Yesterday's harvest was not bad at all. Lots of eggplants. I almost waited too long and one had some brown spots inside. I made Moussaka (without meat). So good! But a lot of work since it involves so many steps before you can finally put the pan in the oven: broiling peppers and peeling them, broiling eggplant, frying potatoes, making toamto sauce, assembling the whole thing. But it was worth it. And we will still have leftovers tonight.

I am getting the roof ready for my first attempt at fall planting. It seems a bit too hot still for anything tender to grow. But a late harvest of some beans, cucumbers, radishes and greens would be nice.

I am contemplating setting up a very simple passive hydroponic system. Nothing complicated or mechanical. That way I wouldn't have to schlepp so much soil up there, and since I would drain the system in the winter there would be less weight with the added snow-load.

I am still a bit skeptical whether it will actually work. I will set up a few very simple containers as a trial.

I got some new tart apples at the market. Tonight I will make some apple jelly. Maybe scented with some lemon balm or lavender. Or lemon verbena. I can't decide. Maybe some of each. Or maybe just plain.  10:43:22 AM    

I took some pictures today. For now, I will just post them without much comment. I will write about some new ideas for the roof very soon.

Everyone says you can't grow pumpkins in pots. Around here they just keep popping up.

I didn't plan on these two ears of corn either.

These tomatoes will be harvested soon.

I ran out of pots. We had the first eggplant yesterday. There are many more.  11:53:44 PM    

This blog will be on hiatus again (well, when is it not?); this time for three weeks as we will visit my family in Germany. I will not even attempt to sum up the goings-on of the past week. Instead I will post a few pictures from my "gardens," before they burst into bloom and hopefully fruit. Hey, if we had a webcam, we could watch things grow from afar.

One thing I would like to say though is, that my fast was the best thing I did for myself since I had my children. I feel rejuvenated, both physically and mentally. I am back to eating normal now, although more thoughfully and in smaller portions. I will definitely go back and fast again. I had some major detoxification happening on day six and I am not sure I got rid of all the nasty stuff since I broke the fast on day seven. I hope to talk more about it when I get back.

The windowboxes have filled in nicely.

In my backyard the lilies are just about ready to start blooming.

And here is my little rooftop farm:

  9:41:24 PM    

I am in between visits from in-laws. Visit was good, I think. It is good for grandparents to spend time with their grandchildren, especially in view of health problems.

I focused the last week on my garden(s) (what am I talking about??? I have a postage stamp and three window boxes ...). In the back, I put the Japanese Maple in. It looks gorgeous. I still need to thin out the canopy a bit. I put in Sweet Autumn Clematis to keep the other Clematis company. They can mingle and we will have some nice bloom in the fall. General cleaning-up, put in some Impatients to brighten things up a bit. And I moved the Bleeding heart that had gotten so enormous it was crowding everything else.
I took the pansies and primrose out of the window boxes and planted them under the blueberry bushes. You never know, we might still get some mileage out of them. For me geraniums are the quintessential window box flower but since they don't get enough sun here, they actually never look really good. So this year I did something drastically different (and ironically, this was the first year I managed to overwinter my Geraniums). I assembled some houseplants that can't stop multiplying and added some colorful coleus. (I will post a picture once they have filled in a bit). Basically, there is Sweet Potatoe Vine and Wandering Jew trailing down the front, two different types of coleus and a polka-dot plant in the middle, along with a white Impatients (some flowers, I figured), and in the back there is a spider plant and a fern. It looks pretty good with unusual contrast of foilage.
I put my tomatoes and peppers on the roof and a few herbs and other things. Sounds easy, doesn't it? Well, I worked for five hours climbing up and down that ladder with my backpack loaded up with plants and compost. I thought my back would break. The potting soil I had used last year had not drained very well so I really needed to refresh the pots with lots of Perlite and compost.

And speaking of compost, I had to move that around too, because my bins were full. Again. I wish I had room for a third bin.

So much for was my gardening craziness. I also repotted most of the houseplants and put the geraniums in pots on the steps. I will post pictures eventually. The bizarre thing is that while I dig around in the little dirt I have, all around me neighbors are putting in paving and building walls and covering up that last bit of dirt as if it were the evil enemy. Oh well.

I still have to do the tree-pit in the front. That's the toughest habitat. Dogs, people, cars, salt in the winter. Whenever I have an extra plant that looks tough I put it in there. Last fall I put in a hosta and it came up this spring. Then someone actually dug it up and took off with it. I hope it found a good home.

Culinary Stuff

I delegated most of the cooking this week to my spouse. Being cooked for is nice. I could get used to it. We went out once to Little Giant again. I had wild asparagus for the first time. It was amazing. Pencil-thin with relatively large tips. Very green and fresh tasting. Apparently some guy from Vermont drives around and sells it to people in the know. I don't think he will be coming by my house, though. The other noteworthy thing I had there was a Mojito with rum they had spiced themselves. I managed to coax the ingredients out of the waitress. Speaking of drinks we were at a BBQ today and I had excellent home-made beer. It was seriously good beer. Almost makes we want to start brewing. But my neighbor said he had been tinkering around for four years and pouring a lot down the drain. Hmm, maybe I can trade some canned goods? Or some spiced rum?  11:05:17 PM    

Yesterday I saw a squirrel scampering along the fence with a large piece of perfectly golden toast in his claws. I managed to sneak a picture before it sat down out of range and proceeded to munch on it.

I don't like squirrels. They dig up my flower pots. There weren't any on this block until last year. I think the toast-eater is actually second generation.  1:35:29 PM    

This stand of tulips comes back every year in all its glory among the ever- evolving junk. The yard immediately behind it used to be extremely well-groomed six years ago when we got here. Now it is a forest of saplings. The house that goes with the yard in the very back (where you see the broom) has just been beautifully restored and I am sure the yard will soon be very pretty as well.

The chives are my windowbox. You can't see the yard right next to mine because the yards are terraced and the terrain drops down a retaining wall. It is totally bare anyway. Pesticides!

It is incomprehensible to me how some people just don't appreciate at all having a backyard in Manhattan.  1:04:28 PM    

Today I took a break and wanted to have lunch among the Magnolia petals. As I was carrying my tray outside a bird came flying towards me from the neighboring yard. I thought it was a mourning dove at first because of its size. But when it landed on the tree in my yard I saw that it it a speckled chest, a long beak and was a different bird altogether. It somehow resembled a woodpecker but was not the red-headed kind I had seen in the yard in years past. It did not sit still long at all but I did get a good look at it and it was quite distinctive.

I went inside and got the children's bird guide. On the page after the woodpecker was the Northern Flicker. That's clearly what it was. I know this is not a rare bird at all but I had never seen one before, so I am very excited.

I had heard its cry for a while (and also in a near-by park) had not been able to see it. There is a very dead tree two yards down and I had heard some hammering for a while but it was not as forceful as a woodpecker's and I couldn't see a woodpecker either. I hope the flicker will nest in the dead tree.

Another species to add to my list of urban wildlife sightings. This year we have two very noisy blue jays who give the crow a run for its money. Sparrows, starlings, mourning doves and pigeons of course. Last year we saw woodpeckers, robins, and cardinals.  2:04:33 PM    

Here is my little urban oasis, briefly sprinkled by fairy petals.

9:16:55 AM