It rained on Thursday night.
The temperature had been in the high 80s to low 90s all week, which to a Brit is rather like standing in a satanic sauna fuelled by hot mildew. We don’t do dry heat.
Work was slow yet steady up at Dave interspersed with lashing of Hibiscus tea and gallons of Evian. I was tired, hot and grumpy.
I kept having these weird dreams about my former job. These were confused, unfathomable images and although my life is good, I felt flat and restless.
There are a number of upside-down tomato planters on the market. The principle is sound: tomatoes are vine plants and a combination of gravity and weight stops their natural inclination to grow up towards the sun. This gives you a hanging arrangement which is excellent for limited space such as balconies and lets the tomatoes get maximum sunlight.
Unfortunately, they're not cheap, but this is where our junk gardening comes into play using only a wooden hatstand scored from Freecycle and an old soda bottle.
I was adamant from the outset that Sam on the balcony, and later Dave up at The Green Centre, had to include artwork and specifically artwork made from urban junk.
The shape wasn’t immediately apparent. I just knew that it needed to be like that.
I already use found objects in my mixed media collages and include rusted and flattened bottle tops, ring pulls and assorted ephemera. Now it was time to make the art bigger, rustier and a heck of a lot more found.
Dave has plants now!
In the preface to his wonderful book, An Ear to the Ground: Garden Science for Ordinary Mortals, Ken Thompson describes a garden as “a large, unplanned and slightly out-of-control scientific experiment”.
Part of the way through last week I had the sudden dreadful feeling that I’d bitten off more than I could chew; if I had any vegetables of any magnitude to chew that is.
The problem was that I’d started out with three packets of seeds and a balcony and there was no pressure. I didn’t even mind blogging about it; some junk finds here, a few seedlings there.
It was fun.
As with most things in life, preparation is the key.
When you’re starting a vegetable plot, you generally have three options; a non-earthed area such as a balcony or windowsill, a garden or patch of ground in a community area, or an allotment.
If you’re lucky, any earthed areas that you inherit contain the right soil; not too sandy, not too moist, and free from stones.
Most of the time you end up with a builder’s graveyard – and Dave is no exception.
Summer in my inner city neighborhood means lots of music streaming from neighbors' backyards, car windows and the nearby little league field. I don't mind the conflicting soundtracks, but the generic quality gets me down. In proper WFMU fashion, I want something more rarefied than the generic salsa beat. Yesterday I got it. Sitting in my mini patch of shade, eating elotes and tacos that we bought up at the corner, I heard the sweet strains of an old Cuban rumba. That intersection of good food and good sounds made me so very happy.
Later in the day we grilled sardines and I thought, "Wow, it can't get any better than this." But, I was so horribly wrong. When we dabble in the musical arts or play Guitar Hero, we don't actually do damage when we sound nothing like Led Zeppelin. But, how we go astray when we don't have the chops of Wylie Dufresne and we start gutting sardines. How do they get out all those little bones? I know when I eat the little canned sardines the bones are part of the package and I don't even feel them. But these slightly larger bones felt like little pricker bushes. I did a bit of research before we cleaned the fish and everybody was all about gutting the stomach and yanking out the innards, but nobody happened to mention these little pricker bushes.
At one of the free fabulous concerts that WFMU hosted last year I went across the street between bands and ate an amazing grilled sardine. I can't remember the restaurant's name, but the food was gorgeous. That fish experience has held up in my memory as one of my best food moments, like eating tapas for the first time in Madrid, or a street crepe in Paris. So even though I was less than happy with my backyard grilled sardine experience #1, I will return to the battle. One loss will not prevent me from resuming my quest. And as long as my neighbor plays old Cuban rhumbas, I will continue to enjoy my backyard.
As gung-ho as I come across in these posts, the sensible side of me realises that this first year of my avant gardening journey is an experiment.
