If you aren't homeless, leave these tomatoes alone!

When I started plants from seeds indoors this spring, I tried to carefully label each pot. But thinking doesn't make it happen, and when the zinnias I transplanted to my corner garden began to grow, lo and behold, most of them were tomatoes.

My corner is a busy corner, passed each day by hundreds walking to and from the train, Turtle Park and the Palmer shopping district. I always lose a few flowers to people who must think I'm growing them for their dining room tables, and I've even caught people lifting whole plants from my garden.

So when the tomatoes began to grow among the dahlias, I wondered whether even a single tomato would make it to our table. Sure enough, even though the beautiful tomatoes growing on these almost six-foot-tall plants are yet to ripen, they're beginning to disappear.

And so I made a decision. These tomatoes would be grown to benefit the homeless; I'll donate the majority of them, along with other produce from my garden, to the "Nourish Your Neighbor" campaign that Ed Merians first announced on The Loop.
I've posted a sign on the plants saying: These tomatoes are to feed the homeless. If you are not homeless, please leave them alone!
I'm waiting to see if it works.

So long, tree

As one who has been known to complain about the Village DPW crew (why, for example, do they prune the forsythia in September, thus ensuring there will be nary a yellow bloom come the spring?), I want to give credit where credit is due.

In June a large branch fell from the street tree in front of the house.

When I went to pick it up, expecting I'd need to use a bit of muscle, I was surprised to find it weighed no more than a few ounces. The limb was totally rotten, with just the bark holding the sawdust and dirt together.

We called the Village, and soon thereafter a crew arrived to pick up the limb and look at the tree. They agreed that the tree was in terrible shape and needed to be removed.

Until just a few years ago the tree had been completely shaded by a much larger and dominant tree across the street, and this tree had but a few spindly branches on the top. Its only function, it seemed, was to provide a home to squirrels, which had been living in the tree since we moved in.

Organically grown or local - what would you choose?

I've been an organic gardener since I planted my first tomatoes almost 40 years ago, and I am something of an evangelist when it comes to the virtues of compost and the dangers of fertilizers and pesticides.

Nevertheless, when I'm in the grocery store, I more often than not pass by the organic produce and opt for what I was raised on: foods grown conventionally. With the growth of farmer's markets over the past decade, however, I've been paying more attention to the place of origin, and try to buy locally grown produce whenever possible.

Last week as I wandered around the Farmer's Market researching a piece for the Larchmont Patch on where to buy the best fruits and vegetables, I realized most of  the produce on display was not organic. The dilemma crystallized in my mind, and I realized it was time to give a little more time to the choices I make.

My children buy only organic vegetables, mostly locally grown (it is, of course, a lot easier in Oregon and California) and I applaud them for it. After all, my grandchildren -- four under the age of eight -- have a long way to go, so healthy habits are important.

But my formative years were more than a half-century ago, so part of the reasoning for not always buying organic is my age. If pesticides haven't hurt me yet, I rationalize to myself, surely I'll be okay for the time remaining.

Growing all my own food really isn't an option. Besides the limitations of the Larchmont climate, my garden is post-stamp size. Decisions, decisions. 

What do you do?

The lettuce is in

I was only half-way through the assignment for the Larchmont Patch to find the best hamburger in town when we left for San Francisco. While I managed to eat plenty of greens on the trip, we did take a dip into decadence with the the potatoes fried in duck fat that we found irresistable. 

But then we returned and I needed to finish the research.

While the Sherwood's blue cheese burger ran a close second, the award has to go to the classic burger at Chat 19. If you're wondering why, read the full article on the Patch that was published today.

Thankfully, the lettuce in my garden is in its glory, so it's back to eating healthy.

Dandelion wine, anyone?

One quick look at my yard is all it takes to conclude that I am not a lawn fanatic. As long as it’s green I don’t really care if much of the color is provided by weeds. I’d rather spend my time on the flowers and vegetables than on cultivating a carpet of clover-free grass.

So you might wonder why I’ve spent time each morning and evening for the last week scanning my yard for the telltale seed heads of the dandelion, trying to catch them before they open into a full sphere when the individual seeds will catch the slightest breeze.

It began on a whim, when I recalled a scene many years ago of my elderly neighbor picking dandelions along the street across from her house. She told me that picking the seeds would stop them from flying across the street to her lawn.

Larchmont trees, old and new

Larchmont residents value their trees, as was evidenced by last week’s Arbor Day celebration and the announcement that Larchmont has been named a “Tree City USA for the 29th consecutive year. But while children were helping plant the first of three bald cypress trees in Constitution Park on April 30, across town in Vanderburgh (Turtle) Park, a crew from Evergreen Arborists was taking down one of the Village’s oldest trees that had succumbed to Dutch elm disease.

