The Back Garden Projecthttp://www.good.is/A GOOD community member works to transform a neglected corner of the city into a healthy garden.Sun, 27 May 2012 12:47:13 -0700CakePHPhourly1en-us <![CDATA[The Back Garden Project: Nothing Gold Can Stay]]> http://www.good.is/post/the-back-garden-project-nothing-gold-can-stay/ http://www.good.is/post/the-back-garden-project-nothing-gold-can-stay/

This is the 14th and final post in The Back Garden Project, one GOOD community member's effort to turn a neglected corner of the city into a thriving garden.

As warm August breezes and increasing (if still all-too-brief) rain showers lift a little of the heat and humid stillness from the city, the back garden has become a bit more pleasant again, though perhaps not soon enough for some of the plants. It almost feels like autumn back here with the ground crunching under my feet, even though I know it's a result of one of the hottest and driest summers New York has had in years, not an early fall.

To that end, the biggest news to report this week is that my initial appraisal of how the native plants were holding up to the summer heat has unfortunately proven overly optimistic. Through a combination of experimental determination and unavoidable distraction, the garden has had to survive with its native climate.

Sure, I've been carrying a watering can down a few times a week, but by and large the plants have subsisted on rain water (especially during some longer stretches when I've been out of town). The harsh conditions have really separated out the toughest survivors.

As an indication of how hot and dry it has been, let me note that even many of the hardy volunteers have been dying off, and the usually-unrelenting knotweed has barely been spreading. More significantly, I've lost some of my own plants: The dogwood and the cranberry bush seem unlikely to revive after a couple weeks of trying to nurse them back to health; the mayapple I mentioned before only continued to decline; most of the flowers, from the Tiarella to the meadow anemone, are looking pretty sorry; and several of the ferns—seemingly the more elaborate ones like the cinnamon and the ostrich, and those getting the most sun—didn't survive July.


These plants clearly needed a great deal more water than they received naturally in July. But at the same time, there are stories of success. For one thing, the wild ginger (like the one pictured at the top of the post) has been remarkably resilient, even if it gets too much sun. Also, pictured clockwise from the left below, a couple of the less extravagant ferns seem to be hanging in there, the blueberry bush is coming back to life with renewed watering efforts, and the whole patch of things that I planted in the shade at the bottom of the garden are looking perky as ever.


Certainly I've learned from this summer that "native" plants are not entirely hands-off, at least under fairly extreme climate conditions in a complicated (and admittedly pretty non-native) setting. On that last factor,it would be difficult ever to know how much any of the plants that died were also adversely affected by the contaminated soil. More to the point though, as I've known from the beginning, not all "native" plants are equally native to my particular garden plot in Brooklyn. Regardless of contamination and centuries of urbanization, the real natives to this little corner of Long Island were large deciduous trees like Nyssa sylvatica and their forest undergrowth in the coastal marsh, and probably some grasses and sparse woodlands on the rolling hills above them, including now-endangered shrubs and wildflowers like the northern coastal violet (see this great New York Times article about endangered local plants). In selecting my plants, I defined "native" as all plants that could and probably did exist in New York without humans, but not things especially suited for my back yard.

I could have guessed the cranberry would have a tough time without a lot more water, but was surprised that some of the flowers struggled so much. At the same time, the wild ginger, whose ideal setting would also be marshy, has proven resilient, as have the ferns. Of course, August isn't over yet.


Yet another reason that it feels a bit like the end of the season though is that I find myself winding down the Back Garden Project, at least online here. Of course I'll continue tending the garden and remain excited see how things change down there in the autumn as the leaves change, but the truth is there's not a great deal of blog-worthy development to report. I consider the project a mixed success; certainly I can say without a doubt that I've learned a great deal about native plants and New York City gardens, and I'd like to think that I've restored this neglected space pretty significantly, tamed the weeds some, and maybe even restored the soil a little.

Thanks so much to everyone who has followed along and commented and critiqued and suggested, and a big thanks too to GOOD for the space (and editing and web assistance) to chronicle my efforts here. Hope you've enjoyed, see you around the GOOD community!

]]>

This is the 14th and final post in The Back Garden Project, one GOOD community member's effort to turn a neglected corner of the city into a thriving garden.

As warm August breezes and increasing (if still all-too-brief) rain showers lift a little of the heat and humid stillness from the city, the back garden has become a bit more pleasant again, though perhaps not soon enough for some of the plants. It almost feels like autumn back here with the ground crunching under my feet, even though I know it's a result of one of the hottest and driest summers New York has had in years, not an early fall.

To that end, the biggest news to report this week is that my initial appraisal of how the native plants were holding up to the summer heat has unfortunately proven overly optimistic. Through a combination of experimental determination and unavoidable distraction, the garden has had to survive with its native climate.

Sure, I've been carrying a watering can down a few times a week, but by and large the plants have subsisted on rain water (especially during some longer stretches when I've been out of town). The harsh conditions have really separated out the toughest survivors.

As an indication of how hot and dry it has been, let me note that even many of the hardy volunteers have been dying off, and the usually-unrelenting knotweed has barely been spreading. More significantly, I've lost some of my own plants: The dogwood and the cranberry bush seem unlikely to revive after a couple weeks of trying to nurse them back to health; the mayapple I mentioned before only continued to decline; most of the flowers, from the Tiarella to the meadow anemone, are looking pretty sorry; and several of the ferns—seemingly the more elaborate ones like the cinnamon and the ostrich, and those getting the most sun—didn't survive July.


These plants clearly needed a great deal more water than they received naturally in July. But at the same time, there are stories of success. For one thing, the wild ginger (like the one pictured at the top of the post) has been remarkably resilient, even if it gets too much sun. Also, pictured clockwise from the left below, a couple of the less extravagant ferns seem to be hanging in there, the blueberry bush is coming back to life with renewed watering efforts, and the whole patch of things that I planted in the shade at the bottom of the garden are looking perky as ever.


Certainly I've learned from this summer that "native" plants are not entirely hands-off, at least under fairly extreme climate conditions in a complicated (and admittedly pretty non-native) setting. On that last factor,it would be difficult ever to know how much any of the plants that died were also adversely affected by the contaminated soil. More to the point though, as I've known from the beginning, not all "native" plants are equally native to my particular garden plot in Brooklyn. Regardless of contamination and centuries of urbanization, the real natives to this little corner of Long Island were large deciduous trees like Nyssa sylvatica and their forest undergrowth in the coastal marsh, and probably some grasses and sparse woodlands on the rolling hills above them, including now-endangered shrubs and wildflowers like the northern coastal violet (see this great New York Times article about endangered local plants). In selecting my plants, I defined "native" as all plants that could and probably did exist in New York without humans, but not things especially suited for my back yard.

I could have guessed the cranberry would have a tough time without a lot more water, but was surprised that some of the flowers struggled so much. At the same time, the wild ginger, whose ideal setting would also be marshy, has proven resilient, as have the ferns. Of course, August isn't over yet.


Yet another reason that it feels a bit like the end of the season though is that I find myself winding down the Back Garden Project, at least online here. Of course I'll continue tending the garden and remain excited see how things change down there in the autumn as the leaves change, but the truth is there's not a great deal of blog-worthy development to report. I consider the project a mixed success; certainly I can say without a doubt that I've learned a great deal about native plants and New York City gardens, and I'd like to think that I've restored this neglected space pretty significantly, tamed the weeds some, and maybe even restored the soil a little.

Thanks so much to everyone who has followed along and commented and critiqued and suggested, and a big thanks too to GOOD for the space (and editing and web assistance) to chronicle my efforts here. Hope you've enjoyed, see you around the GOOD community!

]]> Gordon Douglas Tue, 24 Aug 2010 05:00:00 PDT <![CDATA[The Back Garden Project: Metal Workers Wanted!]]> http://www.good.is/post/the-back-garden-project-metal-workers-wanted/ http://www.good.is/post/the-back-garden-project-metal-workers-wanted/

This is the 13th post in The Back Garden Project, one GOOD community member's effort to turn a neglected corner of the city into a thriving garden.

It's very much mid-summer in the back garden. Due to the lack of produce to tend and pick, there hasn't been much growth or change out back (that's my dog wishing desperately that he could get through the hole in the fence to somewhere more exciting). I'm feeling like it's time for something drastic and I have an idea:

Who wants to build a crazy sculpture out of all the pieces of metal and other found objects in the back garden?!

Seriously, as I've mentioned more than once, there are a lot of scraps down there still, and honestly I think there are some pretty incredible pieces with which some wild recycled artwork could be created. Here's just a sample of some of the best stuff:



And then there are oodles of lovely little trinkets like these:

And of course there's all of this:
Any takers? Sadly, I lack the skills with a welder to do much with it myself, but I would be excited to have any Brooklynite with the time and interest get involved creating something out of some of this. Of course, the result would be the subject of a post here on Good.is. So get in touch through the comments here if you're interested, and meanwhile anybody with other good ideas for how to use this junk, please send those this way too.

