Gas and land

East Pond, at Gateway National Refuge Area. Photo courtesy of NPS.

U.S. athletes triumphed during the recent Olympiadloved watching it! I wish I could say the same about our triumphant leadership in other fields, especially when it comes to breaking away from dependence on fossil fuels. Where I live, this issue has acquired new urgencyNew York hovers on the brink of allowing shale gas drillingin parts of the state. (A refreshershale gas drilling/hydrofracking is the high-pressure injection of water, sand, and chemicals in order to extract natural gas from underground shale formations.)

As in neighboring Pennsylvania, the fracking fields will mainly be in the rural countryside; so far, it looks like an area in central NY (Broome, Chemung, Chenango, Steuben and Tioga counties) will host the first permitted wells. The issues are many, and include possible watershed contamination, the problem of wastewater and its treatment, radically increased road use, and how the practice will change the look of the rural countryside. A recent letter to the Buffalo News from a former resident of a fracking area of PA described the mise en scene of fracking this way:

Fracking wells are not small; they are huge and can take up an acre or more (look up Fracking Hollenbeck Gas Site on youtube).
They are very loud, lit all night, stink and run 24/7. They are everywhere. The ground shakes. Traffic has increased. Water transport trucks are on the roads at all hours. Small-town county roads werent made for these constant heavy loads and have quickly worn down, resulting in continuous construction and increased traffic problems.

Judging from the images of fracking fields Ive seen, this description is not out of bounds. Hard to imagine this being the scene in any part of the Finger Lakes Ive visited. And this is not even to discuss the deeper environmental impacts.

Does any of this have to do with gardening? Sure. My gardening takes place in a larger context of the parks, reserves, and other natural areas that exist in my area of the world. By creating a garden in my little urban corner, Im basically trying to emulate, in some small way, the natural beauty I seek in such unspoiled countryside that remains.

Although Western New York does not, as of yet, stand in much risk of being a shale gas source, we all potentially stand to be affected by some sort of fuel development. Recently, I received an email from a community gardener in New York City who is fighting a natural gas pipeline and accompanying facilities scheduled to be installed under the Gateway National Recreation Area and Jacob Riis Beach. Its not fracking but it is opening up a national park to industrial use. Like me, Karen Orlandothe gardener who, among many others, opposes this projectis an urbanite who cherishes such wild sites that can exist in densely populated areas. The precedent of allowing pipelines and industrial facilities in New Yorks Gateway opens the door to the same in a refuge like Tifft Nature Preserve in Buffalo.

Its all connected. And as much as I rejoice in our superiority in water polo, I could wish that we showed a similar determination to excel in finding energy alternatives. For the sake of gardens everywherein all the different forms a garden can take.

Via: Gas and land

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An icewine cocktail for the dog days

Fancy cocktails with multiple ingredients are OK with me, as long as I dont have to make them.Im with Amy when it comes to obscure techniques like bone lugeing or fat-washing. If the booze is good, it shouldnt need such interventions. When at home, I use up to four ingredients, make simple syrups, always include fresh juices, and add bitters if called for. Farther than that, Im not likely to go.

My other thing with drinks is that although Ill try something out of my comfort zone if Im in the hands of a professional, when at home, I stick to stuff I know I love, like: 1. gin, 2. citrus, and 3. floral accents. Thats why I often use St. Germaine, which is made from elderflowers. You have to be careful not to make the drink too cloying, though, and thats where the gin and citrus come in.

A wonderful combination of these elements came to me thanks to Ivy Knight, a Toronto food writer, who recommends mixologist Christina Kuypers icewine cocktail.Heres the recipe:

Icewine Cocktail

1 oz gin Tanqueray, a clean, refreshing gin with some nice citrus notes, not too heavy on the juniper.
oz Chase Elderflower Liqueur
oz icewine
oz fresh squeezed lemon juice
2 large basil leaves

Shaken, poured over ice in a Collins glass, garnished with champagne grapes, red currants to add acidity and texture to the drink, also add a few more basil leaves for aroma.