The large elm tree in Turtle Park was more than 100 years old.

As the park is just across the street, I’ve been able to watch from my front porch the accelerating loss of trees in the park. Five years ago in a letter to then-Mayor Ken Bialo I wrote:

Starting from seed

Inspired by Monica Flaherty, whom I wrote about in the Larchmont Gazette, I decided to bite the bullet this year and get a head start on my garden by starting some plants from seed.

Scouting out the seeds available from Tony's Nursery, Stop and Shop and Home Depot, I picked up the usual suspects: lettuce, cucumbers and spinach. And then there was the basil seed, ready to be watered, in a small pot that I'd picked up at a Christmas Tree Shop several months ago.

While Monica doesn't believe in using peat pellets, preferring to start everything in larger cups, I had bought some pellets on sale at the end of the 2009 gardening season, so I decided to use them. Sure enough, within days, the seeds had sprouted, and I was hooked.

Soon the shelf in my office was overtaken by seedlings. Inspired by my success, I went back to Tony's and picked up zinnias and impatiens. I began imagining that I'd have enough plants from a single $1.69 packet of seeds for the entire garden.

Square Foot Gardening

Today’s so cold and rainy it’s hard to believe that earlier this week I was working in the garden, turning the compost pile and “harvesting” enough pails of good rich compost to give the vegetable plot a good start on the early crops.

But the work that I did pales in comparison with that of Monica Flaherty, who I interviewed for the Larchmont Gazette. She’s inspired me to take up the square foot gardening method. So I’ve ordered the book and am getting ready to curl up with it this long rainy weekend.

The first robin

I'd only been awake for a few minutes and needed to rub my eyes a few times to believe what I was seeing. But there he was: A big fat robin, perched in my lilac bush, waiting with the sparrows for me to fill the bird feeder.

I grabbed my camera and got the best photo I could – not great, but proof that this harbinger of spring really was really paying a visit on Valentine's Day.

I couldn't recall ever seeing a robin with this much snow on the ground.

Surely the worms are still buried deep in the ground, far beyond the reaches of this brave fellow. So I did a Google search to see when robins normally reach the Larchmont area and found an interesting website that tracks sightings of birds. I posted my sighting and found that robins had been sighted on Long Island earlier this week.

I'm hoping this means the groundhogs were wrong.

Winter's promise

In the deep cold of January, with winter's short days and long nights, along comes Tu B'Sh'vat to remind us that no matter how miserable we may feel, spring really is just around the corner.

Tu B'Sh'vat, the Jewish "New Year of the Trees," may make agricultural sense in the Middle East, but what is one to make of it in Larchmont?

A sunny winter day with the temperature climbing past 40 seemed like a good time to find out. Camera in hand, I set out for a walk around the garden.

More fall chores

Just when I think I’ve seen the last of the days when I want to work in the yard, a day like today comes along and all I can think of is being outside in the fresh air. Although I’ve pretty much put the garden to bed – I can’t lift the dahlias until the first hard frost – a walk around the yard usually finds something that needs to be done.

My Montauk daisy is in the corner flower garden. It didn’t do well this year, probably a victim of the miserable winter. I was busy with my vegetable garden in June, so the plant didn’t get the good pruning it needed in June. As a result, the plant turned leggy; instead of a full show of white flowers this fall, the flowers sprawled all over the garden bed and sidewalk, hardly a sight for sore eyes. So rather than leave it for the Spring I took advantage of today’s beautiful weather and took the time to do a hard pruning. (The green tape you see in the photo is on the dahlia stems)

The last light of summer

Walking back from town this afternoon I could no longer delude myself. Winter, and its short, dark and cold days, really is just around the corner. And then a spot of bright pink caught my eye, a last dahlia, highlighted against my dark green hedge.

I love dahlias. Of course, like every flower, they have their pluses and minuses, but for as long as this garden has existed they’ve elicited oohs and ahs from folks who walk by. Even this summer, with its overabundance of rain and lack of warmth, the dahlias were the highlight of the late summer garden.

One of the best aspects of the plant: dahlias continue blooming until the first frost. And so, while the rest of my flower garden is dormant and readied for winter, the dahlias continue to put forth their flowers. And so, one single task remains: lifting and storing the dahlia tubers for the winter.