]]>

This is the 13th post in The Back Garden Project, one GOOD community member's effort to turn a neglected corner of the city into a thriving garden.

It's very much mid-summer in the back garden. Due to the lack of produce to tend and pick, there hasn't been much growth or change out back (that's my dog wishing desperately that he could get through the hole in the fence to somewhere more exciting). I'm feeling like it's time for something drastic and I have an idea:

Who wants to build a crazy sculpture out of all the pieces of metal and other found objects in the back garden?!

Seriously, as I've mentioned more than once, there are a lot of scraps down there still, and honestly I think there are some pretty incredible pieces with which some wild recycled artwork could be created. Here's just a sample of some of the best stuff:



And then there are oodles of lovely little trinkets like these:

And of course there's all of this:
Any takers? Sadly, I lack the skills with a welder to do much with it myself, but I would be excited to have any Brooklynite with the time and interest get involved creating something out of some of this. Of course, the result would be the subject of a post here on Good.is. So get in touch through the comments here if you're interested, and meanwhile anybody with other good ideas for how to use this junk, please send those this way too.

]]> Gordon Douglas Wed, 28 Jul 2010 06:00:00 PDT <![CDATA[The Back Garden Project: Surviving Summer]]> http://www.good.is/post/the-back-garden-project-surviving-summer/ http://www.good.is/post/the-back-garden-project-surviving-summer/ This is the 13th post in The Back Garden Project, one GOOD community member's effort to turn a neglected corner of the city into a thriving garden.

Part of the advantage of a native plant garden is that the species involved are largely happy with the climate as it is. Of course, there are some important variations within the region—from coastal shrubs to forest undergrowth—but by and large my native plants should, in theory, live happily on the amount of water they get from rain in a Northeastern summer. This means that even in my Brooklyn back garden I shouldn't really need to water (at least not anything that's in the ground; things in pots or planters can dry out more quickly).

So far this has been mostly true, despite some abnormally hot and dry weather that we’ve had in New York this summer. Most of my natives look just fine, from the ferns to the native flowers. One major exception is the mayapple, which I think may simply be getting too much sun now because it's looking a bit dry (the knotweed that keeps trying to come up in the middle of it probably isn't helping either).


Anybody know anything about mayapples and New York summers? One of my three wild ginger plants—the one that gets the most sun—is also looking a bit worse for wear.

Native climate aside, I have also been trying to collect rainwater in a variety of improvised rain barrels, and use it for the potted plants and the few non-native veggies and herbs I'm growing. This a good sustainable gardening practice in general, but in my case it's also necessary to avoid making many trips back inside to fill up watering cans since there's no spigot in the back garden. Still, there has been too little water, and it's evaporated too quickly, for collected rainwater to suffice.

Another, separate, project in my ongoing maintenance of the garden has been an experimental effort at phytoremediation—using plants to clean contaminated soil. This also has seen little success—the image below from a few weeks ago shows some new lettuce trying to make a go of it, but between shade and heat and poor soil, none of these plants progressed beyond seedlings.

Regardless, I’m pretty pleased to see that overall the native species are surviving the heat and in some cases flourishing with little or no day-to-day care. Not only is it good news from a convenience point of view, but it's also pretty reassuring to know that even after 400-odd years of heavy habitation, development, and alteration (not to mention substantial air and soil pollution), conditions in Brooklyn are still moderately accommodating to the native species that were here first.

]]> This is the 13th post in The Back Garden Project, one GOOD community member's effort to turn a neglected corner of the city into a thriving garden.

Part of the advantage of a native plant garden is that the species involved are largely happy with the climate as it is. Of course, there are some important variations within the region—from coastal shrubs to forest undergrowth—but by and large my native plants should, in theory, live happily on the amount of water they get from rain in a Northeastern summer. This means that even in my Brooklyn back garden I shouldn't really need to water (at least not anything that's in the ground; things in pots or planters can dry out more quickly).

So far this has been mostly true, despite some abnormally hot and dry weather that we’ve had in New York this summer. Most of my natives look just fine, from the ferns to the native flowers. One major exception is the mayapple, which I think may simply be getting too much sun now because it's looking a bit dry (the knotweed that keeps trying to come up in the middle of it probably isn't helping either).


Anybody know anything about mayapples and New York summers? One of my three wild ginger plants—the one that gets the most sun—is also looking a bit worse for wear.

Native climate aside, I have also been trying to collect rainwater in a variety of improvised rain barrels, and use it for the potted plants and the few non-native veggies and herbs I'm growing. This a good sustainable gardening practice in general, but in my case it's also necessary to avoid making many trips back inside to fill up watering cans since there's no spigot in the back garden. Still, there has been too little water, and it's evaporated too quickly, for collected rainwater to suffice.

Another, separate, project in my ongoing maintenance of the garden has been an experimental effort at phytoremediation—using plants to clean contaminated soil. This also has seen little success—the image below from a few weeks ago shows some new lettuce trying to make a go of it, but between shade and heat and poor soil, none of these plants progressed beyond seedlings.

Regardless, I’m pretty pleased to see that overall the native species are surviving the heat and in some cases flourishing with little or no day-to-day care. Not only is it good news from a convenience point of view, but it's also pretty reassuring to know that even after 400-odd years of heavy habitation, development, and alteration (not to mention substantial air and soil pollution), conditions in Brooklyn are still moderately accommodating to the native species that were here first.

]]> Gordon Douglas Mon, 19 Jul 2010 10:00:00 PDT <![CDATA[The Back Garden Project: The Knotweed Strikes Back]]> http://www.good.is/post/the-back-garden-project-the-knotweed-strikes-back/ http://www.good.is/post/the-back-garden-project-the-knotweed-strikes-back/

This is the 12th post in The Back Garden Project, one GOOD community member's effort to turn a neglected corner of the city into a thriving garden.

This time of year in a garden is all about maintenance, particularly staying on top of weeds—and the Japanese knotweed grows like gangbusters. This is no surprise to those who've dealt with the stuff, but it's still staggering to me just how fast it grows. These pictures are taken after just a few days without weeding. Japanese knotweed is creeping up through the paths (wood chip and brick alike), amidst other plants, and even from under and around the stone of my rebuilt patio, as pictured above.

Knotweed (Fallopia japonica) spreads through incredibly extensive networks of underground runners that strike out from its highly productive rhizomes, and it can also propagate from seeds (more here). As many have pointed out in comments on previous posts, this means that as long as there's any of it living anywhere nearby, it will continue to try to spread and grow. Apparently, my thought that "some of them get to stay" was a bit naïve.

Keeping on top of these buggers is essentially all I do out back this time of year, particularly as I have little produce to pick or worry about among my native undergrowth.

But wait! It turns out that some people consider knotweed to be produce itself! Thanks to GOOD reader edgertor who clued me in to this in a comment a few weeks back, I've been reading into it. Food blogger Aaron Kagan has a great little piece on knotweed as food (from which the lovely photo below is borrowed), noting that "the flavor is an exact cross between asparagus and rhubarb."

Who knew? A quick search online will reveal dozens of recipes (here's another good site from forager "Wildman Steve Brill"). Apparently it's even a major source of resveratrol, for people on that tip. 

Unfortunately, as Oregon State's "Garden Hints" page notes with a straight face, "this plant grows and spreads too quickly for eating to be an effective means of control." Shucks.

But I wouldn't be eating any of my own Japanese knotweed anyway, considering the quality of my soil and how long its been growing there.

Still, it's good to know that this viciously invasive plant, which grows so aggressively throughout the country and the world (it's propogation and sale are prohibited in eight states and throughout the United Kingdom) actually has some apparently delicious uses.

]]>

This is the 12th post in The Back Garden Project, one GOOD community member's effort to turn a neglected corner of the city into a thriving garden.

This time of year in a garden is all about maintenance, particularly staying on top of weeds—and the Japanese knotweed grows like gangbusters. This is no surprise to those who've dealt with the stuff, but it's still staggering to me just how fast it grows. These pictures are taken after just a few days without weeding. Japanese knotweed is creeping up through the paths (wood chip and brick alike), amidst other plants, and even from under and around the stone of my rebuilt patio, as pictured above.

Knotweed (Fallopia japonica) spreads through incredibly extensive networks of underground runners that strike out from its highly productive rhizomes, and it can also propagate from seeds (more here). As many have pointed out in comments on previous posts, this means that as long as there's any of it living anywhere nearby, it will continue to try to spread and grow. Apparently, my thought that "some of them get to stay" was a bit naïve.

Keeping on top of these buggers is essentially all I do out back this time of year, particularly as I have little produce to pick or worry about among my native undergrowth.

But wait! It turns out that some people consider knotweed to be produce itself! Thanks to GOOD reader edgertor who clued me in to this in a comment a few weeks back, I've been reading into it. Food blogger Aaron Kagan has a great little piece on knotweed as food (from which the lovely photo below is borrowed), noting that "the flavor is an exact cross between asparagus and rhubarb."

