So, it's been a while. The summer ended, the fall seemed to swoop in with little preamble, and then the winter was upon us before we even realized it.
Towards the end of our warm weather, Zach and our neighbors winterized the garden, planting garlic for the spring, cutting down the dead annuals, and covering the soil with hay. Zach had acquired six large wooden fish crates from the New Fulton Street Fish Market while working for GrowNYC, which now ring the perimeter of our roof garden, ready for new plants and deep roots this spring.
We've both kept ourselves extremely busy in the past six months, both of us cultivating new projects and opportunities that have kept us away from this blog--but thankfully, not away from making and eating good food, and planning for next season's garden.
Zach has started saving seeds from our garden and the garden at Madiba, most notably from the enormous basil plants he grew this summer, as well as lettuce and mizuna, two kinds of heirloom tomatoes, and five varieties of chili peppers. Right now, he's testing germination to be sure the seeds will grow successfully into new plants, and so far all is looking good. This is part of a separate effort Zach has started to collect and hopefully sell rooftop-ready seeds to other urban gardeners--he's working on building a parallel website for his growing business ventures, and we'll keep you posted when that is ready to share with the world.
To flesh out the rest of our 2011 rooftop garden, we ordered seeds from Hudson Valley Seed Library and Seed Savers Exchange: kale and pattypan squash for the first time, wax beans for pickling, golden cherry tomatoes (a favorite from the farmers' market last summer) and ground cherries, borage and stevia as sugary substitutes for mixed drinks, oregano, and some zinnia and blue cornflower seeds to add some color.
With our sidewalks still thoroughly lined with piles of snow, it's difficult to imagine starting seeds in the next couple months, but we're more than ready to return to our summer routine of rooftop dinner parties, and daily trips upstairs to collect fresh ingredients for dinner.
2 comments:
Hi Manda and Zach!
I just stumbled over your blog. Unfortunately the email I sent you, came back to me, so I'll give this a try! Leon, my boyfriend and I, we're both photo students from Germany, I'm currently living in doing an internship in New York and we're working on a photo essay about urban agriculture. It would be great to talk to you or even take a look at your roof, if that is somehow possible. I wanted to send you a brief overview of the pictures we've done so far (we've been to Roberta's, BK Farmyards, Red Hook and Automotive Highschool and we'll go to see Goodyoga in Greenpoint now, as they have a small rooftop farm as well), so if you leave me you're email address or any way it would be nice to hear from you!
Thank you,
Leon and Maria
hey there, thanks for thinking of us. You can email me at zacharypickens@gmail.com
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