Nurturing

I kill plants. I do. It's a sad, sad thing to look at the ponytail palm in our living room, with its measly covering of green and mostly brown, drooping leaves. Outside plants fare somewhat better, although I haven't yet figured out how to get our wisteria to bloom (sulphate fertilizer, apparently, is the key?) and each time that shoots reappear in spring, I am surprised and inordinately pleased.

I am gearing up to a new goal for 2020: try to keep green things alive. A friend of mine, the Decider, has an apartment that is lush in its greenery and fills me with envy; she clearly is pained by our state of affairs, albeit gracious enough to generally keep her thoughts to herself. I, for one, conveniently blame my lack of care on the lack of light.

But no more! I have taken steps (all of which I shall post-fact put into my planner to make me feel accomplished) toward success. I have subscribed to a delightful newsletter, Houseplant Parenthood, and will try to take on board the benefits of the earned wisdom there (and on the corresponding IG account); the Decider has also shown me a delightful app that reminds you when and how your plants need watering and fertilizing and generally being taken care of; I have researched indoor plants that 1) do well in indirect light and 2) are non-toxic to cats (the Psychokitty doesn't need anything else to send her into a frenzy); and I may even download a gardening game or two to get me in the right mindset. All of this combined with my following of plant inspiration IG accounts and I'm sort of all set.

Heat

New York has been doing that thing that New York so frequently does at this time of year, and been absolutely glorious. It's been bakingly hot, but without the sting of the humidity that we get for so much of the summer. I've managed to be careless and have slightly reddened shoulders from wandering around the last couple of weekends.

Yesterday, the wandering took place at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, where there was a chile pepper festival. Neither of the adults was quite sure what this would entail or how long different types of hot sauce would hold our interest, but it turned out to be a delight to mooch around the Cherry Esplanade, sampling different mango or habañero or spicy brown sauces (yes, the latter a nod to our beloved HP. It was a tad vinegary for my taste).  We ended up purchasing some absolutely delicious blood orange cooking sauce, ate our way through chocolate orange cardamom spiced cookies, and purchased some spicy honey to hopefully recreate the incredible dish we had at Misi a few weeks ago - slow roasted tomatoes, coriander, fennel seeds, and spiked honey that was unlike anything I'd eaten before. Dragonflies and mayflies droned around in huge numbers, and the kid potted and took home his first plant - a chile pepper that maybe, just maybe, will survive more than a couple of weeks.

Birdlife

It's been bastard cold (a technical term, that) for the last few days. NYC schools had a snow day on Thursday, so we hunkered down for the day, and then the cold has kept us from doing much out and about; despite my beloved's general refusal to admit that maybe it is a little too cold to do things, even he has only had us out once or twice a day in the below freezing climes.

We bought a bird feeder when we first moved into this apartment, and the last few days it has proved its worth as entertainment, as well as provider of nourishment for the little things.  Sparrows we always get in abundance; one or two ringed doves appear, as well.  But the colder weather and scarcity of food have brought a female & male cardinal pair to us; even better, a pair of blue jays has graced us with its presence.  Their plumage, something between grey and blue, with that bright splash of a tail, always inspires wonder.

Burgeoning

Spring, as you may have noticed, is a favourite of mine.  It's not so great in on the US east coast, where we get about four weeks of reasonable weather starting in April, then it becomes so hot one cannot breathe without sweating.  Pollen is abundant here, too - I read something (possibly nonsense; I don't have enough biological knowledge to discern that) about the type of trees that the city uses to avoid shedding too much blossom; apparently these have more pollen than the other kinds.  Either way, I understand why people here are not so keen.

But, as someone brought up in a city where March (at the latest) brings magnolias, crocuses, snowdrops, bluebells, and the glorious scent of hyacinths, it's so exciting to see what has survived the winter, and be pleasantly surprised by the small victories.  Our oak leaf hydrangea is back with a vengeance; miraculously, the wisteria seems to have gone from all brown to green shoots appearing and multiplying each day.  Even one of our hostas, which seemed a lost hope, have suddenly grown inches in the past few days.  Similarly, out of nowhere we have ferns coming back to life, shoots pushing up, with their tight spirals unfurling into those beautiful, ancient leaf formations.  These are just small beginnings, but after our plants struggling last year, our first growing season in this house, they are exciting to watch, and encouraging for more growth this summer.

