After salt and pepper, I ate them as a side with macaroni and cheese. They were good but they leave you smelling worse than onions.

Bottle Beach

These are the treasures we collected in one hour at bottle beach, future vases and knick knacks.
The amount of trash is really amazing: shoe soles, sinks, bricks, horse bones, broken ceramics, and of course bottles. These pictures are at low tide, reportedly the best time to go.
The trash of the future will be much less pleasant than this place and parts of the littered beach were disgusting. At times the wind smelled of petroleum and the bottles were caked in brown slime. I can't imagine plastic will age as well. Below is a cross-section of the eroding shoreline, strata of rubbish.
To get there, get on Flatbush going away from Greater Brooklyn (toward the ocean). Once inside Floyd Bennett Field take a left at the light after the abandoned hangar. There is parking lot on the right after the turn. Turn before the toll plaza or you'll pay $5.50 round trip to get to the treasure. Once you park, cross the 6 lanes of traffic to the other side and find the trailhead across the intersection. The trail will come to a crossroads. Take the trail to the right. A short distance from there you'll come to the beach. You'll know when you get there.

Carroll Gardens Stations of the Cross

A video from last year, but this year's looked much the same.

Sunset Park

Just south of Greenwood Cemetery, Sunset Park has some commanding views of the New York Harbor. There are also some great taco shops nearby.

Cottontail

This herbivore got away from one of the neighbors and was grazing in our back yard for a few days in a row. He made a meal of the chicory sprouts, so we hope he doesn't become a regular visitor.

Greenwood Cemetery

Brooklyn's beautiful garden cemetery is remarkably similar to Richmond's Hollywood Cemetery. Seeing that they were laid out within 10 years of each other, the sprawling hills and dales of Greenwood was the style preferred for suburban cemeteries in the early 19th century. To put in context what things were like when the 478 acres were imagined, Greenwood was founded 8 years before Carroll Gardens was planned by Richard Butts.

Humor can be found in strange places.

Garlic sprouts

More as an experiment to see if it would really work, last Columbus Day I split up a farmer's market garlic into individual cloves and planted them in the ground. Last fall a few sprouted and weathered the winter. Along with the daffodils and other spring bulbs, all 12 cloves sprouted over the last week or two - another sign of spring.

Salvaged Amaryllis

Here's the amaryllis in all its glory, and as it began.

Before it bloomed, but getting there.

Snapshot: Outside and Inside

Snow Day. There is at least a foot of snow on that table.Here's a close-up of the cherry tree branches about a week after I brought them home from the Union Square Green Market.

13 days after we mashed the cut end of each branch with a hammer, we found it blooming when we came home from work. Note the red-tinged water in the vase, probably tannins. Here are two pictures, not even a week apart, of our exploding amaryllis bulb. Last winter it only put up leaves. We planted it in the ground over the summer and took it out of the ground last November. After drying in a bag for a couple months we potted it January 31.

Red Hook Lobster Pound

Trucked down from Maine every week, this seems to be the closest you can get to fresh lobster in Brooklyn short of boarding a ship out of Montauk. Located on Van Brunt Street in Red Hook, just behind the storefront are two tanks full of crustaceans. These two are between 1.5 and 1.75 pounds.

Check out the Lobster Pound. This summer there will be space next door for consuming the lobster rolls.

There was a mini Boston Cream Pie for dessert. It was Valentine's Day after all.

Custom Framing

Final product:Working from the premise that framing is too expensive and homemade things are always better, my brother fashioned the above frame from a rough-cut piece of cherry wood in his wood shop. The stain is only polyurethane, the rest is natural redness. The next step was having a piece of glass cut, 12.5 x 12.5. After a few phone calls, I found this place in the east village. The staff were very helpful, and the glass only cost $6. Don't let the Rottweiler "Tyson", placidly pacing the shop, keep you away.

AAA Glass Plus, Inc.
528 East 11th Street
New York, NY 10009
212-995-1635

Bread Alone Bread

Six months in new york and I have finally found a way to procure whole grain, local bread without an extra plastic bag every time. Sold both at the Union Square Green Market (where they'll bag the bread in a reused bag) and at a local grocery on Court Street Gourmet Fresh (although not listed as a retailer on the website), this is a wholesome (whole food) bread without the chemical crap. At $4.59 a loaf ($4.75 at their Union Square stall - still haven't figured out why it should be more expensive) it's not cheap, but when you consider that any sandwich usually costs more, it's worth it. Plus it's healthy and tastes good. From the site it sounds like the grain is locally sourced. Win, win, win, win, win.