Needless to say there were adjustments: I had St. Germaine on hand (not Chase), and I used The Botanist rather than Tanqueray (which I rarely buy). Unsurprisingly, there were no champagne grapes or red currents in my produce bin, so I made do with lemon slices, along with the called-for basil. Its shown here both on the rocks and straight up. (I pour my cocktails into a nice big wine glass with ice, but thats me.)

Icewine is a perfect cocktail ingredient. It has the floral elements, it has (if good) a bright acidity, and it lends sweetness, which is necessary to soften the alcoholic bite. Icewine is also a local ingredient here in Buffaloour friends across the border have perfected the art of extracting concentrated juice from frozen grapes. I used a 2007 Henry of Pelham Riesling icewine, but there are dozens of great producers throughout Southern Ontario.

A perfectly-balanced summer drink for an out-of-whack hot summertry it!

Via: An icewine cocktail for the dog days

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Send Me to the Commune

Beech Hill Farm

Grated beet salad with red onions, carrots, and a delicious vinaigrette. Grass-fed beef steaks, perfectly grilled. A potato salad made with homemade mayonnaise and chipotle relish. Melting, sweet homegrown tomatoes with good olive oil, sea salt and basil. Boiled Maine lobster. Broiled baby eggplant with lemon basil and a pole bean, red onion, and tomato salad. Wild blueberry buckle.

That is but a small sample of what Ive been eating in the last few days.

One of the joys of my summer is visiting two sets of friends who have waterfront houses, one on Star Lake in the Adirondacks and the other on Mount Desert in Maine. They also have adorable kids whom my kids love, and adding to the beautiful scenery and recreation and general air of happiness is the fact that my friends have vegetable gardens and love to cook. So we pool the amazing produce from our gardens and cook the kind of sumptuous many-course meals that are only possible when there are two or three people in the kitchen and at the grill each doing their own thing.

And in Maine, whatever we havent grown, we buy at Beech Hill Farm, a gorgeous place that is a project of the College of the Atlantic, with the kind of glamorous, perfectly groomed produce that I suspect only idealistic student labor can explain.

It all makes communal living seem really attractive. If only I could find a commune with no ideology other than that of superb ingredients.

Via: Send Me to the Commune

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2012 Olympic flowersoh so British, and yet

If youve been watching, you probably noticed the Olympic bouquets. At first glance they look rather traditional, though prettya tight, colorful bunch of roses.

But as is usual with these, there is a story behind the flower choice and where the flowers come from. They include four kinds of roses (which could not be sourced from the UK)): Aqua (pink HT), Ilios (greenish yellow HT), Marie Clair (orange HT), and Wimbleton (green HT). I am assuming these are hybrid teas, as those are usually chosen for the cut flower trade, and they look itthere was little information to be found, probably because they had to be shipped in. None of them are the type Id ever be likely to grow; they seem made for the florist industry, with everything that implies: scentless, long stems, relatively thorn-free. The roses are augmented with wheat, apple mint, lavender, and rosemary (all locally grown), so even though the roses arent contributing, these are strongly scented bouquets. The herbs were chosen so theres a really British scent to them, according to florist Hannah Emery, who is overseeing the production of 4400 bouquets, with the help of students from Writtle College in Essex, Bexley Adult Education in Kent, and Kingston Maurward in Dorset..

I like the inclusion of scented herbs and lavender to bump up the scent impact; Im ambivalent about the high maintenance hybrid teas, whichwere unlikely to have been grown without chemical intervention. The colors are great thoughthey really pop. The short stems are meant to evoke a nosegay effect.

One sad thing and one strange thing: the designer of these Victory Bouquets, Jane Packer, of Jane Packer Floristry, died last year. And its been reported that many of the medal winners are hurling their flowers into the crowd. (Maybe they dont have any vases in the Olympic Village.)

Finally, here a tweet from British singer Lily Allen: The presentation flowers are a little petrol stationy no? I wouldnt go that far, never having spotted wheat and lavender in a gas station bunch around here. I would suggest that future Olympiad flower designers avoid roses, particularly when they cannot be grown locally, as these were not. There are lots of other flowers.

P.S. Loving the actual gamesbeen glued every night, and carefully avoiding spoilers during the day!

