Hot Town...Summer in the City...

So it's freakin' hot in Philly.  And it has been.  I think we're on our 9th heat wave of the Summer and I feel like it may be more worthwhile to count instead how many days we haven't been in a heat wave.  I do not feel much like gardening--and instead, I've simply been harvesting veggies (which maybe connected to the heat has been a very small yield this year) I've grown, cooking with the fresh veggies and weeding out what seem to be more weeds than blooms. 

I have had to put off several projects for weeks including making Hypertufa troughs, painting a closet and my desk.  It just stinks to be outside--it's oppressive, endless and to add insult to injury, it's nearly impossible to not get a sunburn.  So I have been mostly staying inside, looking for other ways to occupy my time in the air conditioning. 

One day I was walking from my office to my gym and came upon a flower shop that had a super Summer (the good kind of Summer--exactly the opposite of what we have now) display of flowers made out of neckties.  I figured I could make them so I kind of window stalked them for awhile.  On yet another night in tonight, I made them.  I haven't decided where they're going to fit in my decor yet but they'd look darned charming on a deep windowsill (that I don't have):

Here's the end product: 

At the flower shop, they had a few different sizes in a vase. 

What you'll need:

• A styrofoam circle as large as you'd like your flower to be
• A wooden stick 
• A glue gun (I used a cheapo $2.99 one that worked fine)
• About 20 glue sticks
• Enough neckties to cover your styrofoam circle
• An iron, ironing board 
• Spray starch

1. Spray starch and iron the neckties.  Place them flat or draped over a hanger to keep them all visible and neat while you're making this.
2. Take a pair of scissors and pre-dig the hole in the styrofoam circle.  I suggest waiting until the end to cut your wood to the right length since it will depend on how large your flower ends up being.
3. Heat your glue gun and have plenty of glue on hand.  I estimate 20 for this which may be overkill but it seriously felt like I used a ton.  I recommend placing a piece of cardboard underneath it as it can drip.
4. Take your first tie and figure out how long of a "petal" you want.  I suggest keeping the tie petal not much longer than the point of the tie because the more it hangs over, the more likely it is for the petal to sag.
5. Measure enough of the tie to wrap around the piece of styrofoam to cover it.  I went around one full time and double-lined the inside to create a more rounded flower. 
6. Glue the interior around the tie.  
7. Repeat with all the ties, taking care to slightly overlap. 
8. When you get to where the hole is, cut an X in the tie where it is to overlap. 
9. Once you finish overlapping all the ties, be sure that no styrofoam is exposed.  You can always go back and glue gun the edges but I recommend not doing that until the end because if for some reason you have a big gap, you can glue in some of the leftover ties.  
10. At the very end, glue in the wooden stick.  I didn't paint mine but I imagine it would look cute green.  

The petals can be different lengths--there is no need to measure.  Also, feel free to flip them so the inside shows.  If you do that, I recommend a seam ripper to remove the label. 

I picked up my ties at a rummage sale for 25 cents each.  I recommend looking in thrift stores--the prints and fabrics don't much matter.  The end product isn't the lightest fake flower ever so be prepared to stick it in a bunch of rocks or florist foam, covering it with rocks, moss, etc.  Mine is propped against the wall or otherwise it wouldn't stay.  Don't discard the ends of the ties--you could make a smaller flower with those!  

When Your Tree Becomes a Big Garbage Can

One of the joys of city living is taking a nice walk under the tree lined streets and admiring the gardening of others.  While Philadelphia tends to be pretty tree lined, my neighborhood, Fishtown, is not so idyllic looking.  Instead, on a lot of blocks like mine, it looks like a concrete jungle.

Some awesome groups and individuals like the Philly Tree Tenders and Philly Tree People have taken it upon themselves to see to it that we plant more trees in our neighborhoods.  When the opportunity to plant a tree presented itself, I jumped on the opportunity.  Through Philly Tree People, I was able to pay around $30 for a square of concrete to be torn up, the area mulched and a tree planted.  Please note if you're in Philadelphia that applications are being taken now for Spring 2011 and donations are always accepted!

Anyway, my tree got planted about 3 years ago in the Spring.  The mulch was beautiful.  The tree was anchored.  It was just lovely...until about a day later when I realized that my tree was actually a new garbage can for the neighborhood.  The tree stood with its two wooden anchors, its green rope, its lovely mulch...and it received dog pee, cat poop, dog poop, wrappers, losing lottery tickets, cigarette butts, used condoms...you name it.