Cool weather, continued

Long before I pick the green tomatoes, I bring in all the houseplants that have spent the summer on my front porch, enjoying the rain and humidity of a Larchmont summer. It’s a several-step process: check for bugs, prune and repot if necessary, and then try to find a place in the house for those that have outgrown their original places.

As sad as the process makes me – after all, it means the days are getting short and cold, and it will be months before I can dig in my garden again – I’m always cheered up by my Christmas cactus plants. Sure enough, a few days after being brought inside, the buds appear. Then, within a week, my house is filled with color.

The “Momma” of them all, at least 20 by now, has been repotted twice and pruned back numerous times—but that has never stopped her from putting forth an incredible show. She’s not my favorite – the apricot and white flowers of other varieties are much more to my taste – but who can resist the sight of this plant?

Some years, when it has stayed warm later in the fall, she holds her blooms for Thanksgiving, so more people can see her. But she’s never made it into December, and a quick check of the web explains why.

These plants need cool temperatures and totally dark nights for a few weeks before they bloom – pretty much the conditions of my front porch before I bring them inside. But once inside, where the heat has already kicked on, they believe it’s time to show their colors.

I’ve had some luck getting second and third blooms during the winter on my smaller plants that that have a Southern exposure. Will keep you posted.

Green Tomatoes

With the temperature dipping close to the freezing mark this week, I decided it really was time to finish cleaning up the garden. After all, what chance was there that those tomato plants, practically bare of leaves, were producing the energy needed to turn all those green tomatoes red?

In all my years of growing tomatoes, never before did I have such a large stock of green ones left on the vine. A quick Google search confirmed what I suspected: tomatoes need temperatures far warmer than what was forecast for Larchmont.

In past years I’d had only limited success with my end-of-season tomatoes. And since our house is now on a low-fat/nothing fried diet, the fried green tomatoes we’d enjoyed in previous years were out of the question.

The first day I picked only the healthiest looking tomatoes, ones that had few blemishes and were large enough to probably taste pretty good if they ever turned red. Into a paper bag they went. Sure enough, two days later, half were either already red or well on their way. We ate one that night and it did, indeed, plant a sweet kiss of summer as we ate it.

So I took the plunge and brought the rest of them inside. I discarded those that were simply too small or bruised to be of much help, but the rest, ugly as they are, are now in a paper bag on the counter. I suspect a day devoted to making and freezing tomato sauce is in the not very distant future.

The dilemma, continued

Last night we were talking with friends who live on the Cape about the landscaping, and told them the landscapers had let a lot of the cuttings fall into the river that is behind the house. She’s a lawyer who is involved in protecting the ocean and waterways of the Cape, and she told us it’s against the law to do this, as the cuttings pollute the river.

So I quit wondering what to do and decided to call the real estate agent. She’s on her way over to take a look and will call the owners of the house, who live in New Jersey, after she’s seen it for herself.

Stay tuned.

An ethical dilemma

We’re renting a house in Falmouth at Cape Cod this week, a lovely home that we also rented last year. We love its location a block from the beach and the yard, with beautiful roses, daylilies, hydrangeas and other flowering bushes.

This morning, as I often do when I’m on vacation, I found myself weeding the daylilies. Give me sun and a garden and before I know it I’m unconsciously at work in it. I must have inspired my fellow houseguest, for while I was at the beach, he decided to weed the front. He was doing this when the landscapers arrived to mow the grass, and they got into a conversation about how the bushes were really being overtaken by weeds.

The landscaper got on his phone, and it wasn’t long before another truck, with another crew, arrived. Apparently they realized they better do more than cut the grass. It was time for the annual clean-up.

When I arrived home from the beach they were already hard at work. One of the beautiful rose bushes, which had been covered with flowers, had been shaved. I followed the sound of the electric pruner and found a young man shaving a yew. It was clear he didn’t know the first thing about bushes, pruning or how to garden, but he sure did love the power of that pruner.

So, here's the dilemma. I’m not the owner of the house and don't really have the right to tell these gardeners what to do. But then again, I was pretty sure the owners would be upset to see what was happening.

Should i have done something to stop the massacre of the bushes? And if so, what? The photos here tell but a part of the story.

Your thoughts?

First fruits

June’s rain is finally over, but it has left its toll on the garden.

Last year by this time the lettuce was long gone and we were eating tomatoes cucumbers for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

This July 10 we’re still harvesting lettuce hand over fist, and the rest of the garden is a month behind.

But hope springs eternal, and we have a cucumber, ready to pick for tomorrow’s breakfast.

Taming the Vine

Years ago a landscape artist suggested we plant a wisteria along the fence of the patio. “It will grow along the top of the fence and make a beautiful border,” she told me convincingly.