Who knew? A quick search online will reveal dozens of recipes (here's another good site from forager "Wildman Steve Brill"). Apparently it's even a major source of resveratrol, for people on that tip. 

Unfortunately, as Oregon State's "Garden Hints" page notes with a straight face, "this plant grows and spreads too quickly for eating to be an effective means of control." Shucks.

But I wouldn't be eating any of my own Japanese knotweed anyway, considering the quality of my soil and how long its been growing there.

Still, it's good to know that this viciously invasive plant, which grows so aggressively throughout the country and the world (it's propogation and sale are prohibited in eight states and throughout the United Kingdom) actually has some apparently delicious uses.

]]> Gordon Douglas Thu, 1 Jul 2010 16:00:00 PDT <![CDATA[The Back Garden Project: Produce Report]]> http://www.good.is/post/the-back-garden-project-produce-report/ http://www.good.is/post/the-back-garden-project-produce-report/

This is the 11th post in The Back Garden Project, one GOOD community member's effort to turn a neglected corner of the city into a thriving garden.

One challenge of my garden project has been figuring out how to incorporate edible produce. From the beginning, I planned for a garden that embraced the low-light and poor soil conditions by using native woodland plants. But that doesn't mean veggies are out of the question. For one, I've still managed a couple planters out back, home to slowly-growing onions, garlic, zuchini, and peas under the imperfect sunlight. But that's not all. As a short aside this week, I though I'd show a few of the simple little ways that one can still grow produce in a small Brooklyn apartment even without an ideal garden plot.

First, as you may have gleaned from the photo above, I've got some happy tomatoes up on my roof with the first few fruits coming in. The rooftop is hardly a space where you'd want to hang out (much less convert to full-scale agricultural productivity) but it has easy access and is the perfect spot for a few pots.

Inside, I'm putting my window sills to work. I've got some Genovese basil, chives, thyme, and oregano as well as some ancho and jalapeño peppers growing in my office. In the bedroom there are more peppers, another tomato plant (which I'll eventually move upstairs), and some flourishing lettuce. These are the only south-facing planting locations I've got and they seem to be working well, though because they're in direct sunlight in fairly small pots, the lettuce and tomato need almost constant watering.

In the kitchen window sill I have rosemary and parsley that seem to be doing okay with less than ideal lighting conditions. I've also attached this handy little Ikea pot to the window bars in the living room to hold some Thai basil.

Lastly, out back on the catwalk I've attached one of these handy suspendable "horse trough" planters (mine's from the sinister-sounding "CobraCo," sold at garden centers everywhere). It's holding some dill, basil, and nasturtium (the latter, for the uninitiated, is an amazingly delicious edible flower).

Combined with my bountiful farmshare from Windflower Farm (via the wonderful Clinton Hill CSA), these little additions of herbs, greens, tomatoes, and peppers should help provide food for at least a few meals a week. Which—who am I kidding?—is sadly about as much as most New Yorkers manage to eat at home anyway! Next time, back into the garden for some summertime maintenence.

]]>

This is the 11th post in The Back Garden Project, one GOOD community member's effort to turn a neglected corner of the city into a thriving garden.

One challenge of my garden project has been figuring out how to incorporate edible produce. From the beginning, I planned for a garden that embraced the low-light and poor soil conditions by using native woodland plants. But that doesn't mean veggies are out of the question. For one, I've still managed a couple planters out back, home to slowly-growing onions, garlic, zuchini, and peas under the imperfect sunlight. But that's not all. As a short aside this week, I though I'd show a few of the simple little ways that one can still grow produce in a small Brooklyn apartment even without an ideal garden plot.

First, as you may have gleaned from the photo above, I've got some happy tomatoes up on my roof with the first few fruits coming in. The rooftop is hardly a space where you'd want to hang out (much less convert to full-scale agricultural productivity) but it has easy access and is the perfect spot for a few pots.

Inside, I'm putting my window sills to work. I've got some Genovese basil, chives, thyme, and oregano as well as some ancho and jalapeño peppers growing in my office. In the bedroom there are more peppers, another tomato plant (which I'll eventually move upstairs), and some flourishing lettuce. These are the only south-facing planting locations I've got and they seem to be working well, though because they're in direct sunlight in fairly small pots, the lettuce and tomato need almost constant watering.

In the kitchen window sill I have rosemary and parsley that seem to be doing okay with less than ideal lighting conditions. I've also attached this handy little Ikea pot to the window bars in the living room to hold some Thai basil.

Lastly, out back on the catwalk I've attached one of these handy suspendable "horse trough" planters (mine's from the sinister-sounding "CobraCo," sold at garden centers everywhere). It's holding some dill, basil, and nasturtium (the latter, for the uninitiated, is an amazingly delicious edible flower).

Combined with my bountiful farmshare from Windflower Farm (via the wonderful Clinton Hill CSA), these little additions of herbs, greens, tomatoes, and peppers should help provide food for at least a few meals a week. Which—who am I kidding?—is sadly about as much as most New Yorkers manage to eat at home anyway! Next time, back into the garden for some summertime maintenence.

]]> Gordon Douglas Tue, 15 Jun 2010 11:00:00 PDT <![CDATA[The Back Garden Project: Landscape Design and Garden Infrastructure]]> http://www.good.is/post/the-back-garden-project-landscape-design-and-garden-infrastructure/ http://www.good.is/post/the-back-garden-project-landscape-design-and-garden-infrastructure/


This is the 10th post in The Back Garden Project, one GOOD community member's effort to turn a neglected corner of the city into a thriving garden.

In addition to the update on sunlight and planting that I offered last time, it seems appropriate to offer an update on another aspect of this project: my first real attempts at what I might be so bold as to call "landscape design."

The image above shows the center of the garden, an area once overgrown with knotweed and other volunteers surrounding some discarded stone slabs, a crumbling cement form that I've taken to be a former grill, and lots of trash. Along the wall that forms the garden's eastern edge are the planters I've mentioned before, as well as that enormous gate that I've propped up and plan to hang more pots from. The growth was cleared to the lower right of the picture in favor of a path laid with "wood chips" made from dry, dead knotweed I pulled up early in the season. 

As planned, I also rebuilt a stone patio using the existing slabs and other things I found nearby. And (this is one of my proudest accomplishments) I laid a new brick path using pieces unearthed and collected from around the garden.

I also built a scrappy but solid compost bin in the bottom corner of the garden out of the large sheets of metal grating that I have found around the garden. I dug a shallow hole, then bent the metal into shape and connected it to itself (and to the pole nearby) using pliers and plastic ties, and then lined the whole things with netting, started it off with some leaves, and created a simple cover out of a random piece of metal and a piece of wood wedged across the top to keep it closed. Here it is in progress and then complete and filled with yard waste and a few kitchen scraps (just the onions and garlic that I spare my interior vermacomposting operation).

So those are the most impressive additions so far. I've also been creating simple landscaping flourishes around my different planting areas, as I've shown in previous posts, and I've created an effective, if less than glamorous, storage area out of some tarp suspended from the fence and held down by rocks. And lastly, of course, I'm still removing trash on a grand scale.

With the help of some friends, I got these four big bags of bulky garbage out to the street in time for bulk pick-up this morning in the middle of a sudden downpour. Some refuse still seems pretty seriously intractable; it may take another proper work party or two to see for sure.

As spring officially turns to summer this weekend (at least as far as schools and East Coast boating attire are concerned), I'm pretty pleased with the progress so far. I've cleared a huge amount of brush and trash and replaced it with a wide variety of native plants, which have been fascinating to learn about and plan for to boot. One thing I haven't spent much time discussing here, however, is edible produce. More on that—both inside the garden and in other creative spaces around my small Brooklyn apartment—next time.

]]>


This is the 10th post in The Back Garden Project, one GOOD community member's effort to turn a neglected corner of the city into a thriving garden.

In addition to the update on sunlight and planting that I offered last time, it seems appropriate to offer an update on another aspect of this project: my first real attempts at what I might be so bold as to call "landscape design."

The image above shows the center of the garden, an area once overgrown with knotweed and other volunteers surrounding some discarded stone slabs, a crumbling cement form that I've taken to be a former grill, and lots of trash. Along the wall that forms the garden's eastern edge are the planters I've mentioned before, as well as that enormous gate that I've propped up and plan to hang more pots from. The growth was cleared to the lower right of the picture in favor of a path laid with "wood chips" made from dry, dead knotweed I pulled up early in the season. 

As planned, I also rebuilt a stone patio using the existing slabs and other things I found nearby. And (this is one of my proudest accomplishments) I laid a new brick path using pieces unearthed and collected from around the garden.

I also built a scrappy but solid compost bin in the bottom corner of the garden out of the large sheets of metal grating that I have found around the garden. I dug a shallow hole, then bent the metal into shape and connected it to itself (and to the pole nearby) using pliers and plastic ties, and then lined the whole things with netting, started it off with some leaves, and created a simple cover out of a random piece of metal and a piece of wood wedged across the top to keep it closed. Here it is in progress and then complete and filled with yard waste and a few kitchen scraps (just the onions and garlic that I spare my interior vermacomposting operation).