The first year I had my tree, I sort of regretted the grand idea to ever get one.  In the city, sometimes we can admit we can feel easily defeated when the first kid decides to grab a chunk of our pansies out of our barrel planters or steals our small planter.  It's easy to just give up.

And for a while, I did just give up.

At the end of Season 1, I was visiting my hometown of Rochester where my mom plucked three Hostas out of her garden and handed them to me.  She said, "Here, just stick these in the ground and they'll multiply."  I told her I don't have a green thumb...I don't have grass where the dogs can't pee.  But they were free and they were plucked and came with the promise I couldn't kill them so I figured I had to find a use for them.

Alas: they became the first plants to surround my new, baby tree.  I indeed just stuck them in the ground.  Winter came, more poop came but snow washed away the trash and poop of yesteryear. 

In the Spring, the Hostas rose from the ground and populated.  I quickly went to Home Depot and got iron pieces of interlocking fence and put them around the concrete square.  Though not a perfect size, they'd shield the tree from car doors hitting it and discourage animals from entering it.

Not so, my friends.  It was three weeks into the season when the first metal fence was broken.  A hapless passenger of an adjacent car was not to blame but what looked like a kid kicking it.  The fact that it could be broken was shocking to me.  I went to Home Depot and bought another.

The Hostas populated.  The poop started to decrease.  When the weeds populated, so did the trash.  When I weeded and watered, it started to be treated less like a garbage can.

Two years later, it's still my garbage can.  This year though, the Hostas are gigantic and I've added two succulents that are spreaders and thrive on full sun.  The metal fence remains with most of the pieces broken.  A future project is building a brick border to replace the fence set in concrete so that people will have to care more when they open their car doors so it won't be my tree that is damaged.

This evening I added some splashes of color with pink annuals and a purple perennial.  I'm hoping the color and the obvious placement will dissuade more folks from using it like a trash barrel but we shall see.

The key it seems to me is simply not giving up.  It's doing all we can to make it a pretty tree-lined street we can walk down on a perfect night, enjoying the fruits of our neighbors' labors.  Share your secrets in keeping trash at bay!

What Do I Do With All These Herbs?

Herbs are one of the easiest things to grow so they're perfect for us urban, novice gardeners.  They will grow in almost any container in almost any amount of sun and most will come back year after year.  Some herbs like mint are so plentiful you will end up spending a day just trying to kill them when they're overtaking what seems like your whole yard!  (I recently managed to kill Chocolate Mint accidentally which I remain silent about right now.)

These herbs fill your garden, you're oh so happy about them and then you watch them die, wondering where all the time went and wishing you had used them in something...anything.  Yes, too often we plant these herbs just to watch them go to waste.  While I whipped up a caprese salad and used half my crop of basil, I go through my cilantro in a recipe we'll call "sexy salsa" and I manage to throw dill in a potato salad or two, I too am saddled with dying Thyme, Rosemary, Tarragon, Boxwood Basil... 

So when the NKCDC was offering a Cooking with Herbs class at the Berks Street Garden Center, I signed up to attend.  It turns out they managed to recruit Mark Tinkleman, a chef at Parc here in Rittenhouse Square, a fabulous French bistro, to teach the class.

Mark started out with a lovely secret to cutting herbs that hopefully will help you avoid cutting your fingers off, like I am wont to do.  It's call the "bear claw" and basically, you take a bunch of herbs and you get your sharp Cujo knife and you tuck in your fingers so the knife is chopping against your knuckles and not the blood squirters known as your fingers.  It's brilliant.  Plus, you'll find it easier to hold down the herbs than with your fingers.

Okay, so onto the food:  so today's menu was all French.  Courses were many; portions were small.  Yes, we got to eat.  I foolishly forgot my camera so suffice it to say, I won't torture you with photographs.  Needless to say, I will share two of the recipes that will help you sample many of the herbs in your garden and one that won't and is just darned good and simply easy for dessert for a party: A bibb salad (which simply refers to the type of lettuce), a pesto and a lavender cream perfect for topping shortbread.

Bibb Salad (Mark called Salad Verte):

This salad is a light, very herbed salad that is seriously perfect for Summer and requires no more work than your average American tomato, carrot and cucumber salad, plus it uses at least a few herbs that you likely don't ever touch.  