My parent’s house in South Orange, NJ, had a beautiful wisteria that climbed a back corner, past the dining room windows to my sister’s bedroom on the second floor. I envied her the sight of the purple blossoms that crowded the windows on both sides in early spring, envied her, that is, until the bees arrived. So I was skeptical of the vision.

The landscape artist soothed my worries, saying, “we’ll plant a white wisteria,” as though that made all the difference in the world.

For the first three years or so, the wisteria did nothing. It stood, about three feet tall, putting forth a few leaves—just enough to let me know it was still alive. I now realize it was putting all its energy into the ground, building a root system and fooling me into complacency. Then one spring I was ecstatic to see the first blossoms appear. I should have realized I was in for trouble as the tentative buds opened, a beautiful pale lilac in color.

That first summer the wisteria behaved. I could easily control the few vines that appeared, weaving them into the openings in the fence. How would I know that the wisteria was preparing for battle, waking its sleeping DNA and ordering it into formation.

Sure enough, next summer those compliant vines started to resist my plans. Saturday morning I’d pull down a slender light green tendril that was trying to point skyward. Sunday afternoon I’d check and find it was now as thick as a No. 2 pencil. By the following weekend, the soft green vine had turned brown, and I needed my Felco clippers to tame it.

So I devised a new plan. I’d let the wisteria grow up upon itself and I would prune an outdoor room under its branches. Anything less than five feet from the ground was destined for the compost pile while I wove new tendrils reaching for the sky around the wood vines of the year before. The next summer a lounge chair fit under the wisteria and a cool respite for a hot summer afternoon had been created.

And then she broke out in all her glory.

The roots that had been spreading unseen and unchecked for years started creating shoots. Shoots in the euonymus, between the patio bricks, in the grass and under the driveway. And above my patio’s green roof the tendrils shot forth without challenge. They grabbed the gutter and the rain pipe and threatened to tear slates off the roof; they reached out to my neighbor’s house, twining around the car antenna and licking the windows of their second floor bedroom. She was out of control and uncontrollable.

So there I was, my first week of retirement, on top of a ladder wrestling my nemesis. Saw in hand I hacked through vines two inches in diameter; using clippers I sheared mercilessly. I was ruthless and determined, once and for all, to bring this vine under control.

Pulling on the vines, trying to get them off the juniper, I gave a big tug. Nothing happened. So I took a step down, thinking the additional distance would give me greater power. Another tug. And again, no success. So I thought, okay, down one more step and I‘ll surely prevail.

And then it happened. Stepping down, I missed my mark and fell flat on my back on the hard gravel driveway. Stunned, I thought for a flash that I must be paralyzed, but then the pain set in, deep throbbing pain.

And so now, two painful weeks later, I’m facing reality on two fronts. First, I’m beginning to see that I may need to kill the wisteria if I’m going to live to enjoy my garden. And second, my body is telling me it may be already too late.

The green thumb lives on...

Through LinkedIn I reconnected with a woman I worked with when we were at Howard Rubenstein Associates. It made me wonder whether my green thumb can be catching. She writes:

"I have to tell you...you gave me a little houseplant when I worked for you, and it is still alive 18 years later. My mom takes care of it now (or else it would definitely died by my hands), but I think of you every time I see it."

Not bad!

A Fresh Start

This morning I see the tender plants that I worried would not survive a recent cold snap are thriving. The beets and lettuce are now more than an inch high; the cucumbers are pushing out new leaves; the hybrid tomato plants that I put in seem to be setting roots; and the peas and beans are close to 10 inches tall.

It is mornings like this that make me feel "all's right with the world." God's world, dormant all winter, is alive and once again giving us hope and a belief in renewal.

This Spring I appreciate it more than ever, however, as I, too, am about to begin a fresh start. Next week I leave the Union for Reform Judaism where, for almost 15 years, my vocation and my avocation were seamlessly entwined.

As best as I can tell, it was Alexander Graham Bell who said, "When one door closes, another opens." The quote continues, "but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us."

I'm thankful that is not the case for me. The open door before me is filled with possibilities, and I'm rushing toward it with optimism and hope.

For the past year I've been an occasional poster on the Reform website as "Gardening Grandma." Now I have the chance to spend more time in the garden and less in front of a computer screen.

On Thursday, May 28, I'll close the door at the Union behind me, but on Monday, June 1, I'll walk through the open door at the Sheldrake Environmental Center when I start a class in Master Composting. As part of the course, I'll not only improve my own garden, but I'll be trained to teach others about composting and recycling.

I'll keep you posted on how it goes.