And more!

The wildflowers have come up in quite remarkable colors, all from last year's mix! Mind you, these ain't even ones that came up last year.

Sadly, I can't identify them still, but it's a playful if uncoordinated mix of pinks, purples, and yellows, with some of the purplish basil leaves from last year that have spread through many of the garden plots.

Another view, this of the tall yellow flowers in the middle:

Pretty, but keeping it urban with the cement wall in the back.

And those strawberries from my last post? One was trying to hide, but I found her, and she's as red as red can be!

And those old reliable marigolds have started blooming. I pulled some weedy flowers to help the marigolds prosper in the coming weeks, as I always enjoy their scent and their flaming colors.

It was nice to see all these flowers coming up after a week of sunshine followed by a bit of rain - even more now as a thunderstorm is blowing through actually as I type this. But my fun was cut short, or I should say punctuated and then cut short, by the small dog featured in an earlier post. Yes, the wee scram visited the garden.

Guess who likes eating the heads off flowers and generally tromping through even the smallest gardens? Yep. And guess who doesn't like be held back by a park bench with her harness on, as if it was the cruelest thing in the world? Oh, the whining. She's so dramatic!

So I clipped a few things and managed to do this at home, and that was that.

Like a white trash corsage, eh?

An update!

So I've been meaning to get to my garden avec ou sans camera, but I made it back earlier this week with the camera, so I can provide you all with some odd visuals.

You see, due to a move (to a preferable neighborhood, says I, but to a more economically disadvantaged one, to others), I just can't get to the garden a few times a week like I did last summer. Still, I planted some things and other flowers have come back from last year.

This photo seems remarkably small. My apologies. But I have some close-ups.

You can see the fairly tall irises, which came up last year, feebly, from years past and never bothered flowering. I guess they flower early, because they had lovely long stems with flowers on them this time, with the flowers healthier during my last visit in late May. There are also other flowers, presumably from my wildflower mix of last year (aka "beginner's mistake"). My colleague Lisa visited with me and started to identify things, but I'll be damned if I remember any of it.

I do know this, though: STRAWBERRIES

(and I just figured out the size thing.)

And more!

Lisa is actually the one that gave me the strawberries, a friend of her's had bought too many or something, and I was really glad they came back with such a vengeance. I'll have to get there this weekend to see if these guys ever made it into the real thing.

Marigolds are returning too!

And the sunflowers are off to a good start in the pot, with my seedlings making a successful transition from yogurt cups to clay pot in garden:

I'll try to get back this weekend and update accordingly, but so far so good.

Flowers are calling

I planted sunflowers and a few other Seeds (of Change) last week, so I need to go check on them soon. But things just got a little more complicated....



Don't know how Scram will take to the garden.

With the sun, comes the garden

So it's warming up a little bit - more on some days, like today, than on others, like maybe 2 days ago? - so it's back into the garden. I struggled this year because I left the neighborhood I lived in for 5 or so years, due to the nasty monster currently consuming Boston that is gentrification, so I had to think about whether to keep my plot in the community garden. But interestingly, my new neighbhorhood, which is more working class, has three community gardens near my apartment, and yet... they're all full! On one of them, I was number 38 on the mailing list, so I mean they are really full. This left me commuting to my community garden back in the old 'hood, where bizarrely, they can't keep people gardening. So just to be clear: rich people aren't interested in community gardening despite most not having yards, and those with less are all for sticking their hands in public dirt and growing things. Maybe there's something to Tracie McMillan's NY Times article after all. (How cool is that news! Working folk are doing it for themselves.)

So I headed back to my wee garden to see how she was, and she ain't looking too bad actually. I apologize for not having photos - next time. But the tulips someone put in years ago have come up again, meaning I did the right thing in not ripping them out when they died last year. Instead I did some elaborate tucking and tying per some casual instructions a fellow gardener provided. (I also copied what I saw in other gardens.) So they're back, and they're quite beautiful. My strawberries are definitely holding firm and seem very healthy, even if not particularly productive. My partner's fear that they would consume my garden have not yet been realized. The azalea bushes have already bloomed once, and another plant whose name I cannot remember is still living and looks ready for little buds as well. And of course, the ubiquitous hasta, which I maintain is a nice bright and full spot in the garden. The leggy bushes are doing fine as well, but that's no surprise.