• Vinaigrette
• 1 C Olive Oil or Canola Oil
• 1/2 C Red Wine Vinegar
• 2 T Dijon or whole grain mustard (Nance's is my favorite)
• 1 oz. Shallots
•  Salt/Pepper to taste
• Salad
• 4 heads of Bibb Leaves (a/k/a Boston Lettuce)
• 1 bunch of Parsley, minced
• 3 Shallots, minced
• 1 bunch of chives, minced
• 1/2 bunch of Tarragon, picked
• 2 C Haricot Verte (a/k/a string beans)

To make the vinagrette:
Combine the vinegar, mustard and shallots in a blender or food processor or Magic Bullet (the blender that is my fave).  Once everything is mixed, slowly pour in oil.  Add salt/pepper to taste.

For Haricot Verts:
Fill a bowl with ice water.  Bring a large pot of water to boil.  Add salt.  Drop the beans in for 30 seconds and then strain them and drop them in the ice bath.  Cut off the ends and cut them into halves or thirds.

For the salad:
"Picked" Tarragon simply means picking the leaves off the stem.  Easy.  Use the bear claw method in mincing the other herbs.

Combine the bibb leaves, parsley, shallots, chives, tarragon, verts and vinaigrette in a big bowl right before serving. 


What's also great about this salad is that it gives, for people like me that don't often cook, a really good sense of these flavor of these lesser known herbs so in the future when I'm futzing in the kitchen, I can know what Tarragon might be good in, etc.

Pasta a la Pesto

Think you've tried pesto and found it heavy, greasy and unhealthy?  Or maybe you loved those three things that turned me off to it?  I've never made pesto and I've always found it good on a panini sandwich as a spread or something but otherwise just really heavy and not something I'd make for a light meal.  Well, this pesto is super light, definitely less oppressive feeling and makes an amazing dish.  So if you shot down pesto before, try this.

• 2 C Walnuts (that's right, pine nuts are really expensive right now--walnuts or most nuts work great with this recipe so feel free to experiment)
• 4 bunches of Basil, picked
• Juice of 4 lemons
• 1/4 C Olive Oil
• 2 boxes spaghetti pasta (I think whole wheat or spinach pasta would be great although he used white pasta)
• 5 dried tomatoes minced 
• 3 heads Broccoli, cut into bite sized pieces

This serves 5.

1. Toast the walnuts in a dry pan on the stovetop or in the oven on 250 for 10 minutes.  They'll start to brown so you'll know they're done.  Let them cool.
2. While the nuts are cooking, fill a large pot of water with salt and bring it to boil.
3. Put the basil, salt, pepper and cooled nuts into a food processor.  Add the lemon juice you can squeeze right into it and turn it on.
4. Drizzle the olive oil to the desired texture.  Season with salt/pepper to taste.
5. Put broccoli in boiling water for 30 seconds or until bright green and put it in the ice bath (this is called "blanching" in cooking.
6. Put the pasta in boiling water for the time stated on the pasta package.
7. While the pasta is cooking, heat oil in a large pan.  Add garlic.*  Wait 30 seconds and add the broccoli.  Cook over medium for 4 minutes or until broccoli is charred in a few spots**, shaking the pan back and forth (or stirring it) every minute or so.
8. When the pasta is done, drain it in a colander.  Take the pan with the broccoli and add the dried tomatoes and pesto to it.  Add the pasta and heat through. 

*The best way to use garlic in this recipe is to crush it.  Crush the entire head of garlic, which will separate the individual cloves and if you crush the top of the clove, the skin will come off much easier.
**You blanch the broccoli first not just to be annoying but to make sure the broccoli is cooked all the way through since you're going to end up with pretty al dente broccoli--you won't want a raw center.

Mark said you can make this recipe with pretty much any green herb, veggie or lettuce.  I currently have Arugula pesto in my fridge and he said he's had it with lots of herbs but that spinach was pretty flavorless.  It's amazing how great the walnuts taste.

Lavender Cream

1 C of cream cheese, softened (he didn't use light cream cheese but I see no reason why it can't be used--this is a very, very rich spread)
1 1/2 C of confectioner's sugar, sifted (sifting is necessary--it should be easy with a cheap sifter)
2 T dried lavender flowers

For this recipe, he uses dried lavender flowers which is one of the only herbs he uses dried.  He doesn't recommend using any other dried herbs because they simply don't taste good.  I agree.  Luckily we have these overabundances of herbs and things in our gardens!  But dried lavender is the only way to go here.

Beat the cream cheese and confectioner's sugar in a medium bowl with an electric mixer until light and creamy.  Stir in the lavender flowers and let sit.