So those are the most impressive additions so far. I've also been creating simple landscaping flourishes around my different planting areas, as I've shown in previous posts, and I've created an effective, if less than glamorous, storage area out of some tarp suspended from the fence and held down by rocks. And lastly, of course, I'm still removing trash on a grand scale.

With the help of some friends, I got these four big bags of bulky garbage out to the street in time for bulk pick-up this morning in the middle of a sudden downpour. Some refuse still seems pretty seriously intractable; it may take another proper work party or two to see for sure.

As spring officially turns to summer this weekend (at least as far as schools and East Coast boating attire are concerned), I'm pretty pleased with the progress so far. I've cleared a huge amount of brush and trash and replaced it with a wide variety of native plants, which have been fascinating to learn about and plan for to boot. One thing I haven't spent much time discussing here, however, is edible produce. More on that—both inside the garden and in other creative spaces around my small Brooklyn apartment—next time.

]]> Gordon Douglas Tue, 1 Jun 2010 12:00:00 PDT <![CDATA[The Back Garden Project: New Plans, New Plants]]> http://www.good.is/post/the-back-garden-project-new-plans-new-plants/ http://www.good.is/post/the-back-garden-project-new-plans-new-plants/
This is the ninth post in The Back Garden Project, one GOOD community member's effort to turn a neglected corner of the city into a thriving garden.

I thought it was time for a general update on the garden. As you can see in the image above, everything is very, very green. With the trees completely filled in, I have a better impression of what the shade situation really is down there. And, lo and behold, the movement of the earth relative to the heavens means ever-changing light patterns in the back garden. So, I've created a new shade diagram for mid-May to give you an idea.

The spraycan effect is an attempt to show where the sunlight is filtered through the canopy above. As you can see, it's actually a fairly different situation from mid-April.

The biggest difference is that what was my sunniest patch, the very bottom of the garden, is now much shadier, and no longer suitable for wildflowers and potted veggies. Instead, I've planted a bunch of lettuce seeds there in a small soil restoration effort. The sunniest area is now most definitely up against the garden's eastern wall, which gets sun for most of the afternoon and into the early evening. This is where I had already built my planter out of recycled Ikea bits, and I've now also added a fiberglass "barrel" (from Home Depot) for my onions and garlic, some plant hangers from Ikea for herbs, and a nifty little plant stand that I got for a dollar from a neighbor who's moving out.

My initial shade garden is still mostly shady. It's been coming along very nicely. Here's an image of it catching a bit of late afternoon sun.

On that note, despite some frustrations, I've had some great successes in native plant purchases over the last couple weeks. The first was a very productive trip up to Connecticut. I visited some local nurseries in the Guilford area, including Natureworks, an absolutely lovely little independent garden center in the rolling hills of Northford, where I scored several native berry plants, some Tiarella (also known as foamflower, a beautiful, shade-happy native flower that's actually relatively easy to find), and a dogwood plant.

My partner's grandmother, a lifelong gardener and garden designer who lives near Guilford, also gave me some wild ginger from her garden and a couple more ferns to transplant from the wooded grounds nearby.

Back in Brooklyn, I had another successful trip to the Gowanus Nursery, where I scored a beautiful wild columbine (Aquilegia canadensis; at left in the background), a native poppy called Stylophorum diphyllum, a meadow anemone (Anemone canadensis), and a lovely little Smilacina racemosa (or "False Soloman's Seal").

And we can't forget the few natives that I did manage to find at the Botanic Garden plant sale: a small "lady fern," a lovely Thalictrum aquilegiafolium (meadow rue; at left in front of a Salvia place-holder), and a Tiarella cultivar called "sugar and spice" (below, behind the bearberry).

So a lot of this stuff has yet to go in the ground. Digging through the rubble remains a substantial challenge, particularly by the wall there, and I'm trying to decide if the edible berries should be potted so that they remain edible.

Meanwhile, I've also begun thinking about some "vertical gardening" possibilities, not only along that sunny eastern wall, but perhaps even up on the window bars in my apartment. Though not shown in the diagram, these bars and the fire escape beyond are now starting to get a tiny, curious bit of morning sunlight (just from about 8:30 to 9 a.m.), which then disappears only to return (from a different angle of course) at about 6:30 p.m. for another 40 minutes or so before the sun sets. It has no impact on my garden, but a few soil bags on the window bars might let my kitchen herbs take advantage of this direct sun, brief as it may be.
 

]]>
This is the ninth post in The Back Garden Project, one GOOD community member's effort to turn a neglected corner of the city into a thriving garden.

I thought it was time for a general update on the garden. As you can see in the image above, everything is very, very green. With the trees completely filled in, I have a better impression of what the shade situation really is down there. And, lo and behold, the movement of the earth relative to the heavens means ever-changing light patterns in the back garden. So, I've created a new shade diagram for mid-May to give you an idea.

The spraycan effect is an attempt to show where the sunlight is filtered through the canopy above. As you can see, it's actually a fairly different situation from mid-April.

The biggest difference is that what was my sunniest patch, the very bottom of the garden, is now much shadier, and no longer suitable for wildflowers and potted veggies. Instead, I've planted a bunch of lettuce seeds there in a small soil restoration effort. The sunniest area is now most definitely up against the garden's eastern wall, which gets sun for most of the afternoon and into the early evening. This is where I had already built my planter out of recycled Ikea bits, and I've now also added a fiberglass "barrel" (from Home Depot) for my onions and garlic, some plant hangers from Ikea for herbs, and a nifty little plant stand that I got for a dollar from a neighbor who's moving out.

My initial shade garden is still mostly shady. It's been coming along very nicely. Here's an image of it catching a bit of late afternoon sun.

On that note, despite some frustrations, I've had some great successes in native plant purchases over the last couple weeks. The first was a very productive trip up to Connecticut. I visited some local nurseries in the Guilford area, including Natureworks, an absolutely lovely little independent garden center in the rolling hills of Northford, where I scored several native berry plants, some Tiarella (also known as foamflower, a beautiful, shade-happy native flower that's actually relatively easy to find), and a dogwood plant.

My partner's grandmother, a lifelong gardener and garden designer who lives near Guilford, also gave me some wild ginger from her garden and a couple more ferns to transplant from the wooded grounds nearby.

Back in Brooklyn, I had another successful trip to the Gowanus Nursery, where I scored a beautiful wild columbine (Aquilegia canadensis; at left in the background), a native poppy called Stylophorum diphyllum, a meadow anemone (Anemone canadensis), and a lovely little Smilacina racemosa (or "False Soloman's Seal").

And we can't forget the few natives that I did manage to find at the Botanic Garden plant sale: a small "lady fern," a lovely Thalictrum aquilegiafolium (meadow rue; at left in front of a Salvia place-holder), and a Tiarella cultivar called "sugar and spice" (below, behind the bearberry).

So a lot of this stuff has yet to go in the ground. Digging through the rubble remains a substantial challenge, particularly by the wall there, and I'm trying to decide if the edible berries should be potted so that they remain edible.

Meanwhile, I've also begun thinking about some "vertical gardening" possibilities, not only along that sunny eastern wall, but perhaps even up on the window bars in my apartment. Though not shown in the diagram, these bars and the fire escape beyond are now starting to get a tiny, curious bit of morning sunlight (just from about 8:30 to 9 a.m.), which then disappears only to return (from a different angle of course) at about 6:30 p.m. for another 40 minutes or so before the sun sets. It has no impact on my garden, but a few soil bags on the window bars might let my kitchen herbs take advantage of this direct sun, brief as it may be.
 

]]> Gordon Douglas Mon, 17 May 2010 11:29:00 PDT <![CDATA[The Back Garden Project: Native Plants Grow in Brooklyn (But Good Luck Buying Them)]]> http://www.good.is/post/the-back-garden-project-native-plants-grow-in-brooklyn-but-good-luck-buying-them/ http://www.good.is/post/the-back-garden-project-native-plants-grow-in-brooklyn-but-good-luck-buying-them/
This is the eighth post in The Back Garden Project, one GOOD community member's effort to turn a neglected corner of the city into a thriving garden.

Last week, I made my first visit to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden (I know, I know, what took me so long?). I was right on time for the amazing lilac bloom (above), and it was also the peak of cherry blossom season, so the Hanami festival was in full swing. But my main destination, of course, was its famous Native Flora Garden. It is truly a wonderful space, secluded from the rest of the gardens (if rather unfortunately pressed up against noisy Flatbush Avenue), and beautifully designed with a variety of different local "eco-regions" and "plant communities." Here are just a few of my favorite plants.

First, I was impressed by the veritable sea of mayapple they had growing there. I wish mine would spread like that.

Then there was this staggeringly beautiful Dicentra exemia (the aptly named "wild bleeding heart").

Might be a good idea to sow some of these...

Of course there were some with awesome old-timey New York names.