Via: 2012 Olympic flowersoh so British, and yet

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I Never Water This

Okay, so before you get all you people in California can do anything, let me just say that we all have our challenges, garden-wise. Here in Eureka, my challenge is that it never, ever gets warm (todays temps are high of 62, low of 54, and I am wearing a sweater as I type this), and it doesnt rain all summer. Not once. We might get mist, we might get fleeting moments of drizzle, but it last rained in late May and we probably wont see enough water to penetrate to the root zone again until October or November. Maybe December.

So a few years ago, my friend Scott Calhoun (quoting someone else, and Im sorry I cant remember who that was) said, How do you know its drought-tolerant if you keep watering it? and I thought, oh yeah. I should just stop watering. Period. At all. Forever.

So I did.

What happened next was a sort of survival-of-the-fittest competition. I guess some things diedI didnt really pay attention. Some things self-sowed. I get great orange California poppies every year, and for whatever reason the Verbena bonariensis just marched to the front of the border all by itselfI swear I didnt do it. Other things probably just got swallowed up, I dont know.

I didnt even do the whole give it supplemental water the first year and then leave it alone thing. I just planted in early winter, when rain starts, and explained that theyd need to be well-rooted by June, because thats when the spigot turns off. Sure, they sulked through the summer, but after a couple years, they got the message and grew up big and strong.

Once it starts raining in the winter, I might go out and dig up one of the more successful plants, divide it, and stick it back in the ground in a larger mass. But now Im not even going to do that anymore. I feel like this thing is pretty much done.

There is no weeding. Sometimes a blackberry vine will make its way through the jungle and head upward, gasping for airthose get cut down, but thats about it.

There probably should be more deadheading than there is, butwhatever. Ill get around to it. Maybe.

I think it looks pretty durn nice, and its highly unusual for me to have a garden that I consider finishedbut I like it. Most of all, I like that its a response to my specific, weird climate. Through a lot of trial and error, I figured out what grows here with no interference from me and I planted a lot of that.

And by the way, these are not necessarily top-selling plants at local nurseries or mainstays of local landscapers. Some of them are, but others (like that absurdly huge angelica) are just impulse buys from specialty nurseries or big-city garden shows that turned out to be curiously vigorous.

Your climate is probably not my climate. (Be grateful for that.) So what grows without interference for you? What would it be like to fill a front yard with those plants?

Via: I Never Water This

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Small-garden ideas from Thomas Rainer

Boy, when you reveal your garden here on the web, youd better be prepared for feedback the honest stuff, not for the thin-skinned. Thats what I got after I posted photos of my new back yard, via comment and email, and Im sharing some of the suggestions because theyre so damn good.

Thomas Rainer is a DC-area landscape architect whose blog and design ideas Ive raved about, so I naturally picked his brain for ideas, and got em. First, he said he loved my porch and terrace, and some of my preliminary additions to the garden the Abelia, Cryptomeria, Viburnums, which he predicts will all age with grace.

Then he got to the meat of his advice, which is nothing like the New American Garden-style sweeps and masses of plants that Id been attempting for years in my former garden.

You have a relatively small garden (small spaces are the BEST places to garden), so that means the design strategies should address that context. The goal in small space gardens is to create the feeling of depth and expansiveness. One way you can do that is by creating the appearance of layers of plants. I know I preach a lot about massing plants (and you should still mass in a small garden), but the main thing to focus on is creating CONTRAST between small groupings of plants. In a small space, every plant counts, so each plant mass (or single shrubs) should strongly contrast in texture, foliage color, and form (structure) with the plant next to it. A blue conifer next to a spiky purple Eucomis next to a golden cascading Hakone grass. Exaggerate differences between plants to exaggerate the effect of layering. A richly layered garden gives the eye many places to rest and creates the illusion of volume, depth, and richnesseven in tiny spaces.

He counsels discipline: Dont bring a plant into that garden unless it has a striking form (spiky, billowing, vertical spire), strong foliage color (blues/golds/purples, etc), or a long season of blooms (2 month minimum). In a small space, each plant must earn its keep. Expect more, get the perfect cultivar, and continue to adjust. Imagine the plant in your garden in black and white. Does it still read? Does it still contrast from its neighbor?