Despite the fact that there's more sugar than cream cheese in the recipe, the cream cheese flavor is predominant.  The lavender flowers are hard to taste at first but the further you eat, the more you sense them.  So it's not a flowery tasting spread needless to say.  However, because of the flavor of this and the relatively thick spread it is, I'd only put this on poundcake like we had it served.  They actually purchased poundcake from A&P and honestly, it was great.  The poundcake taste basically served as a spoon for the lavender.

A Reclaimed Gardening Organizer

I'm not much of a crafter, but I do enjoy finding new uses for items that otherwise would make it to my local thrift store. 

Today's idea is the perfect reuse of the obsolete CD case.  You may be like me and have your entire library of music on iTunes.  I have not popped in a store bought CD in ages.  Recently I was cleaning after having my floors refinished, trying to pare down what I have and realized that I was wasting precious storage on four huge CD cases that I had not opened in probably 3 years.  It was time they get donated...when I realized the perfect reuse!

Some of my biggest garden failures stem from losing the little ID sticks that you get when you buy the plant...you know: the ones that tell you what the plant is called, how much sun and water it needs and when it should bloom, as well as the temperatures it can sustain and proper planting procedures.  I usually leave them on my kitchen counter until they start bugging me and end up in the trash.  In fact, I'm in some sort of purgatory with a flowering bush I bought from Greensgrow Farms here in Port Fishington in Philadelphia, trying to figure out if it's dead or it simply is just a Spring bloomer but cannot find it online anywhere!

So my obsolete CD holder becomes the perfect way to store these ID tags!  The clear pockets make seeing the tags a cinch and the sizing is almost perfect to hold 3 smaller tags.  The larger tags can be snipped at the bottom, not losing an ounce of text, where the tag used to stick into the soil. 

Ta da!  

What in the World is Killing My Plants?!

Every novice gardener can tell you that it isn't just as easy as sun and water to make a garden grow.  Unfortunately, there's a certain level of sun and water needed, as well as proper drainage, good soil and sometimes in the city, a small miracle! 

City gardens are challenges for a number of reasons but the fact that we have stray cats walking around as well as dogs, birds, squirrels and even opossums makes growing stuff way more challenging. 

I recently attended a class on container gardening with Alice Edgerton at the NKCDC's Garden Center on Berks Street in Fishtown, a great little resource for the Fishtown neighborhood here in Philadelphia.  Alice suggested many solutions to common problems in the garden. 

Is your problem birds or cats?  You can apply netting around the garden area/containers that comes in a roll from a garden store.  Neither like to snag themselves in the webbing so they'll quickly become disinterested. 

Dog and cat repellents work wonderfully but since they wash off when it rains, you have to remember to coat the plants and soil again after a heavy rain.  This would be particularly helpful for any plants that line the city streets or in your own backyard with your dogs.

Growing Lavender, Geraniums or Rue apparently deters cats as well.  I have noticed since I have planted Geraniums and Lavender, I have seen no cats digging through and/or pooping in my plants or flowers.  Keeping soil moist as it should be deters cats as well.  They do not like moist soil...apparently my dog is not the only one that doesn't like to get his paws wet!  

Marigolds work to keep bugs away from tomatoes and peppers.  Plant some in the middle of a container and for some unknown reason, protect from multiple types of bugs.  Marigolds are annuals so they need to be replanted every year.  They may self-seed and come up again, but nevertheless are cheap and could potentially add a shot of color to your vegetable garden. 

Just because the leaves on your plant on brown or yellow, don't assume you're not giving them too little water.  Check to see if the soil is draining properly.  Pots without drainage holes need them drilled or hammered in (see my last post on how to drill holes into clay pots) and pots with single holes can sometimes clog up!  The first sign a hole is clogged is one I just noticed in my Azalea plant:  the water is still sitting on top long after I have watered it.  My next step in remediating this problem is digging up the root ball, obviously being careful not to disturb it, and making sure something isn't blocking the drainage.

A great way to insure that soil doesn't drain out the bottom is by putting a piece of newspaper or coffee filter on the bottom on the pot or container. 

Let me know your successes and failures in keeping pests and pets out of your yard. 

Creating Holes in Clay Pots!

Drilling drainage holes in clay pots has been something that always alluded me.  I picked up these sweet little herb pots at Lowe's for a cool $2.99 that annoyingly did not have drainage holes last week.  I am afraid when I drill holes that my container will break.  I embarked upon learning the correct way to do it. 