And some you'd just want to avoid altogether.

That's just a small slice of it. The BBG is seriously committed to native plants in a number of other ways, from the classes they offer on native horticulture to the books they sell on topics such as replacing invasive species with competitive native equivalents. Yet when I rolled over to the small plant and gardening store on the grounds, I couldn't find a single native plant for sale. Asking about where they might be found only got me confused looks and polite apologies.

Undeterred, I returned the following week for the garden's famous annual spring plant sale. Armed with my new membership card, I went during the much-touted Members-Only Preview Sale extravaganza, this time confident that I would find some native plants to bring home. It was a mob scene but again, I found very few natives for sale. A very helpful staff member offered that there were some, but that they were scattered about. She told me that they had once tried to have a dedicated native plant section at the sale, but that nobody had bought them. I checked out the ones they did have (about five or six species, usually with the option of a few different cultivated varieties) and bought a few of them.

The Botanic Garden is a truly beautiful space and a haven for plant life in central Brooklyn. What's more, it actively promotes the defense and restoration of New York's local and native ecology through classes, publications, and the scientific work conducted on the premises. But native plants are difficult and expensive to find in the city, and perhaps one of the easiest things they could do would be simply to provide these species to people who would like to take their good advice.

At any rate, check in next time for a full account of my recent native plant acquisitions, from the BBG and beyond.

]]>
This is the eighth post in The Back Garden Project, one GOOD community member's effort to turn a neglected corner of the city into a thriving garden.

Last week, I made my first visit to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden (I know, I know, what took me so long?). I was right on time for the amazing lilac bloom (above), and it was also the peak of cherry blossom season, so the Hanami festival was in full swing. But my main destination, of course, was its famous Native Flora Garden. It is truly a wonderful space, secluded from the rest of the gardens (if rather unfortunately pressed up against noisy Flatbush Avenue), and beautifully designed with a variety of different local "eco-regions" and "plant communities." Here are just a few of my favorite plants.

First, I was impressed by the veritable sea of mayapple they had growing there. I wish mine would spread like that.

Then there was this staggeringly beautiful Dicentra exemia (the aptly named "wild bleeding heart").

Might be a good idea to sow some of these...

Of course there were some with awesome old-timey New York names.

And some you'd just want to avoid altogether.

That's just a small slice of it. The BBG is seriously committed to native plants in a number of other ways, from the classes they offer on native horticulture to the books they sell on topics such as replacing invasive species with competitive native equivalents. Yet when I rolled over to the small plant and gardening store on the grounds, I couldn't find a single native plant for sale. Asking about where they might be found only got me confused looks and polite apologies.

Undeterred, I returned the following week for the garden's famous annual spring plant sale. Armed with my new membership card, I went during the much-touted Members-Only Preview Sale extravaganza, this time confident that I would find some native plants to bring home. It was a mob scene but again, I found very few natives for sale. A very helpful staff member offered that there were some, but that they were scattered about. She told me that they had once tried to have a dedicated native plant section at the sale, but that nobody had bought them. I checked out the ones they did have (about five or six species, usually with the option of a few different cultivated varieties) and bought a few of them.

The Botanic Garden is a truly beautiful space and a haven for plant life in central Brooklyn. What's more, it actively promotes the defense and restoration of New York's local and native ecology through classes, publications, and the scientific work conducted on the premises. But native plants are difficult and expensive to find in the city, and perhaps one of the easiest things they could do would be simply to provide these species to people who would like to take their good advice.

At any rate, check in next time for a full account of my recent native plant acquisitions, from the BBG and beyond.

]]> Gordon Douglas Mon, 10 May 2010 10:43:00 PDT <![CDATA[The Back Garden Project: On Soil]]> http://www.good.is/post/the-back-garden-project-on-soil/ http://www.good.is/post/the-back-garden-project-on-soil/
This is the seventh post in The Back Garden Project, one GOOD community member's effort to turn a neglected corner of the city into a thriving garden.

Exciting news to report: As I mentioned in my first post, I had sent a sample of my back garden soil up to Williamstown, Massachusetts, to be tested by my partner's uncle, Dr. Henry Art, a professor of biology and environmental studies at Williams College, and his colleagues. The results are in and they're amazingly bad.

Both New York State and the United States EPA set the upper limit for safe lead contamination at 400 parts per million, and at least some scientists suggest (pdf) that even that number could be dangerous in a gardening context.

My soil? To quote a lab technician who helped test it, "it calculated out as 1,811 ppm Pb+2 (that's one thousand eight hundred NOT one point eight) in dry soil." Or, as Hank put it: "The soil sample turns out to be nearly ore-grade in terms of lead."

Awesome. Now of course this is just one little sample from one random corner of the garden (in fact, as I clear and replant more areas I am finding significantly less trash-filled patches), but I'm not taking any chances with any of it. The doctor prescribes raised beds over landscape fabric to reduce the lead's "upward movement." Thanks, Hank!

Fortunately the planter I built last week has a half-assed wood-chip barrier, and anything I might eat will be growing in separate containers. (If you're curious, it's also worth remembering that some plants—particularly lettuces and other green veggies like broccoli—are more susceptible to bad soil. In the case of tomatoes, for example, lead affects the plant's health, but does not appear to compromise (pdf) the safety of the fruit, even at levels higher than those in my soil.)

In other dirt-testing news, I also checked the pH level of my soil using the handy and affordable "rapitest" soil tester. This time I took my sample from the area where I'm planting my native shade garden, where I haven't already mixed packaged garden soil in, and results are a little more promising.
That looks like very neutral soil to me, which is good for most plants and certainly fine for my ferns, mayapple, and other native ground cover. I'll want to drop the pH some for the berries I'm planning on planting, though.

The soil kit has the option of testing for nitrogen, phosphorous, and potash too. It's a slightly messier-sounding process, but I hope to get around to that soon. Next time: a visit to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden's very own Native Plant Garden, and lots of pictures of plants.



 

]]>
This is the seventh post in The Back Garden Project, one GOOD community member's effort to turn a neglected corner of the city into a thriving garden.

Exciting news to report: As I mentioned in my first post, I had sent a sample of my back garden soil up to Williamstown, Massachusetts, to be tested by my partner's uncle, Dr. Henry Art, a professor of biology and environmental studies at Williams College, and his colleagues. The results are in and they're amazingly bad.

Both New York State and the United States EPA set the upper limit for safe lead contamination at 400 parts per million, and at least some scientists suggest (pdf) that even that number could be dangerous in a gardening context.

My soil? To quote a lab technician who helped test it, "it calculated out as 1,811 ppm Pb+2 (that's one thousand eight hundred NOT one point eight) in dry soil." Or, as Hank put it: "The soil sample turns out to be nearly ore-grade in terms of lead."

Awesome. Now of course this is just one little sample from one random corner of the garden (in fact, as I clear and replant more areas I am finding significantly less trash-filled patches), but I'm not taking any chances with any of it. The doctor prescribes raised beds over landscape fabric to reduce the lead's "upward movement." Thanks, Hank!

Fortunately the planter I built last week has a half-assed wood-chip barrier, and anything I might eat will be growing in separate containers. (If you're curious, it's also worth remembering that some plants—particularly lettuces and other green veggies like broccoli—are more susceptible to bad soil. In the case of tomatoes, for example, lead affects the plant's health, but does not appear to compromise (pdf) the safety of the fruit, even at levels higher than those in my soil.)

In other dirt-testing news, I also checked the pH level of my soil using the handy and affordable "rapitest" soil tester. This time I took my sample from the area where I'm planting my native shade garden, where I haven't already mixed packaged garden soil in, and results are a little more promising.
That looks like very neutral soil to me, which is good for most plants and certainly fine for my ferns, mayapple, and other native ground cover. I'll want to drop the pH some for the berries I'm planning on planting, though.

The soil kit has the option of testing for nitrogen, phosphorous, and potash too. It's a slightly messier-sounding process, but I hope to get around to that soon. Next time: a visit to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden's very own Native Plant Garden, and lots of pictures of plants.



 

]]> Gordon Douglas Fri, 30 Apr 2010 16:00:00 PDT <![CDATA[Recycled Wood Planting Box Returträträdgårdlåda]]> http://www.good.is/post/recycled-wood-planting-box-returtraetraedgardlada/ http://www.good.is/post/recycled-wood-planting-box-returtraetraedgardlada/

This is the sixth post in The Back Garden Project, one GOOD community member's effort to turn a neglected corner of the city into a thriving garden.

As I mentioned last time, one of the neatest and simplest little additions I've made to the garden so far has been the creation of a planting box out of what seems to be part of an old Ikea bookshelf that I found back there. Here's how to build your own, in five simple steps.

Step one: Find an old piece of Ikea furniture that someone has carelessly discarded in your back yard (see image at left). Something with three vertical sides and either a bottom or at least bottom support piece is preferable, but you don't need the fourth vertical side of the box.