So I got there and who was there to meet me? My favorite (and most active) gardener in this community garden, Mr. Tim. He's always a reassuring presence, though his garden plot is freakishly manicured. I guess I just prefer low level sprawl to daintiness and order, but everyone compliments his garden. He even arranges pebbles just so. Anyhow, there he was, so I saw him and many buds for the first time all at once. He held a rake, and pretended to run to me for a dramatic hug while I stood smiling awkwardly.

My first day in, I did some weeding and got rid of some old dead stuff that lingered from last season - skeletons of my grand zinnias, making me think I should plant more as seeds to see if I can replicate my line of tall boys from last year. I should branch out probably - pardon the pun. I also managed to dispose of the big pot I inherited that had no bottom. If you'll recall, last year the buildng next door did some repointing, so workers set up scaffolding over my garden. In their effort to gently move my giant pot full of healthy and towering sunflowers, they killed them all due to the bottomless pot. The soil fell through and there was no salvaging them. So that evil pot, scourge of my garden and probably those seemingly sensitive workers, is no more, and I have a fat round pot leftover from who knows where in which I may, again, put sunflowers. I bought some seed at Whole Foods yesterday for that purpose. I liked those guys.

Speaking of the yuppie trash next door... Tim tells me he came to the garden a week or two ago and found an animal trap in my garden. It was a safe trap, thankfully, but a trap all the same, and in it? A baby squirrel. I know. I KNOW. And he found 2 other such traps in other gardens. So he safely released the squirrel, who seemed worse for the wear after banging his tiny body against the sides, and collected the other traps and marched over to the new garden coordinator's house. She plead ignorance, so he blamed the owners of the building next door. They may have had a squirrel problem in the building or feared rats due to the wild area next to them - um, wild except that we all garden there constantly. Idiots. As Tim said, "So they thought they could just trap every little animal in the fuckin' city!" Right. So he told the coordinator that he was putting the traps in his car and they could come to HIM if they want them back, but they should be prepared.

My hero.

I now have the aforementioned sunflower seeds and alyssum, something I've never planted but a plant I think will fill the space nicely. We'll see. I'm pleased that I bought organic seeds this year, though I may have to buy non-organic for the flowers because Whole Foods just didn't have much of a flower selection. I'll also return to the farmers market in Copley Square for some annuals. (It starts back up May 20th!)

And in my new place, I now have a porch. More gardening opportunity, though in pot form! I've already started my ol' standby, the scarlett runner beans, planting the seedlings I hatched inside into a big pot outside with a trellis. I have more seeds that I'll put in my garden like last year, in the corner trellis. Spreading the bean wealth, I suppose. I bought other seed for outdoors as well and my colleague, ever the gardener, gave me some tiny, tiny tomato seeds. I'm trying to get seedlings which I can transfer outside to some pots.

Let the fun begin, right?

Global Warming: Friend or Foe?

I'm not really wading into that debate, but my garden seems quite pleased after a week of rain and a weekend of sunshine and cool weather.The zinnias have reached 5 feet, I think, and while there are quite a few flowers, there are as many buds waiting to open. The marigolds, always a happy bunch down below, are our in force, and the gazanias have a really nice sunny orangey yellow, or yellowy orange, tint, which as I've noted, will disappear with the sun. They only open in daytime, sunny hours. And on the bottom left side is another large dahlia, this one yellow, and finally blooming.

You can see to the right of this photo, that gazania that's also coming in a nice yellowy red, while the ones on the left are coming in yellow. I've enjoyed this flowers. That fat yellow dahlia in the middle, though I'm pleased he's finally blooming, has never been a favorite. He grew wide before he grew pretty, and even edged out one of the gazanias - even though he could have grown back toward the hosta, which needed to be bullied a bit.

