December 2009
29 posts
November 2009
41 posts
day 29 continued
yay! daikon! it’s almost a month old now. i think i’ve thinned the plants out enough, so i stuck some mulch on them (way after this picture) and i’m going to try to keep the root tops covered up as much as i can so they don’t get bitter and green.
PEAAAAAS
i was so worried these weren’t going to sprout, but it’s been exactly 2 weeks since i planted them...
when do we eat?
based on when i’ve planted my seeds, here’s when the packets tell me i can expect to harvest. i can’t believe i’m using excel for something, but here i am.
every single day i’m asking myself “will i have sprouts? will anything be bigger?” and now i have an estimate of when i can expect to have stuff. once i’m done planting i should only need to go...
day 29 - november 29, 2009
i actually made 2 trips to the garden today - one for about 2 hours from 10:30-12:30, and another hour from 3:30-4:30. this picture is from the end of the afternoon trip.
i finally bought mulch! i know some people can compost and make this, but i don’t have room for a composter. after the first garden trip this morning, i went to pick up free hay from the city but when we got to the...
day 27 - november 27, 2009
this is a pretty good shot of all the work i did in the garden. in the front left, you can see my rows of carrots. i ran out of the purple carrot seed so this is mostly orange “mignon” carrots. in the front right is a bed of “majesty” red loose-leaf and “lattuga quatro stagnani” butterhead lettuce. it’s basically completely covered in seeds so i can grow...
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start gardening in november!
it’s the day before thanksgiving, and most of the country is done with their gardening or close to it:
but today in la it’s going to be 75 degrees. i’m going to go after work and plant my new “beer friend” edamame, along with some mizuna (chrysanthemum greens), baby bok choy, and green onions. it’s a little bit colder than the green onions and edamame...
listen to this man
kylekinane:
get on it:
www.imdeadanditsallmyfault.tumblr.com
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day 21 - november 21, 2009
i’m starting to make it look like i’m actually working in here! this is 3 weeks since i started planting. you can see the basil, daikon, and baby bok choy are all doing well. in the front corner i put in a few cucumber seeds. i’m not sure if it’s warm enough for them to grow but i have a packet of seeds to try out.
i should’ve done this from the beginning....
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day 19 - november 19, 2009
new this trip: lettuce “little gem” butterhead ($1.85) time onsite: 30 min
i had to hurry because i was just taking a quick trip between work and an appointment. i had pre-watered the dirt on my last trip, the 15th, so it was pretty easy to quickly dig up the southwest corner of the garden to plant my “little gem” lettuce.
this was the garden at the end of my trip:
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don't start gardening in november
i can tell i spend entirely too much time inside because i’m now cursing how much time i have to spend inside. it’s fall, so the sun is up from roughly 6:30am to 4:30pm every day, which means that if i want to water my stupid sprouts while it’s light out i have to get up at the ass crack of dawn to make it to the garden before i go to work. how the f did people survive before...
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day 15 - november 15, 2009
time on site: 1 hr, 30 min new this visit: radish easter egg mix ($1.25), loose leaf “majesty” lettuce ($2.95), “green arrow” peas ($2.60), “mignon” carrots ($2.95), “mirabeau” radish ($.99), “purple haze” carrots ($2.95), shovel (gift!)
no pictures, because dirt looks like dirt and i’ve already put up plenty of dug-up dirt...
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night 11 - november 11, 2009
SPROUUUUUUUUTS
EVERYTHING SPROUUUUUUUTED
i know i said no more night trips, but this was my first chance to water/photograph since i got back from nyc and i was too excited to wait until the morning. i’m incredibly pleased that everything appears to have sprouted. the basil doesn’t look so hot, but it’s not dead. i might try to dig it up and re-plant it in a sunnier...
back in LA with great news!
i got back from NYC at 8 last night and asked andrew if he could drive me by the garden so i could see if that basil died. EVERYTHING SPROUTED AND THE BASIL IS STILL ALIVE. i’m ecstatic! i’m going to go by and water tomorrow morning, and hopefully i’ll have a shovel by this weekend so i can plant all my seeds on saturday or sunday. more pictures when i can get to the garden in...
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this post is from a plane
i’m going to new york city for the first time ever! i’m actually on the plane as i type this (november 5, 7:23pm eastern). to keep this somewhat on topic, i’m going to go to central park and walk in a crunchy autumnal setting at some point this weekend. i’m very excited to see seasons. in los angeles, it’s brown and warm all year long, except when it’s windy and...
