FarmTina

But what about the rats? How to keep rats out of your NYC garden

Everyone wants to know about the rats. "You grow food in New York City? But what about the rats? Doesn't your garden attract rodents? Don't they eat your food?" When I first told my new neighbor that I planned on having a garden in the summer, this was his immediate reaction. Since his backyard is connected to mine, I absolutely understand his concern and appreciate that my garden can affect his yard, too.

A farm or garden anywhere--heck, a simple yard anywhere-- is going to have natural pests, whether it's deer out in the country or feral cats here in the city. So my short answer is, yes, there are rats sometimes, but no more than any other Brooklyn yard with or without a garden. The important thing is to garden responsibly so you don't attract more rats. Here are some tips to keep in mind:

Gardening Without Water?

Welcome to the first growing season here at Farmtina³, my brand new apartment with a brand new concrete alley "yard". Yes, this is the third apartment where I've been on this gardening adventure. And like I have with every new space, I'm discovering new problems-- no, wait-- new challenges to be conquered. Challenge Number One:

I do not have access to water in my new gardening space.

There is no outdoor water supply for watering my plants, which is sort of a big issue. I know how to get around having no soil, and even no sun, but no water? Doesn't work!

So I'm researching rain barrels. A rain barrel is just what it sounds like: a container that catches rain water and stores it to be used to water your plants.

But, oh! A rain barrel is more than just a bucket of water! It needs to be sealed off enough so you don't lose water to evaporation and don't become a mosquito breeding ground, yet open enough to actually catch the rain. It needs to have a hose connection to make it functional for watering plants. And it has to be durable so it won't rust and my friends the NYC rats don't chew through it to get to the water on hot days.

Even if you do have access to water in your garden, you might want to consider supplementing it with a rain barrel. Here are a few benefits:

The Woes of Moving an Urban Garden

Here's my yard right now, and well... I'm moving again. In July.

I've been doing this urban gardening project for about three years now, and this will be the third place I've lived in those 3 years. This is one of the main challenges that makes NYC gardening so difficult: We are a city of renters (about 70% of us rent instead of own our homes, according to the New York Times), so we have to figure out how to grow long-term plants in temporary spaces which we have no control over.

My solution to this problem has always been container gardening. I grow everything, even 6-foot tall corn, in buckets & bins so that when I move I just pack the binned plants into the back of a van and bring them to the new yard. The place I'm living now was an especially exciting move because it actually has soil in the yard instead of a fully paved space like I had before, so when I moved here I began transplanting my bucket plants into the ground.

Now that I'm moving again only 8 months later and in the middle of the growing season, I'll need to get a little creative (and I may even have to leave some of my babies behind). I still have the majority of my plants in buckets, but I did already move my lily bulbs to the ground (and OHMYGOSH did they thrive like never before) as well as my strawberries, mint, chives, and smaller spring flower bulbs. I had also been starting seedlings with the intention of transplanting them into the ground, but the time to transplant came about the same time I learned of the move, so I didn't do it and I sacrificed a few seedlings because they had nowhere to go.

But, dear readers, don't be sad, because this is actually good news and I've been sneakily hiding it from you for 4 paragraphs. The reason I'm moving is because I bought a home!!!!!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's a condo in a building with 8 units, and I'm on the first floor with a private backyard. The yard is a total blank slate concrete slab, with not so much as a single flower pot or chair. I can build permanent planter boxes! I can set up a greenhouse! I can get chickens! My yard is protected on both sides, so no more kids jumping my fence from the street to smash my terra cotta pots!!! Life is good.

The first thing I'm going to do is build my planter boxes. I was totally inspired by Dave at Fancy Hands, who used found & recycled materials to build some really cool designy furniture at their office. I cornered Dave at a bar on Friday and coerced him into offering to help build my planters. I didn't ask! He offered! All I did was say I needed help... and a circular saw... and oh, would he like to come over my new place for dinner on July 1st? And maybe bring his saw?

So first I'll build the planters, and then I'll dig up the plants I currently have growing in the ground and move them to the new planters. Then I can worry about the rest of the move. As long as my transplanted plants are safe, I'll feel unstressed. Hopefully.

Urban Garden Stories From My Grandmother

My Grandmother Vera is really cool.

Gramulator (as I call her) was born in the 1930s and raised in New York City by a very young immigrant single mom, my Great-Grandmother BabiBabi. BabiBabi kept an urban garden on the roof of their tenement building to be able to feed the family, relying on found & recycled objects such as the wooden gun boxes she used as planters. She was "upcycling" not because it was the fun trendy hobby it is today, but because she had no other choice. 

Gramulator has told me lots of stories about her childhood, and I know she's happy that I'm continuing the urban gardening tradition. She recently emailed me a story that I'd like to share-- that's right, Gramulator uses email, IM, and even Facebook. I told you she was cool!

