Brooklyn

At least, I did like riding my bicycle very much until I had a couple of mishaps. As you may or may not remember, bicycle riding is a relatively new thing for me. Sure, I learned to ride as a child, but didn’t own a bike between the ages of, say… 8 and 22. I gave my hand-me-down bike a face-lift and started really riding this past spring. It was fantastic. I gained confidence and got around Brooklyn so easily.

One lovely Saturday afternoon, I decided to ride my bike up to the Brooklyn Flea to sift through odds and ends. I was cruising along until I got to Grand Army Plaza where a family of four had entered the bike lane. If you haven’t experienced it, Grand Army Plaza is a gigantic and totally overwhelming rotary-style intersection with many lights and many lanes and many crazy drivers. There are even residential streets that are in the same shape but surround the major intersection. I tell you what, it’s a mind-boggling marvel of civic engineering.

ANYWAY, I’m following this family of four – a dad, followed closely by his two young sons (neither older than 12), and the mom following at a little distance behind. I could tell she wasn’t very confident, so I stayed at a distance behind her. We’re all heading North on Plaza Street East (see link to map above) to turn right on Vanderbilt. Dad and his two sons safely cross over the lane of traffic (no cars at all on the street) from the bike lane on the lefthand side to turn right. I’m watching ahead, and the mom starts to proceed as if she’s doing the same but suddenly STOPS dead in the middle of the bike lane. Not expecting a sudden stop, I squeeze the brakes immediately and veer a little to the right to try to avoid contact, but there wasn’t enough time. My handlebars got caught in hers, my bike toppled over, with me still tangled in it, INTO THE LANE OF CAR TRAFFIC. If I believed in that God people are always talking about, I’d thank him every day for reminding me to wear my helmet and for the fact that no cars were near me at the time. That’s right. No cars. I was so fortunate.

The woman apologized to me about 6 times, and I kept saying I was fine, no big deal, but in reality I was pissed. She told me she was stopping to look for traffic and I wanted to be like “Hey, your husband and CHILDREN managed to look for traffic without causing any ruckus…” but I didn’t. I know that when a car rear-ends another that it is always the fault of the driver in back, but at least pull over to look over your shoulder if you really can’t handle the pressure! I kept riding for about 5 more blocks before realizing there was blood dripping down my shin from where my leg was tangled up with the pedal (see visual aid).

I tied my bandana around my leg and kept riding. I was fine. So lucky. Just a little wired from the thought of “what could have happened?” I ended up finding a lovely wooden tool box at the Flea and, despite my shaken state, made it all the way home with the heavy box strapped to the rear rack (which it was 5 times wider than) with bungee cords:

PERSEVERANCE! GO EMILY! And just think, this is the less frightening one of the two stories I’ll be sharing with you about bicycle mishaps (but I’m still here, so you know I’m fine after that one, too.) Stay tuned!

A Rooftop Vegetable Garden: The Beginning

8 July 2010

Brooklyn, DIY, Gardening, New York, Photography

3 Comments

Guys, I hit a landmark!!!!! The last post I wrote was my 100th published post! Yaaaaay!

And now, the garden. So when we parted last, I had fetched all the supplies I needed in Red Hook and dragged them home. I had the good fortune of starting my garden on one of the lovely 95+ degree days a few weeks ago. I’d love to tell you that the heat was therapeutic and inspirational, but it was not. It was disgusting. Don’t let anyone ever tell you that girls don’t sweat.

Above you’ll see my 3 cubic feet of organic potting soil, the container for the tomato plant with drainage holes I drilled myself (and yes, my drill is powered by AA batteries, and I love it), and the beast (Harry) demonstrating one way a tomato plant might use a tomato cage.

And that’s me (sweaty and gross)! Me and my garden! I would have loved to have shown you some pictures of the planting process, but as soon as my hands got dirty, the camera was abandoned. These things happen when you garden solo, I guess. You can’t quite see all the pots for the plants (but that’s ok because they’re not super beautiful or anything). You may notice (duh) that I didn’t plant seeds, but full-fledged plants. I started way too late in the growing season to start anything from seed. I also wanted to keep it pretty simple for my first little vegetable and herb garden (because I don’t know what I’m doing). The tall plant in the large container is an heirloom tomato plant of the Striped German variety. Sharing the container are two Lettuce Leaf basil plants. A third basil plant sits immediately in front, and to the left of that is a Tabasco pepper plant. All are organic.