Preservation

I go through bouts of domesticity every now and then.* Most are connected to circumstance - and having a day off. The juxtaposition of Veterans Day and the cooling temperatures meant that I had a day to do some tidying up in the garden. This forced me to ponder what to do with several of the bundles of green things I had growing in the garden.

This year we actually had more parsley than ever before, after years of failing to grow any. I'm not sure this will work, but I've seen many suggestions that one should make a pesto-type thing with the leaves, and freeze in ice cube trays. So that I've done - albeit with a mixture of oil and water, and it's more of a slurry than a proper pesto, I'd say. I've read some posts that say to add the garlic/pine nuts/parmesan now, some say later, so I'll stick with the later, seeing as the parsley really is for parsley use, rather than to accompany pasta.

The lavender - two types! - I've hung up to dry. This is supposed to happen in a darkish, cool place, which conveniently describes our basement-based bedroom, so that smells glorious right now.

The thyme - goodness, SO much of it. I've frozen a portion - only a portion so as to test this method. This is frozen without cover, at all, and apparently the leaves will all loosen and drop off as early as tomorrow, and I can then put them in a jar to keep frozen for the next year.

I'm most excited about the lemon verbena. I followed various blogs and decided to blitz with sugar (1/2 cup of the latter to accompany two cups of the former, albeit with an additional few leaves of basil that were clinging to life in the garden). This is now flattened in a sandwich bag in the freezer, and apparently I can just break off chunks as and when I feel like it - to go on fruit, ice cream, to be dissolved and added to drinks to bring back the taste of summer... you get the idea. Of course, I had a sneaky taste to make sure it was adequate, and it appears to be rather lovely right now, so I'm very much looking forward to using it - in a gimlet, for sure, and this concoction, although I'm not sure I'll be able to bring myself to call it a jamtini...

* That bout of domesticity has been highly rewarding, as we've ploughed through the chutney and, at this rate, will be out of it well before the end of the year.

When Life Doesn't Ripen Your Tomatoes?

Make Chutney.

Early in the summer, as in every year we've lived here, we planted tomatoes.  A lot of tomatoes.

Precisely five ripened.

Yes, you read that right.  Five.

Therefore, come Saturday, I realised I had nearly 2 kilos of unripened, green tomatoes to dispose of.  I was loathe to fry them all, and googling brought up the concept of a chutney instead.  I ummed and ah-ed and to-ed and fro-ed between two recipes, and eventually settled on this one, mainly because it used the weight of tomatoes that I actually had.  So I checked the status of our spice stores and empty jars - I knew I kept them all for a reason! - and, with the aid of two apples from the farmers market, I ploughed ahead.  I cannot recommend this enough, not least because it makes your house smell absolutely divine during and after the process for days.

 Did you know that tomatoes ripen from the inside?  Me neither.  But I suppose I'd never thought about it until I saw these beauties on Saturday.

You salt the apples and tomatoes, with some lemon zest and lemon flesh.  Handily, I'd just managed to peel a teeny bit of skin off my little finger, so that lemon was very welcome.  Then you mix up oil, TWO whole heads of garlic, numerous chilli peppers (one from our garden), and ginger.  I was extremely proud of myself from abstaining from rubbing my chillied fingers on my eyes pre-contact lens insertion.  Miraculous.

 You fry up fenugreek seeds, peppercorns, cardamom seeds, mustard seeds, ground cumin and turmeric, and then when the mustard seeds pop, add in the garlic/chilli/ginger paste and cook up for 5 minutes or so.

 You add the tomatoes, some sugar (we only had Demerara), apple cider vinegar (probably 150ml or so), boil to dissolve all the sugar, and then simmer for ages and ages to thicken.  It said 2-3 hours, but we did it for at least four hours, then allowed to stand overnight and deposited it into the aforementioned jars the next morning.

And... it is absolutely bloody awesome.  Brilliant.  We took a jar to give to a friend yesterday (yes, we're those gift-givers - homemade preserves), and tonight I had grilled chicken, vegetables, and a large dollop of chutney.  I'm basically going to have it with everything I make for the next two months.

Savagery

I am, in case you were wondering, continuing to fight against the vicious insects that want to suck my blood dry.  I am still continuing to get bitten repeatedly.  The one difference is that I have learned to use anti-histamines in an attempt to prevent the ridiculous scratching, itching and misery that comes with the bites.