Recommended: Exhibits for Plant Lovers

Gardeners! Get out of the dirt, put on some shoes that are not garden clogs, and go out to these exhibits right now. Maybe even bring a date:

1. The Orchid Show, New York Botanical Garden in NYC through April 22, 2012

I walked through The Orchid Show with my mouth hanging open. This experience is a double whammy: First, it's the tenth year that the NYBG has exhibited a show of orchids from around the world, ranging from delicate pink loners in a single tiny pot to tangles of giant red flowers hanging together from the ceiling. But the second element to this year's show is the vertical gardens created by botanical artist Patrick Blanc. He built floor to ceiling structures of exotic orchids that literally climb the walls, using the colors, sizes and textures of the flowers to create really stunning pieces.

I attended one of the evening shows, which included cocktails and "orchid music" with my admission ticket. The Boyfriend noted that the DJ was perfect for the atmosphere, and wondered if he exclusively played flower shows. I believe that is very possible.

Watch this video of Patrick Blanc discussing something... What is he saying? Who knows! I'm one of those annoying Americans who has a really hard time understanding foreign accents!

Tix and more info: NYBG.org

 

2. The Glass Flowers, permanent exhibit at the Harvard Museum of Natural History in Boston

The Glass Flowers have been on exhibit at Harvard for years, and I just finally made it to the gallery to see them. This is a room full of 800 hand-made glass models of flower species used for botanical study, so every one is perfectly accurate and detailed. Many of the species include englarged areas and cross sections, also made out of glass. The flowers were created from 1886 through 1936 by glassmakers in Germany.

Yes, this flower is made out of glass:

See what I mean? Amazing!

More info at hmnh.harvard.edu

 

Food Rules!

Heehee! Heeheehee haha! That is me laughing out loud! I just found a mini siamese-twin pepper growing inside of a red bell pepper. Heehee!! The world is so cool!

(PS, I ate the red pepper and composted the baby twin for good luck!)

5 Things That Are Sprouting In My Garden Right Now

Hey dudes, sorry about my gloomy post yesterday! To get you excited for spring in my new Bushwick back yard, here's a peek at what's already sprouting.

1. My favorite of the flowers I grow, my hydrangeas, are growing nice and green in their plastic containers:

Warm Winter: Bad For The Garden?

I've been pretty bummed out about the weather lately.

Here in New York City we've had a strangely warm winter, the second warmest winter ever on record here. This is wonderful when it comes to waiting at the bus stop on cold winter mornings and being able to wear dresses without double layers of tights. But when it comes to my garden, this is some tough stuff.

I started noticing a problem in December, when we had days over 60 degrees at a time we New Yorkers are used to seeing snow storms. My perennial plants, which have a growth cycle that includes a necessary cold winter dormancy period, just kept growing. They and I were both so confused.

Seed Germination: A Paranormal Activity

This is something I can't stop thinking about so I need to share it (hey, what else is a blog for, right?)

I had no television and very limited access to pop culture as a kid-- my parents would only allow me to watch video tapes of The Prisoner, the British Sherlock Holmes series, and Star Trek until I left for college. I'm not kidding.

So for years I've been catching up on my old TV and movies with Netflix, and as you can imagine, I'm devouring terrible 90s sitcoms and John Hughes movies. Recently I decided to watch all 9 seasons of The X-Files.

The intro to The X-Files is hilarious: it's a montage of supposedly supernatural and spooky images, intermingled with scenes of Agents Mulder and Scully looking very serious. And just in case you don't totally get it, descriptive phrases splash across the screen: "Government denies knowledge" and "Paranormal activity". But when "Paranormal activity" appears on the screen, it's not paired with a paranormal image. It's paired with an image of a seed germinating.

A seed, germinating! Possibly the most natural un-paranormal activity that happens on this planet. The seed is sprouting its first shoot.

Not cool, X-Files. Not cool. If this "paranormal activity" is not actually paranormal, does that mean I can't believe the rest of your stories? No stretchy man living in the sewars? No cloned children named Adam & Eve? I know the truth is out there, but I guess it's not in The X-Files.

Project: DIY Outdoor Vertical Planter

 

When I talk about my FarmTina project, I often hear the response, "I wish I could grow food but I just don't have any space!" To that I say, PHOOEY. Excuses, excuses.

Yes, lack of space is one of my biggest challenges in gardening in the city, but that has actually been a fun obstacle to overcome. As a reminder, I've had only a paved patio for the last 2 years, no ground soil at all, so everything I've grown has been in containers of some sort. I suppose I could've filled my yard with fancy terra cotta pots and structured grow beds, but that just seems wasteful and expensive. Instead, I got creative.

For example, I punched drainage holes in the bottom of found tall metal trash bins from Ikea to grow my potatoes. I also drilled drainage holes into large Rubbermaid storage tubs to grow corn. I used a long, flat under-the-bed plastic storage box as a lettuce bed, a box which I had used for storage for years and was going to throw away because it was cracked. I even created quite a bit of vertical grow space using an industrial pallet that my mom "found" (ok, maybe stole from) in front of a warehouse.

My most recent space-saving project was featured in an episode of GROW, a Whole Foods video series documenting urban farmers around the country. I simply needed more space, so I decided to build an outdoor-strength vertical grow bag that would hang on the fence surrounding my yard. And, of course, it would need to look cute.

Check out the video to see the grow bag in action, and then make your own! The "instructions" are more like beginner's guidance, and I'd love to hear your updates & improvements to my first-time experiment. Here's how to make my outdoor vertical planter (written instructions below the diagrams):