Step two: Find a suitable place for your new three-sided box, such as up against a wall. Try to level the earth beneath it and position the box using rocks or other found objects make it stable (the more adventurous might even try garden stakes to hold it in place). You can discard any useless bits (the flimsy backing for example) so long as you still have the support.
Step three: Layer a bunch of wood chips (in my case dried-out knotweed chips) along the bottom of the box, a few inches high, creating a bit of a barrier with the existing topsoil while still allowing plenty of drainage (if your box had a solid bottom, you'd want to put a bunch of holes in it).

Step four: If you want a trellis of some sort for climbing plants (like the beans I was planning for this spot), find yourself a suitable artifact. I used what I'm guessing is the discarded metal grill from the derelict barbecue in the center of my plot. Then you could either lean it vertically up the wall from the bottom of the box (knowing the soil you'll fill it with would support it) or hang it from a convenient bit of random electrical wire (pictured).

Step five: Fill that sucker with good growin' dirt! If you weren't worried about the existing soil in the garden, you could just use that, but I used a combination of packaged organic garden soil and what I like to call my "heirloom dirt"—rich, well-cared-for soil from my previous garden.
Yum, right? Now you're ready to plant! My first additions were a pair of bean seedlings that had been nicely maturing in my window sill since early March. I plopped them in, gave them a little organic plant food, and tucked them in with some "mulch" (just leaves) pulled off the ground around me. (The image at the top also features a couple zucchini and yellow squash plants.)



Step six: Find some Scandinavian syllables, mix together, and name your new planter.
 

]]>

This is the sixth post in The Back Garden Project, one GOOD community member's effort to turn a neglected corner of the city into a thriving garden.

As I mentioned last time, one of the neatest and simplest little additions I've made to the garden so far has been the creation of a planting box out of what seems to be part of an old Ikea bookshelf that I found back there. Here's how to build your own, in five simple steps.

Step one: Find an old piece of Ikea furniture that someone has carelessly discarded in your back yard (see image at left). Something with three vertical sides and either a bottom or at least bottom support piece is preferable, but you don't need the fourth vertical side of the box.


Step two: Find a suitable place for your new three-sided box, such as up against a wall. Try to level the earth beneath it and position the box using rocks or other found objects make it stable (the more adventurous might even try garden stakes to hold it in place). You can discard any useless bits (the flimsy backing for example) so long as you still have the support.
Step three: Layer a bunch of wood chips (in my case dried-out knotweed chips) along the bottom of the box, a few inches high, creating a bit of a barrier with the existing topsoil while still allowing plenty of drainage (if your box had a solid bottom, you'd want to put a bunch of holes in it).

Step four: If you want a trellis of some sort for climbing plants (like the beans I was planning for this spot), find yourself a suitable artifact. I used what I'm guessing is the discarded metal grill from the derelict barbecue in the center of my plot. Then you could either lean it vertically up the wall from the bottom of the box (knowing the soil you'll fill it with would support it) or hang it from a convenient bit of random electrical wire (pictured).

Step five: Fill that sucker with good growin' dirt! If you weren't worried about the existing soil in the garden, you could just use that, but I used a combination of packaged organic garden soil and what I like to call my "heirloom dirt"—rich, well-cared-for soil from my previous garden.
Yum, right? Now you're ready to plant! My first additions were a pair of bean seedlings that had been nicely maturing in my window sill since early March. I plopped them in, gave them a little organic plant food, and tucked them in with some "mulch" (just leaves) pulled off the ground around me. (The image at the top also features a couple zucchini and yellow squash plants.)



Step six: Find some Scandinavian syllables, mix together, and name your new planter.
 

]]> Gordon Douglas Sat, 24 Apr 2010 12:00:00 PDT <![CDATA[The Back Garden Project: Planting Time]]> http://www.good.is/post/the-back-garden-project-planting-time/ http://www.good.is/post/the-back-garden-project-planting-time/
This is the fifth post in The Back Garden Project, one GOOD community member's effort to turn a neglected corner of the city into a thriving garden.

As promised, here's my first sketch at how I'm planning to lay out my new garden. In fact, I've already started on some of the ideas.

You can see I've decided to allow a few patches of volunteers to stay (including some of those troublesome Japanese knotweeds I mentioned earlier). I have two reasons for this. First, they're in places that get some of the worst light in the garden (they're the really tall bushes in the background of the shot below), so they're sort of helping fill out areas that I'm not ready to do anything with. And second, I've started to feel bad pulling up so many plants and roots, even if they are invasive species. We are a nation of immigrants after all, and nowhere more so than here in New York. These suckers have probably lived in New York longer than I have. So some of them get to stay.

I've decided to think of the plot in terms of different little areas. Not only do I think this is more appealing from a landscape design perspective, it also allows me to stick to my original idea of a garden of shade-tolerant native plants, while also taking advantage of the unexpectedly decent sunlight at the bottom of the yard for non-native wildflowers and edible produce.

But let's stay focused on the natives for now. I've been learning a lot about plants native to the New York region these past few weeks. Margaret Gargiullo's epic Guide to Native Plants of the New York City Region, which I mentioned last time, continues to be a great help. Some other handy resources I've found include the New York Flora Atlas website, the Flatbush Gardener blog, and of course the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, which has all sorts of useful information, including this "tipsheet" on native plants for rain gardens. I also can't speak highly enough of the amazingly knowledgeable folks at Liberty Sunset Garden Center and the Gowanus Nursery. Finally, at ritamajkut's suggestion, I've looked into plant exchanges around brooklyn, and I'm pretty excited about the possibilities. (There's a Flatbush Plant Swap this Saturday!)

I've only begun the process of acquiring native plant starters for the garden, but so far here's the list: the Thuja occidentalis cedar I mentioned last time, three different ferns (Ostrich, Royal, and Cinnamon), a mayapple (Podophyllum peltatum) to get the shade garden started, and a globeflower (Trollius laxus) and goldenrod (Solidago cutleri) to begin planting in my metal track flowerbed (pictured). I'll be on the look out for more options this week.

For now, here's an image of the brand new shade garden with its first few additions:

As you can see from the plan at the top of this post, there are many other components to the garden I have in mind, and I'll be discussing them all in turn as they come to fruition. For example, I've already started work on making a planter out of what I think is part of a discarded Ikea bookshelf that I found back there. More on that next time.
 

]]>
This is the fifth post in The Back Garden Project, one GOOD community member's effort to turn a neglected corner of the city into a thriving garden.

As promised, here's my first sketch at how I'm planning to lay out my new garden. In fact, I've already started on some of the ideas.

You can see I've decided to allow a few patches of volunteers to stay (including some of those troublesome Japanese knotweeds I mentioned earlier). I have two reasons for this. First, they're in places that get some of the worst light in the garden (they're the really tall bushes in the background of the shot below), so they're sort of helping fill out areas that I'm not ready to do anything with. And second, I've started to feel bad pulling up so many plants and roots, even if they are invasive species. We are a nation of immigrants after all, and nowhere more so than here in New York. These suckers have probably lived in New York longer than I have. So some of them get to stay.

I've decided to think of the plot in terms of different little areas. Not only do I think this is more appealing from a landscape design perspective, it also allows me to stick to my original idea of a garden of shade-tolerant native plants, while also taking advantage of the unexpectedly decent sunlight at the bottom of the yard for non-native wildflowers and edible produce.

But let's stay focused on the natives for now. I've been learning a lot about plants native to the New York region these past few weeks. Margaret Gargiullo's epic Guide to Native Plants of the New York City Region, which I mentioned last time, continues to be a great help. Some other handy resources I've found include the New York Flora Atlas website, the Flatbush Gardener blog, and of course the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, which has all sorts of useful information, including this "tipsheet" on native plants for rain gardens. I also can't speak highly enough of the amazingly knowledgeable folks at Liberty Sunset Garden Center and the Gowanus Nursery. Finally, at ritamajkut's suggestion, I've looked into plant exchanges around brooklyn, and I'm pretty excited about the possibilities. (There's a Flatbush Plant Swap this Saturday!)

I've only begun the process of acquiring native plant starters for the garden, but so far here's the list: the Thuja occidentalis cedar I mentioned last time, three different ferns (Ostrich, Royal, and Cinnamon), a mayapple (Podophyllum peltatum) to get the shade garden started, and a globeflower (Trollius laxus) and goldenrod (Solidago cutleri) to begin planting in my metal track flowerbed (pictured). I'll be on the look out for more options this week.

For now, here's an image of the brand new shade garden with its first few additions:

As you can see from the plan at the top of this post, there are many other components to the garden I have in mind, and I'll be discussing them all in turn as they come to fruition. For example, I've already started work on making a planter out of what I think is part of a discarded Ikea bookshelf that I found back there. More on that next time.
 

]]> Gordon Douglas Mon, 19 Apr 2010 15:00:00 PDT <![CDATA[The Back Garden Project: The Best Laid Plans]]> http://www.good.is/post/the-back-garden-project-the-best-laid-plans1/ http://www.good.is/post/the-back-garden-project-the-best-laid-plans1/
This is the fourth post in The Back Garden Project, one GOOD community member's effort to turn a neglected corner of the city into a thriving garden.