This ongoing battle is unfortunate because, thanks to the new job and my changed hours, I'm often home by around 6.30, when the little blighters are most active and out for blood.  Despite citronella candles and DEET, I'm still vulnerable; there's always some patch of flesh that the buggers find and exploit.  But it's oh so worth it to smell the lemon verbena and sniff the roses that are, despite our fears when we transplanted them, flourishing; and, above all, to see the fireflies flit around the gardens.  Fireflies don't exist at home, and they continue to be a source of wonder and delight to me, eight years after I arrived.  A true source of wonder (and a public reminder here to go and see the bioluminescence exhibition at the American Museum of Natural History. 

The Tom Tom Club

Last year, despite some early excitement, we basically grew no tomatoes. Well, we managed to grow one, solitary tomato from seed (which was, I swear, the greatest tomato I've ever eaten). We blamed the ridiculously sweltering weather, but I'm pretty sure our ineptness had something to do with it. This was a striking change from the year before, where our landlady had somehow magically grown a billion tomatoes that we had for breakfast on toast every day for what seemed like a month.

Undeterred, we decided to try again to grow from seed this year. I did actually harden them this year, and when it came time to pot them out, in a pathetic lack of ruthlessness, we couldn't bear to chuck them out. So every possible pot contained some sort of tomato plant. We did not have any room to even consider purchased seedlings; everything is full with one of our little seeds that could. We even removed some shrubbery and, instead of letting the strawberries grow into that spot, put in our tomatoes instead.

It appears our softheartedness has paid off, because in the ground and in a random pot we have an abundance of tomatoes. Some are plum, and ripened or nearly there; the regular tomatoes are green and will be ripe in a matter of weeks. Those ground-based plants smell amazingly tomatoey - there's no other smell like that earthy, viney smell of tomatoes growing; the stems are laden down with the enormous weight of the fruit. It's glorious.

So tomatoes we're doing better with. We also have parsley, basil, rosemary, mint, sage and thyme (and a ridiculous abundance of the latter two) which is utterly satisfying as well as (boringly enough) economically sounder than continually purchasing plastic-wrapped bunches of herbs that we don't end up using.

Now we just have to work out what I did wrong to the lavender. Gah.

Figs & Lilies

This post is horribly contrived, but as I was working out a way to plug a glorious bakery near my house, it occurred to me that the last few weeks have brought me great joy in the forms of lilies and figs.

The garden's lilies have been something of exquisite wonder. Because the weather has been, thus far, less brutal than last year's summer, we've enjoyed a lot of lily action, and this year some featured a glorious deep red through orange contrast that we just didn't see last year.


Yesterday also brought this fabulous cake, a deep, rich red velvet that a) tasted chocolatey, wonder of all things, and b) was moist and rich without being too heavy for what was a blazing hot Saturday afternoon. It's from a bakery two blocks away. My intentions to check it out were finally prompted by the combination of a groupon coupon, and a bridal shower that I was helping to organise. I probably didn't need the two cakes (ahem!) but it was definitely a hit.

I've also discovered that one of the fruit stands near work sells boxes of figs. I sat and munched my way through a couple of boxes this week and realised that fruit can be bearable. I'm trying to up my intake of fruit & veg - the veg part isn't usually hard for me, but I do have a fruit block issue. I don't know why, but it just never appeals to me. I'd much rather eat savoury food. On the other hand, if I force myself to purchase it for work, then I do eat it rather than just munching on crisps all the time; I do love crisps. (Yes, this insightful and profound commentary is why you read this blog).

Abundance

The garden has been looking absolutely spectacular of late. I can say that with immense joy and pride, although my own part in it has been, frankly, minimal. Our landlady crafted and nurtured a beautiful thing, and we just have to tend and help it along. Although we've done our part - we've been enjoying our lettuce that's been growing like a mad thing, and we're hopeful - so hopeful - that the tomatoes will fruit this year. We've been fairly self-sufficient with the lettuce thus far, although we need to learn the habits of repeat sowing so that you end up with fresh, sweet tasting lettuces throughout the summer, rather than growing it all at once and then it getting bitter from being left in the ground too long. Hmm. Still, it's been fabulous.