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day 5 - november 5, 2009
i got up at 6:45 this morning to go walk to the garden and check my plants. it wasn’t good :(
i can’t tell if its dead but its definitely wilting. ugh. if it was dead though i’d think the stem would be droopy and it still feels pretty strong.
no sprouts from any of the seeds. i think i might have seen one, but it could be a weed. i think when i get home, if there aren’t...
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are you organic?
in theory, the community garden is organic. in practice, it’s in los angeles. even if i never use a single pesticide or chemical additive, there are probably thousands of cars that drive by it every single day spewing exhaust, not to mention things like dry cleaners dumping chemicals down the drain, people changing the oil in their cars and dumping that down the drain, leaky gasoline tanks,...
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interview with local windowsill gardener, helen... →
if you don’t want to wait years and years for your own community garden plot, why not try windowsill gardening? you might not be able to grow potatoes or zucchini, but helen grows lots of stuff in her apartment right here in los angeles.
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once it's grown, then what?
i hope that basil is still alive. here’s something i made the other night while thinking about what i should plant.
grilled caprese sandwich!
ingredients: bread, fresh basil, fresh tomatoes (sliced if large, halved if cherry), balsamic vinegar, mozzarella cheese (or tofu cheese, you hippie)
marinate the tomatoes in the balsamic vinegar for about 30 minutes. if you have time to kill,...
gone nyc'ing
i’ll be in nyc until monday night, but i’m queuing up some posts today, so hopefully this thing will update at least once a day while i’m gone. i’m going to stop in and check the garden tomorrow morning, right at 7, so hopefully there will be sprouts! maybe the basil will still be alive! cross your fingers.
it’s not supposed to get above the low 70s while i’m...
night 2 - november 2, 2009
new this visit: wildflower matchbook of seeds (got as gift a year ago and never planted, not expecting to see any sprouts but who knows)
there are no pictures because of 2 dumb things: 1, i forgot it was going to get dark an hour “earlier” due to daylight savings (psh whatever time is a patriarchial construct and the solar calendar particularly so) and 2, i got there and i think the...
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basil story
the basil’s last moments in the glass
a friend of ours, jackie, invited me and andrew over one day in early july (i think) to play video games and eat good food and sent me home with a paper bag containing 2 big sprigs of basil from her backyard. i put them in a glass of water in the fridge so they wouldn’t get limp before i finished using all the leaves in pesto or whatever. a few...
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how did you get a garden in the middle of los...
one of the things that’s neat about living in west hollywood is they’ve had a community gardening program that’s been around for 25 years. (as old as me!) i signed up for a garden plot shortly after i moved to west hollywood in the summer of 2006. i got the phone call telling me there was a vacancy on october 19th, 2009. it looks like this isn’t an unusual amount of time to...
The Hell-House of Belligerence →
my friend robert does this awesome internet radio show (not a podcast) on friday nights at 9pm PST called The Belligerent Years Radio Hours. the show’s actually taking a 2-week hiatus and won’t be back until mid-november, but here’s a repost of his halloween treat - a trip through the TBYRH haunted houuuuuuuussseeeeeee
thebelligerentyears:
Just in time for Halloween....
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day 1 - november 1, 2009
“field notes” - first in an almost-daily series
time on site: 30 min new this visit: basil (from windowsill), baby bok choy (nijiya, $2), daikon (nijiya, $2), gloves (target, $5), trowel (target, $5) loosened the soil up on the right side of the patch, then watered it. dug a hole for basil into rear right corner. next to basil, 2 12” rows of daikon. couldn’t read...
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why corn dog ranch?
there’s this game series, harvest moon, that’s been around for like 10 years. it’s like a combination virtual farm/dating game. i’ve been playing it pretty much since it’s been around and have always given my fake farms stupid names, like “butt ranch” or “cow town” or “weed grow”. when i moved in with my boyfriend, he had to start...
corn dog ranch, day 0 - october 31, 2009
Today I went down to the garden for the first time to take pictures. They tilled the old plants out of the plot on Friday, so I figured it would be a good idea to go down and take pictures before I actually start putting stuff in the ground.
It’s about an 8x8, maybe 8x10 foot plot. I still need to measure it.
Another view. I have my work cut out for me. The first things going in are...
pre-ranchin'
Corn Dog Ranch is a silly name for my (approximately) 64 square feet in the West Hollywood Community Garden. I’ll be putting up photos of my plot, drawings and comics related to gardening, and whatever else I do that I can somehow tie into urban gardening.