So that’s my garden! Readers, garden–garden, readers. We’re all acquainted. Lovely. One of the most exciting moments of the gardening process so far: I already had my first bee! If you don’t know that much about gardens, bees are very exciting as they keep harmful insects away. I was standing up from finishing up the transplanting process, wiping the sweat from my brow and a bee came along and buzzed by each and every plant. Amazing. NATURE IS SO COOL.

The whole planting process happened two weeks ago. Would you like to see how it’s doing today? I’d be happy to show you!

Isn’t that SOOOOO COOL? Look how much it has grown! Guys. I love nature. Really. It’s amazing. Watching things grow is so fascinating. I have so much basil right now. I think I may need to do a big harvest today and make some pesto because I can hardly keep up. I think there’s basil ice cream in the future, too. The basil plant in front is suffering a little. I expect it’s because it’s housed in a terra cotta pot (which pulls moisture away from the soil very quickly). My poor little pepper plant lost most of its leaves because we were away for the weekend and it was HOT here. But never fear! You can see a whole host of brand new baby leaves sprouting from the base of the stem.

I’m loving this whole gardening experience. I look forward to sharing more victorious moments in the future, and maybe some not so victorious ones, too.

We’re heading to Puerto Rico for a WEEK starting Saturday (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!), so please pardon my absence. Hopefully I’ll have some beautiful images to share with you when we return.

A Rooftop Vegtable Garden: The Building Blocks

6 July 2010

Brooklyn, DIY, Gardening, New York, Photography

3 Comments

It has now been two weeks since I planted my rooftop garden, and because it did not immediately perish, I feel confident enough to tell you all about it! Soon. For now, I’d like to share with you the wonderful resources that made my garden possible.

One of the things I needed most in my gardening adventure was knowledge. Previously, mine extended only about as far as houseplant care. I sought out some books online, found a few, and narrowed down my selection. I ended up purchasing just one:

Grow Great Grub: Organic Food from Small Spaces, by Gayla Trail, author of the blog You Grow Girl. I wasn’t previously familiar with her blog, but she makes some beautiful plants grow and takes gorgeous pictures of them. I don’t know that I could have found a more helpful book for me! It features specific information about container gardens (which mine is!) and what kinds of plants work best in them. My favorite part is her honesty and straightforwardness:

I’m not going to lie to you. There is a heck of a lot to learn when it comes to growing a food garden. But you don’t need to know everything now in order to begin. You’ll learn over time through doing, succeeding, and yes, even failing. (pg.7)

Sure, these are words of advice to live by when you’re starting anything new, but she’s sort of a gardening goddess so it’s nice to see her admit these things. And it did give me a little boost of confidence to get started sooner rather than later.

In seeking out a place to buy supplies, I considered several options… the bodega around the corner that has some vegetable/herb plants, the little flower shop by our subway stop that has the same, etc. These would probably be fine, but also have been sitting out on some semi-grimy streets for a few weeks. Also, they may not have the size containers I need or enough potting soil. Again, I turned to the internet to help me find someplace that could provide me with everything I needed to get started.

I was incredibly fortunate to have access to my lovely sister’s car for a short time, and so I transported myself and my ideas easily over to Red Hook, a neighborhood typically only public-transit-accessible by bus. I had found a place called the Liberty Sunset Garden Center that was well-reputed for its selection, integrity, and fantastic views of Lady Liberty.

These pictures are all from the garden center itself, or the piers immediately surrounding it. It wasn’t the easiest spot to find, but I ended up getting nearly everything I needed to make my little rooftop container garden happen. The garden center has an enormous indoor space with succulents and various houseplants, planters, lawn furniture, and decorative items. The outdoor space is beautifully landscaped and cared for and is home to much healthy looking flora. They also keep an amazing vegetable, flower, and herb garden that is planted and maintained by kids from the neighborhood. If you live anywhere close, I encourage you to go take a look.

Most people know about Red Hook because it’s home to the Brooklyn Ikea. After Liberty Sunset, I swung over there to get some containers to use in the garden. I quickly decided I should either go there every week or never again. It’s a dangerous and exciting maze of brightly colored home design objects. I can’t believe I got out of there with my brains in tact.

And so, with lots of help from Grow Great Grub and the Liberty Sunset Garden Center, I was armed with most everything I needed to start my own rooftop container garden…