First, you will need a drill.  I have a cordless Bosch Brute 18V "Tough Hammer".  It performed fantastically for this task although I imagine something cheaper could do the trick.  Drilling clay with a glossy finish requires Diamond ground carbide bits.  I did not think my pots were glossy but I was getting nothing but smoke and frustration with my regular bit so I purchased three diamond ground carbide ones.

To avoid cracking the clay, you'll need to buy a handful of bits and drill each through, slightly increasing the size each time.  For this task, I purchased Bosch diamond ground carbide bits in 3" long, 1/8 diameter, 6" long, 5/32 diameter and 6", 1/4 diameter.

You can avoid burning yourself or starting a kitchen fire by wetting the clay surface and putting oil or water on the drill bit as well.  (Obviously don't do this with it plugged in, if you aren't using a cordless drill.)  I used olive oil on my drill bit and a bit of water on the clay pot and both worked just fine.

Once the drill bit is tight in the drill, start slowly--verrrrry slowly---drilling with the smallest bit.  If you are having a problem keeping the bit in one spot, using a few layers of masking tape over the hole.  Once the hole is significantly started, you can drill faster.  Make sure you are not using the weight of your body or your arm to drill the pot.  Let the drill do its job.  I made this mistake when I started in with the 5/32" diameter drill and ended up chipping the bottom of one of the pots.

I quickly realized that you do not want to put tons of holes in the bottom--the more holes, the more likely it is that you will crack the bottom or cause it to crack during Winter months.  As you can see here, I started off with many and decreased them to 3 per pot.   

I was drilling on top of granite that I wasn't afraid of chipping but if you are not, you may consider stuffing the pot with styrofoam or something to stop yourself from jabbing through the pot when the drill makes it all the way through the hole.  There is a good chance you may break it at that point or damage the surface underneath. 

Note that I kept a wet paper towel next to the drill.  I made sure to wrap the bit and let the heat come off before I changed out to the new drill bit.  I also made sure to continue to wet the surface of each pot before drilling again.  No smoke! 

Presto!  Basil, Thyme and Parsley are ready to be transplanted into their new homes without any fear of root rot! 

Update:  Hypertufa form was built this week...however, I got sick and it's been raining.  Creating hypertufa is definitely an outdoor job so this may get delayed a bit!  

Wait, I Thought I Just Needed to Water This Thing!

Part of the fun of gardening to me is finding unique plants to spruce up my yards.  This means tossing out the idea of most run of the mill annuals like Petunias and Geraniums.  Unfortunately, my limited experience in gardening consisted previously of helping my mom maintain those flowers by water, watering some more, fertilizing and dead heading the Petunias, ie. taking the dead heads off the flowers to create many more blooms.

It turns out, dead heading most flowers is crucial to getting fuller blooms.  My mom was recently in town and told me I had to dead head my front flowering bush.  I did not understand why it would bloom, I would pluck the spent flowers and it would not bloom again.  It turns out that you need to reach beyond the head of the flower down to the stem and pluck from there.

She also gave more advice with regard to its size:  it is getting a bit unruly and spindly.  Here I thought this is just the way things grow.  But it turns out that by pruning back the plant, it will do the same thing as dead heading: it will make the plant thicker and fuller and avoid it overtaking its space.

A few weekends ago, I transported my lavender, which had taken over its cute little pot that had cracked due to an extremely cold Winter, to a larger wooden crate with plenty of drainage.  I read that lavender likes full sun and mine has gotten it.  Its new crate will also allow it to have a deeper root system.  As much as my lavender has grown though, it has done little in the way of flowering into the type of lavender you see dried in stores.  I wondered what I was doing wrong.

So I went online and found my answer:  I need to prune back the flowers so it doesn't overtake it's space...or at least I should have done that year 1.  Year 2 it would have come back fuller.  Now, it still smells lovely but the flowers ended up in a vase in my bathroom and the lavender will hopefully be a more mature, fragrant part of my garden next year.

If you are planting lavender, remember the soil should not be overwatered.  Lavender likes to be dry.  Because of the full sun requirements and the dry soil, it's a perfect choice for a lazy, city gardener like me or perhaps someone with a roof deck with limited access to water.  Just don't forget to prune!

My instructor from the gardening class at Terrain said it's wise to check your garden every morning, carrying around a pair of pruning scissors, cutting off and dead heading what needs to be removed, to supplement your normal watering.  It not only makes for healthy, fuller plants but also makes them immediately look much healthier!!