I have this strange kink in that I can never do anything without reading a book about it first. I suffer from "get it right first time" syndrome and it isn't pretty.
Now the thing about gardening, is that there are as many gardening books as there are gardeners, if not more when you consider how many star gardeners there are on the market. And, for a newbie that's really quite bewildering.
The problem is also compounded by books never quite giving me exactly what I need to know. Container books talk about flowers. Vegetable books detail allotments and smallholdings. Organic books assume that you own Kent.
I live in a city, in an apartment and I want to grow vegetables and herbs. Oh, and I'm poor. Where's my book?
If you missed out on Joe Belock and Todd-o-phonic Todd's hilarious and artery-clogging remote broadcast from Fatburger in Jersey City, you can regorge on the magic by checking out the archive, a short video of the event from NJ.com, and a greasy slideshow of visual highlights (thanks Cynthia).
Special guest appearances by Mark Moran of Weird NJ, Georgia and Ira of Yo La Tengo, the Longo brothers, Robert Piersanti, and Jersey City youth rockers!
Belly bombs away!
There are many things to take into account when you become serious and/or addicted to gardening: light, food, warmth, water, soil, seed. Every single one of the billion and two books on the market go into various amounts of detail about all of these points. Some have flowery descriptions. Many have photos.
Books about growing flowers are not so detailed. Books about growing vegetables are more detailed because growing vegetables tends to be a serious business. You're making food after all.
Which is why the one glaring omission from every single sodding book is a complete mystery to me. The one vital ingredient that every vegetable gardener on the planet should be intimately aware of.
Failure.
Meet Dave, my 13 foot by 11 foot vegetable patch-to-be.
I was intrigued by Jrld's comment last week that "maybe we might have some WFMUcentric posts about music/sound/plant growth next?"
He even mentioned "The Secret Life of Plants", Peter Tompkins' and Christopher Bird's bestseller from a decade of equally weird and wonderful bestsellers like Erick von Daniken's "Chariots of the Gods". Was God an alien? Can plants think and feel? Would that macrame plant holder look better next to the black light poster or over by the pet rock?
An entire generation waited with bated, bancha tea scented breath.
The moon is many things: made of green cheese, responsible for crime sprees, blue, a recurring character in "The Mighty Boosh"; and it's also good for planting out your vegetables by.
Lunar planting, or bio-dynamics, is no new thing. Rudolf Steiner, the founder of anthroposophy and the Steiner system of education, was an advocate of gardening according to lunar phases and did a lot to spread the knowledge.
I'll admit that it sounds a little bit like hippie twaddle on the surface but the basic principles are largely sound.
Department of Less-Than-Hilarious Comedy Albums/ Today's offering: The Okra Eaters.
A scandalous, shocking, nasty damned dish.
They really need little introduction, just pour a libation, settle down and get ready to laugh until some okra comes up.
This is the complete 1974 adults-only lp, with ripping incidental music by the Johnny Otis Show, and another lovely (?) Laff Records cover designed by Howard Goldstein with Bud Fraker photography. Oh, and I fixed the tracklist- the original lp had the cuts listed wrong on the cover and the label. But who would care or notice? Tracklist schmacklist. Again--if you didn't glean this already--This is NOT work-safe or even safe for pets or children, for that matter- just very down and dirty. It hovers somewhere just short of 'foul' and nearby to 'cute'.
70's Culture Quiz: The concept "Karate Jaws" is a send-up of an ad campaign related to what 1970's icon?
Here is the link to the corrected cover art, and here are the 13 tracks:
01 Bazooms 02 House of Pleasure 03 Miscarriage 04 Eat My Okra 05 Chocolate Ice Cream 06 Proud 07 Hold That Tiger 08 Son in Law 09 To Be Sure 10 Bad Weather 11 Blowin' Mule 12 Big Mary 13 Dr. Weightoff
Where were we?