The plants I put in for autumn also seem happy, and their buds, closed up when I purchased them for 3 for $10 at the farmer's market 2 weeks ago, have since opened up.

Psychedelic perspective there, taken from above, but the yellow flowers in the bottom right and the purple at the top are new, and there is also an orangish mum doing nicely next to the yellow that didn't make the photo.

You can also note in that photo that these little white flowers have filled in the blank footprints left by the scaffolding, which worked out well. My kind of sweet potato plant, on the top right, has also become leggy and stretched out into some blank spots, and I like the burgundy color. I'm trying to make sure he doesn't crowd out the small azalea in the corner of the garden (not pictured), but I think she'll hold her own.

This weekend was the big wedding - it happened this afternoon, and I showed up after the fact. But here was have the entrance to the garden - you can guess the kind of wedding it hosted:

Yes, a big gay wedding, and the grooms had gorgeous weather for it. And I'm sure they were appreciative of my giant zinnias, standing with others as witnesses (and my sunflower in back):

Somebody's getting mar-ried!

It ain't me.

But another gardener is getting married to his partner in our li'l community garden. Now I'm not one for weddings or marriage or what have you, but I think this is kind of cool, and I look forward to seeing what they do to our space to prepare it for the happy couple and 50-60 of their closest friends. A regular in the garden, Tim, is helping with the prep work. I haven't made it over to see what they've done, except briefly this weekend. They had thrown in a few things but I assume - hope, even - they'll do more.

I gotta throw some mums in or something. While the baby's breath has filled in much of the hole left by the scaffolding, my celosias never quite recovered, so I should pull those out and fill in. My zinnias, if I do say so myself, will provide some nice color. So there.

And I'll just assume most of you understand the headline as an allusion to the great "Muppets Take Manhattan." Obviously.

Paparazzi Shots of the Garden

It is urban after all, right? So some night shots of the garden on this beautiful if drizzly Tuesday.

The zinnias are happy, it seems. And there remains one sunflower in the back there, though it was generally facing downward due to the rain. I think it's healthy enough, just damp.

And in the back, on the left, you can see the sad empty pot where once very tall sunflower plants grew...

Moving on.

My crowning achievement: the scarlett runner beans. Notice the two GIANT pods hanging in the middle! I was thrilled to see those. I plucked one off - I hope not too early. I didn't see anymore, but there looks like there might be one on the right there. I can't believe how quickly these pods grew - they're huge now, but were only a couple of inches long last week. My partner was not quite as impressed, answering my "look what came out of my garden!" with "that's not pudding. I want pudding." Hm.
Just below the zinnias sit this happy little grouping of marigolds. I have a whole new respect for these flowers - I had no idea they were so hardy. These guys came out of a wildflower seed mix, but others I've seen in the neighborhood, like the ones near West Newton on the Southwest Corridor, are like shrubs. I think they're all the same plant, though these are faily low-growing. Mind you, they've survived scaffolding!

Speaking of hardy...

I'm pleased with the colors these dahlias are producing - red flowers with yellow in the middle. I'm not all that colorful a guy, and wouldn't have guessed that red and yellow would be a favorite combination, but they're gorgeous. Some flowers still come up deep red.



And lastly, I don't know who invited this fine lookin' gal, but as my trashy college roommate in Texas used to say, I won't kick her outta bed for droppin' crumbs:

Who is this mystery flower?! Purple and white, she came out of nowhere. I need to investigate in the light of day, but I'm pleasantly surprised and certainly intrigued.

Ya see, I think of the urban garden as a somewhat contained experiment. Sure there can be plants I don't know, but I don't imagine we have a ton of wild animals running through the gardens, and we're not right up against wilderness of any kind, unless you consider some of the buildings that have really been "let go." So seeing this was completely confusing. Surely it's too late in the season for something from a past gardener to show up?? And I haven't planted anything, except for a few portulaca seeds my colleague gave me, and those were on the other side of the garden.

I'm just pleased it rained, and rained so hard. My garden, honestly, looks relieved.