Keeping Myself to Myself

This week TOH is off skiing in somewhere in the Rockies. It doesn't really amount to much more time apart than usual, but it is rare that I have a Saturday or Sunday night without him. Usually I try and embrace and enjoy the time for me to watch terrible, terrible tv (Fashion Police, I'm looking at you), eat aubergines and rarely leave the house.

Yesterday, however, I was still feeling the aftereffects of Friday night's fun, so I just sat and ate pasta, drank red wine, and watched Hot Fuzz for what may be the 50th time. Today involves hoeing the garden, football and then some gentle work tonight, probably in front of Battlestar Galactica (which I am STILL working my way through) or An Idiot Abroad, which is on our On Demand channel and according to reports is very interesting indeed.

But for now: time to grab the gloves, gardening apron and get out in the garden for half an hour.

Animals Strike Curious Poses

Or, not so much - they're more just sprawled and desperately trying to keep cool. It's bloody boiling here, and it's a sign of how bad this previous week has been that a temperature of 85F/29C seems reasonable and bearable in comparison to the 103F/39F we suffered midweek. Still, thank goodness for ceiling fans and our place being so cool. We're sans air conditioning, and this week was a good test of surviving without it. Not too bad, but still - when it breaks it's going to be grand.

Anyway, it's been too hot even for the cats to survive happily. I've had the door open a couple of days this week and they've generally chosen to stay inside rather than out, such has been the heat. So, here they are.

I had to share this - how beautiful is it? Glorious.

Honest to god tomatoes! Growing! Growing!

I've had to learn that I've been over-feeding the plants - having feared I was under-feeding, it turns out that's really not what I've been doing. Bugger. So instead I'm acidifying the soil and leaving off the feed. But the tomatoes are growing, and we have some strawberries... awesome.

I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

But I did promise you photographic evidence of growth. So here it is.

The daisies are rampant right now - absolutely glorious.

Sadly didn't get these at their peak, but they're absolutely gorgeous.

The black-eyed susans are everywhere, flopping and filling up the garden with this glorious yellow.

The rose bloomed early, except for this giant branch that I trained up the fence and is leaning over into the rest of the garden. It smells wonderful.

The tomato seeds! Admittedly, no sign of actual tomatoes just yet, but the seeds have sprouted and grown into a more promising plant than I could have imagined.

The lavender smells and looks wonderful.

And it attracts the butterflies a lot - which delights the cats who really don't know what to do with them, but know they want to chase them.

These are just the prettiest things peeking out from beneath the daisies.

The hostas have these wonderful little white bell-like flowers.

Plum tomato! Plum tomato!

The chile pepper is suffering a little in this scorching weather, but there is one that I plan to use in some cooking sometime soon

Actual Physical Signs of Growth!

So, my seeds themselves didn't do too well - most packed it in fairly quickly - but we do have two tomato plants growing - FROM SEED! Amazing! honestly, it's sort of pathetic how exciting that is. Moreover, our tomatoes from seedling are growing like the clappers, our broccoli is suddenly doing well (albeit being ravaged by bloody snails) and - WE HAVE A PEPPER! An actual, honest-to-goodness serrano chile pepper is in our garden, growing, right now. It feels... ridiculously good, actually. Photos to come.

Growth

This year I am determined to do two things that will hopefully enrich my life and make me a little happier and a little less manic. One is to get myself up earlier every morning. I want to use this time to do the garden. I think I need the extra creativity and feeling of production, of doing something with my hands that creates an end product. As it is, we've been barbecuing and watering and enjoying the blooming garden, watching the growth of the tomatoes, the strawberries, the roses, the cucumber. It's pretty exhilarating. Things seem to be changing constantly; I love it. Here are some photos of the fruits of our labours for your enjoyment.

On Reflection...

... forget what I said yesterday. I really am getting carried away. But that's because we had a glorious meal of big ass jerk steak (the actual name of the recipe, not my name for it), cooked on the barbecue on the deck, and today we had tea and tomatoes on toast on the deck while plotting where I was going to grow my lettuce. Indeed, inspired by the sun and the memory of fresh, home-grown tomatoes, and my friend's plans for self-sufficiency, I've now ordered seeds for lettuce and herbs and tomatoes, and I cannot wait to start growing this stuff. If I manage it, obviously. Not sure how green-fingered I am these days, but I think it's going to be fun to find out.