It's been nearly three months since I started gardening: or, three months since I started poking about in bits of dirt and blindly flinging seeds about without much idea as to what I was actually doing.
There is obsession and there is obsession. Of course, many of us in the music netherworld understand the sorcery that beguiles a person to spend far too many waking hours searching for that elusive 7" or a mono version of a song that you fear you'll never see, but hoping with every flip of the record pile that you are wrong. That dedication, some say, fuels economies, creates magazines and sparks many long nights of conversation. But the kind of obsession that revolves around flavor and food can be a lonely outing. It is culturally acceptable to wait for hours for a table at Momofuku noodle bar, but am I odd to order deviled truffle eggs for an appetizer and for dessert?
The Easter Bunny visited many a kitchen table this weekend past and left thousands of cartons of hard boiled eggs strewn in his/her hoppity path. If you need an inspiration for what to do with these sulfured sirens take heed and follow the ancient winds of picnics and family gatherings since time began: the deviled egg. My favorite Jersey City restaurant, Ox, offered us their fabulous Deviled Egg Tartufato recipe. They are so very modern and use the flavor that has transformed eggs into an addictive delicacy: truffles.
If the Easter Bunny did not recently pepper your world with colored eggs, or you'd rather leave it to the professionals, stop by Ox and order a couple of rounds for yourself. You'll soon be searching for words to kindly explain a flavor obsession.
Ox Deviled Eggs Tartufato
1 Dozen Large Eggs
1/2 Cup Mayonnaise
Harry Stonebraker was well-liked in Winfield, Missouri (population 723). Last week he was about to finish his third 2-year term as mayor of the town, was running for a fourth term, and was pretty much expected to win. And he did win, by a landslide—90%. He didn’t let the fact that he was dead keep him down, nosirree. Elaine Luck, Lincoln County clerk, said, “I figured he’d win because he seemed to get even more popular after he died, just like Carnahan.” County Clerk Ms. Luck was referring, of course, to Democrat Mel Carnahan, who was elected U.S. Senator from Missouri in 2000 after dying in a plane crash. (Carnahan defeated Republican incumbent John Ashcroft, of “Let the Eagle Soar” fame.)
I never cared much for Missouri when I was growing up in a much-better neighboring state, and I really grew to dislike it during the year or so that I actually had to live there. I felt weird and out-of-place, although they did have the cheapest beer I’ve ever seen anywhere (Buckhorn, $3.00 a 6-pack), a lot of pinball machines, and the Kansas City Art Institute. But that was long before Missouri opened up the electoral process to dead candidates. Maybe now I’d get along there; after all, some of my best friends are dead people.
Thanks for reading my blog post this time, and may God bless.
Is gardening a political act?
My last post seemed to open the floodgates to debate on my political affiliations and my philosophical standpoint, which I found mildly flattering, highly amusing and ultimately somewhat perplexing.
From ultra-conservative Rush Limbaugh on one end of the scale to founder of anarchist thought Prince Petr Kropotkin on the other, my desire to grow vegetables on my balcony seems to have struck an altogether more political chord.
Gardeners all over the globe are currently rejoicing at the news that the Obamas have turned the South Side lawn of the White House into a working vegetable, fruit and herb plot.
The trend isn't new. During the Second World War President Roosevelt did the self-same thing, converting the lawn into a Victory Garden; a practice which was taken up across the nation. Britain followed suit with the "Dig for Victory" campaign - it was estimated that by 1943 over a million tons of vegetables were grown in British gardens and allotments, with the effort continuing after the war to cope with extended rationing.
It's definitely getting warmer and sunnier out there and armies of weekend gardeners are busy mowing their lawns and getting some bedding plants dug in for a spot of instant colour.
Here at Junk Towers there's a fair bit of greenery going down too with various plants springing up hither and thither, and it's an encouraging sight to see. When life bursts forth it's good for the soul, and yet when things don't quite go according to plan...
Well it sucks, quite frankly.