So I've completed and drafted this pretty extensive little land survey of the plot I'm trying to turn into a garden. The image above shows the dimensions of the plot and a few existing features: a cement patio against the building, the metal tracks, two wooden poles that hold some overhead wires, and a rectangular, brick-and-mortar structure in the center of the garden that I believe, from talking to my landlady, was probably once a home-made barbeque (though any actual grill is M.I.A.). Just south of that is evidence of a smaller patio laid in stone, which I've already begun clearing and re-laying using the existing pieces and other stone scraps from around the garden.

I've also been tracking the sun's movements across the garden for the past few days, which has enabled me to construct two maps, which are pretty nifty if I do say so myself. I've separated them into morning and afternoon because (short of making something animated that I have neither the time nor skill to create) I couldn't think of a good way to effectively show the whole day's sunlight in a single image.

The different colors in the afternoon map are intended to show where the shade comes back in on the west side of the garden as the sun gets lower in the sky. (There's also some morning shade around the barbeque/obelisk thing too, but I didn't bother mapping it.) Anyway, this demonstrates again that, at least as of mid-April, it's only about the back half of the garden that gets any sun during the day, and really only the back-central quarter of it that gets more than four hours. So we'll have to see. I've already begun plotting exactly what should go where to best make use of the space and light but, as always, suggestions are very welcome.

One of my biggest quandaries is whether that weird top corner, which is totally filled with trash, should remain as such. It gets decent afternoon sun, but at the moment the scale of the trash pile there is daunting. In the meantime, I've planted a nice northeastern evergreen (Thuja occidentalis) in a position to begin a sort of barrier. Gargiullo's Guide to Native Plants of the New York City Region suggests it "should tolerate concrete debris," so I went for it. A number of native berry bushes, such as dewberry and serviceberry, are also apparently quite shade- and debris-tolerant, but at a first look seem hard to find and expensive. Anybody have any leads?

In the meantime, here's a picture of the garden in full spring glory. This was taken at about 4:30 pm, incidentally, if you want to cross-reference with my sun diagram:
I'll be posting again soon. Next time: a real landscape design plan and lots of pictures of native plants going into the soil.
 

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This is the fourth post in The Back Garden Project, one GOOD community member's effort to turn a neglected corner of the city into a thriving garden.

So I've completed and drafted this pretty extensive little land survey of the plot I'm trying to turn into a garden. The image above shows the dimensions of the plot and a few existing features: a cement patio against the building, the metal tracks, two wooden poles that hold some overhead wires, and a rectangular, brick-and-mortar structure in the center of the garden that I believe, from talking to my landlady, was probably once a home-made barbeque (though any actual grill is M.I.A.). Just south of that is evidence of a smaller patio laid in stone, which I've already begun clearing and re-laying using the existing pieces and other stone scraps from around the garden.

I've also been tracking the sun's movements across the garden for the past few days, which has enabled me to construct two maps, which are pretty nifty if I do say so myself. I've separated them into morning and afternoon because (short of making something animated that I have neither the time nor skill to create) I couldn't think of a good way to effectively show the whole day's sunlight in a single image.

The different colors in the afternoon map are intended to show where the shade comes back in on the west side of the garden as the sun gets lower in the sky. (There's also some morning shade around the barbeque/obelisk thing too, but I didn't bother mapping it.) Anyway, this demonstrates again that, at least as of mid-April, it's only about the back half of the garden that gets any sun during the day, and really only the back-central quarter of it that gets more than four hours. So we'll have to see. I've already begun plotting exactly what should go where to best make use of the space and light but, as always, suggestions are very welcome.

One of my biggest quandaries is whether that weird top corner, which is totally filled with trash, should remain as such. It gets decent afternoon sun, but at the moment the scale of the trash pile there is daunting. In the meantime, I've planted a nice northeastern evergreen (Thuja occidentalis) in a position to begin a sort of barrier. Gargiullo's Guide to Native Plants of the New York City Region suggests it "should tolerate concrete debris," so I went for it. A number of native berry bushes, such as dewberry and serviceberry, are also apparently quite shade- and debris-tolerant, but at a first look seem hard to find and expensive. Anybody have any leads?

In the meantime, here's a picture of the garden in full spring glory. This was taken at about 4:30 pm, incidentally, if you want to cross-reference with my sun diagram:
I'll be posting again soon. Next time: a real landscape design plan and lots of pictures of native plants going into the soil.
 

]]> Gordon Douglas Thu, 15 Apr 2010 12:00:00 PDT <![CDATA[The Back Garden Project: Trash!]]> http://www.good.is/post/the-back-garden-project-trash/ http://www.good.is/post/the-back-garden-project-trash/

This is the third post in The Back Garden Project, one GOOD community member's effort to turn a neglected corner of the city into a thriving garden.

I've begun the process of removing as much trash as possible from my future garden. I must have taken close to a dozen bags and buckets of trash like the one above out to the street (on bulk pickup days only, of course).

This process is sort of slow for two reasons. One, the plot is filled with lots of unpleasant surprises. As I mentioned before, every time I venture to dig even a little bit more I excavate another enormous piece of buried trash, and even a quick glance across the top soil inevitably reveals the sparkle of another small piece of broken glass. It feels like a never ending process.

Two, because I have no other option, all this trash has to be double-bagged, carried up the steep fire escape steps, along the catwalk, into my apartment through my living room window, and then down the front stairs to the sidewalk out front.

I've also begun piling the really big stuff in the northeast corner, the weird little pocket of the garden that you can't actually see from my apartment and that already had the most daunting concentration of debris. As you can see, it is a truly staggering collection of rubbish. At some point I think I should at least organize this a little better, and I'm toying with the idea of building some sort of wild sculpture out of the cooler bits. (Any metal workers in the Fort Greene area up for a challenge?)

Lastly, I've been clearing dead brush. There's one plant that is particularly problematic, a shrub-like thing called Japanese knotweed (Fallopia japonica, an invasive species common in New York City), which had grown quite thickly and then died back in the winter, leaving tons of crackly bamboo-looking shoots all over the place. Because of its massive root system it's pretty hard to actually kill though, and now it's coming back in full effect.

The result? At least one patch of earth that I've picked—at the north end of the garden where the light is good most of the day already—has now been cleared, turned, and mulched.

I'm hoping to get some wildflowers going in the area and put some planters with clean soil along the fence where there's enough sun for veggies, but I'm still mapping the light and planning my attack. Just clearing this much space was a real challenge and now that spring is here, the less welcome tenants—particularly that knotweed—are coming up all over the place.

Spring also means it's high time for me to get my seedlings outdoors and purchase some native specimens at the local nurseries. I spent most of the weekend reading about native plants and visiting the Gowanus Nursery. More on that soon. In the meantime, does anybody have any favorite natives that don't cost a bundle?

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This is the third post in The Back Garden Project, one GOOD community member's effort to turn a neglected corner of the city into a thriving garden.

I've begun the process of removing as much trash as possible from my future garden. I must have taken close to a dozen bags and buckets of trash like the one above out to the street (on bulk pickup days only, of course).

This process is sort of slow for two reasons. One, the plot is filled with lots of unpleasant surprises. As I mentioned before, every time I venture to dig even a little bit more I excavate another enormous piece of buried trash, and even a quick glance across the top soil inevitably reveals the sparkle of another small piece of broken glass. It feels like a never ending process.

Two, because I have no other option, all this trash has to be double-bagged, carried up the steep fire escape steps, along the catwalk, into my apartment through my living room window, and then down the front stairs to the sidewalk out front.

I've also begun piling the really big stuff in the northeast corner, the weird little pocket of the garden that you can't actually see from my apartment and that already had the most daunting concentration of debris. As you can see, it is a truly staggering collection of rubbish. At some point I think I should at least organize this a little better, and I'm toying with the idea of building some sort of wild sculpture out of the cooler bits. (Any metal workers in the Fort Greene area up for a challenge?)

Lastly, I've been clearing dead brush. There's one plant that is particularly problematic, a shrub-like thing called Japanese knotweed (Fallopia japonica, an invasive species common in New York City), which had grown quite thickly and then died back in the winter, leaving tons of crackly bamboo-looking shoots all over the place. Because of its massive root system it's pretty hard to actually kill though, and now it's coming back in full effect.

The result? At least one patch of earth that I've picked—at the north end of the garden where the light is good most of the day already—has now been cleared, turned, and mulched.

I'm hoping to get some wildflowers going in the area and put some planters with clean soil along the fence where there's enough sun for veggies, but I'm still mapping the light and planning my attack. Just clearing this much space was a real challenge and now that spring is here, the less welcome tenants—particularly that knotweed—are coming up all over the place.

Spring also means it's high time for me to get my seedlings outdoors and purchase some native specimens at the local nurseries. I spent most of the weekend reading about native plants and visiting the Gowanus Nursery. More on that soon. In the meantime, does anybody have any favorite natives that don't cost a bundle?

]]> Gordon Douglas Tue, 13 Apr 2010 12:30:00 PDT <![CDATA[The Back Garden Project: The Lay of the Land]]> http://www.good.is/post/the-back-garden-project-the-lay-of-the-land/ http://www.good.is/post/the-back-garden-project-the-lay-of-the-land/



This is the second post in The Back Garden Project, one GOOD community member's effort to turn a neglected corner of the city into a thriving garden.



This is a view looking down the fire escape catwalk in my new back yard. The garden is on the north side of the three-storey building, so it doesn't get great light. The amount of light you can see in this shot is, at this time of year at least, as much as the yard gets. I've begun trying to track the light's movement across the sunnier south end of the plot at different times of day (illustration to come).



IMG_6675-fIn my first few trips down to the plot I have been doing nothing but picking up trash and clearing dead brush. Every time I reach my hands into the soil to grab what looks like a small piece of metal or cloth, it ends up being just the corner of some huge piece of debris that's half buried and half decomposed. I've found everything from car parts to women's clothes.



The picture to the left is an example of the general state of things when I first climbed down there. The only difference is that I took this picture after I had already begun to collect all the random bricks and pile them up (they were all over). The metal tracks are still of mysterious origin to me at the moment, and they're too heavy and buried to move.



In the meantime, I also made a first attempt at diagramming the garden, using some (pretty sketchy) impressions from the Google maps satellite image. Here's take one (my plot is the green space in the middle; my building is the pink one):



GardenMeasurementsA-f



Oddly shaped, eh? So it's somewhat clear where the various obstructions to the sunlight are. The big problem is the blue building to the right, on the east side of the garden (a "pet boutique," filled with yappy dogs). The white space immediately to the west of the garden isn't a building, just another back patio (for the restaurant next door), so some light does get in that way in the afternoons.



Anyway, with the snow gone and the last chance of frost pretty safely past, my challenge now is getting more of the trash out to the street and actually clearing a couple patches enough to start planting. I'm going to need to find some shade-tolerant flora and harness my inner landscape designer.


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This is the second post in The Back Garden Project, one GOOD community member's effort to turn a neglected corner of the city into a thriving garden.



This is a view looking down the fire escape catwalk in my new back yard. The garden is on the north side of the three-storey building, so it doesn't get great light. The amount of light you can see in this shot is, at this time of year at least, as much as the yard gets. I've begun trying to track the light's movement across the sunnier south end of the plot at different times of day (illustration to come).



IMG_6675-fIn my first few trips down to the plot I have been doing nothing but picking up trash and clearing dead brush. Every time I reach my hands into the soil to grab what looks like a small piece of metal or cloth, it ends up being just the corner of some huge piece of debris that's half buried and half decomposed. I've found everything from car parts to women's clothes.



The picture to the left is an example of the general state of things when I first climbed down there. The only difference is that I took this picture after I had already begun to collect all the random bricks and pile them up (they were all over). The metal tracks are still of mysterious origin to me at the moment, and they're too heavy and buried to move.



In the meantime, I also made a first attempt at diagramming the garden, using some (pretty sketchy) impressions from the Google maps satellite image. Here's take one (my plot is the green space in the middle; my building is the pink one):



GardenMeasurementsA-f



Oddly shaped, eh? So it's somewhat clear where the various obstructions to the sunlight are. The big problem is the blue building to the right, on the east side of the garden (a "pet boutique," filled with yappy dogs). The white space immediately to the west of the garden isn't a building, just another back patio (for the restaurant next door), so some light does get in that way in the afternoons.



Anyway, with the snow gone and the last chance of frost pretty safely past, my challenge now is getting more of the trash out to the street and actually clearing a couple patches enough to start planting. I'm going to need to find some shade-tolerant flora and harness my inner landscape designer.


]]> Gordon Douglas Wed, 7 Apr 2010 06:00:21 PDT <![CDATA[The Back Garden Project: An Introduction]]> http://www.good.is/post/the-back-garden-project-an-introduction/ http://www.good.is/post/the-back-garden-project-an-introduction/ backgarden3When I moved in to my current apartment in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, a run-down but decent-sized 1.5 bedroom on Dekalb Avenue, one of the biggest selling points of the place was the back garden... well, back overgrown-trash-filled-lot really, but that was part of the attraction. I would have the opportunity to clean up and totally remake a bit of urban greenspace. Though the unit is on the second floor, it has access to the garden via a fire escape and catwalk, and the dentist's office that occupies the ground floor doesn't make use of it, so my lovely landlady said I was welcome to try to do something with the mess if I was crazy enough to think that sounded like fun.

IMG_6666-S

I'll be using this blog to track the adventure of clearing, planning, planting, and nurturing this garden over the coming months. Before I get into the space itself, and the project before me, a little more background.

I recently moved to Brooklyn from Chicago, where I had engaged in several urban gardening projects. First and foremost, I had a plot in the late, great 61st Street Community Garden in Woodlawn. It was an amazing place, filled with the most loved and nurtured soil I've ever gardened in (and I'm from California's Central Valley). I had squash, peppers, tomatoes, sunflowers, beans, carrots, onions, wildflowers, and all sorts of greens. I even grew corn there on the corner of 61st and Dorchester Streets.

IMG_6367-s

Then there was my own back porch in Hyde Park, a pretty bountiful growing space in its own right, with a variety of herbs, greens, tomatoes, squash, and even hops.

IMG_5840-f

In addition, I'd worked to get some planting going in the too-shady backyard of my apartment building there (onions and nasturtium worked out, but nothing else), and had even begun the arduous process of clearing a sandy, trash-strewn vacant lot for use as gardening space before it became a construction site.

Image071In a sense, I suppose elements of all of these former projects will come in to play with my new garden in Brooklyn. I've cleared trash and worked poor soil, gardened in cramped and under-lit spaces, grown a variety of species, and done a little minor landscaping. But what I have never done is tackle the almost-from-scratch clearing, cleaning, landscaping, and planting of an enclosed garden space of my own, least of all one where (because of low light and likely soil pollution), the primary objective won't be agriculture so much as simply keeping the plants alive, and the primary crops will be chosen by what's indigenous rather than what's productive.

So the next step is to just get down there and start clearing trash and figuring out where things could actually ever be grown. After that I'll take some measurements and begin planning how to landscape and plant the space as best I can. I'm going to have the soil toxicity tested too, do some research on the species that might best suit the space, and most importantly just get my hands in the soil.

backgarden1]]> backgarden3When I moved in to my current apartment in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, a run-down but decent-sized 1.5 bedroom on Dekalb Avenue, one of the biggest selling points of the place was the back garden... well, back overgrown-trash-filled-lot really, but that was part of the attraction. I would have the opportunity to clean up and totally remake a bit of urban greenspace. Though the unit is on the second floor, it has access to the garden via a fire escape and catwalk, and the dentist's office that occupies the ground floor doesn't make use of it, so my lovely landlady said I was welcome to try to do something with the mess if I was crazy enough to think that sounded like fun.

IMG_6666-S

I'll be using this blog to track the adventure of clearing, planning, planting, and nurturing this garden over the coming months. Before I get into the space itself, and the project before me, a little more background.

I recently moved to Brooklyn from Chicago, where I had engaged in several urban gardening projects. First and foremost, I had a plot in the late, great 61st Street Community Garden in Woodlawn. It was an amazing place, filled with the most loved and nurtured soil I've ever gardened in (and I'm from California's Central Valley). I had squash, peppers, tomatoes, sunflowers, beans, carrots, onions, wildflowers, and all sorts of greens. I even grew corn there on the corner of 61st and Dorchester Streets.

IMG_6367-s

Then there was my own back porch in Hyde Park, a pretty bountiful growing space in its own right, with a variety of herbs, greens, tomatoes, squash, and even hops.

IMG_5840-f

In addition, I'd worked to get some planting going in the too-shady backyard of my apartment building there (onions and nasturtium worked out, but nothing else), and had even begun the arduous process of clearing a sandy, trash-strewn vacant lot for use as gardening space before it became a construction site.

Image071In a sense, I suppose elements of all of these former projects will come in to play with my new garden in Brooklyn. I've cleared trash and worked poor soil, gardened in cramped and under-lit spaces, grown a variety of species, and done a little minor landscaping. But what I have never done is tackle the almost-from-scratch clearing, cleaning, landscaping, and planting of an enclosed garden space of my own, least of all one where (because of low light and likely soil pollution), the primary objective won't be agriculture so much as simply keeping the plants alive, and the primary crops will be chosen by what's indigenous rather than what's productive.

So the next step is to just get down there and start clearing trash and figuring out where things could actually ever be grown. After that I'll take some measurements and begin planning how to landscape and plant the space as best I can. I'm going to have the soil toxicity tested too, do some research on the species that might best suit the space, and most importantly just get my hands in the soil.

backgarden1]]> Gordon Douglas Mon, 5 Apr 2010 10:05:15 PDT