Im having a problem with this very thing in my border right now. I chose a bunch of aggressive perennials last spring just to fill in bare mulch (never intending them to be permanent) and now its just one big green blob. Most of the plants are finely textured filler perennials. Everything bleeds together.

Thomass more specific suggestions for my space includes these:

- Pick a theme for your palette. Choose colors, textures, or a mood for the garden. Only pick plants that reinforce the theme.

- Arrange plants in clumps, not rows. Linear arrangements in small spaces flatten the feeling of depth. Roundness is better.

- Invest in a few legacy pots. Im still saving for mine. Save $500 for a gorgeous brown or blue urn. Create a focal point with it. Notice how these pots are key design elements in Mosaic Gardens work.

Then he refers me to two great sources of inspiration, both of whom agreed to let me include their photos in this post.

Mosaic Gardens: This is a design firm in Eugene, Oregon, a husband and wife team Thomas calls his horticultural idols of the moment. In their portfolio, every plant strongly contrasts with the plant next to it. They use foliage color for drama, but the real source of their beauty is that the form of each plant is different. Spiky verticals punctuate a corner, mounding conifers anchor a path, statuesque spurges spill over a wall. And notice the scale of the massings. Each plant is PACKED IN (they have to thin later), but even in their smallest moment, there is at least 3-5 plants in a mass.

And Nancy Ondra, whom Thomas calls the queen of plant combinations. Nancy has a large garden, but every moment in her borders are designed like she has a little jeweled courtyard. She uses foliage color to get contrast and even uses quite a bit of what I call landscape annuals (as opposed to bedding annuals). Use tropical annnuals like cannas, bulbs like gladiolas, fillers like Verbena bonariensis or Emilia javanica. Nans written a whole book about Foliage, and her inspiration-filled website is called Hayefield.

Thanks to Thomas for his awesome ideas and letting me share them here! But theres more his list of plants that could work well aesthetically in your garden.

Picea pungens Globosa, Dwarf Blue Spruceevergreen, great form, blue color year round

Ligularia dentata Britt Marie CrawfordGreat purplish foliage, likes sun and wet feet.

Corylus avellana Red MajesticA great background shrub for texture and color

Physocarpus opulifolius DiabloBlack Ninebark. Another background/screening shrub. Stunning color.

Hakonechloa macra AureolaYou have to have some variegated Hakone Grass under your Japanese maple. Get a tray of 32 or 54, place them 12-18 o.c. and plant them straight up to the trunk of that tree.

Spiraea thunbergii Ogon, Ogon SpiraeaGold foliage and feathery texture is a wonderful addition to any small garden.

Euphorbia Ascot Rainbow or RudolphTake advantage of some of the great new cultivars of spurges. I added Ascot Rainbow to mine and I love it. Mine is in a shady spot under a tree, but I think Rudolph

Persicaria polymorpha, Giant Fleece FlowerA big perennial, but blooms most of the summer. PLace 3 of them in a spot with decent sun (perhaps by your hydrangeas)

Heuchera villosa Frosted VioletMy favorite purple Coral Bell. CLump in groups of 5.

Brunnera Jack Frostfor low shady areas. Mass in groups of 6-12.

Iris pallida VariegataNeed some spiky plants for interest.

Eucomis Sparkling Burgundy Plant this as a bulb and get purple, Phormium-like spikes.

Penstemon digitalis Dark TowersA great native, love the foliage color.

Then for color, add annuals (Verbena bonariensis, and bulbs (hardy lilies, poeticus daffodils, species tulips, even a few Canna Pink Sunburstthey blend with a surprising number of plants).

Think about some columnar spiresthey really add structure to the garden. Hicksii Yew (shear it into an evergreen pencil). I even like the ubiquitous Emerald Green arborvitae dropped into richly layered herbaceous plantings. They really pop. Or a Juniperus Skyrocket One of these would work well to screen your neighbors shed. Place another one along the back of the property for screening.

Via: Small-garden ideas from Thomas Rainer

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I have grown corn!

A miracle has occurred on the Kansas prairie. I have, at longlast, grown sweet cornin the Flint Hills. Praise God, and pass the butter and salt!

This may not be an earth-shattering accomplishment to many of you from other climes, and perhaps not to any farmerin this area, but I have been completely stymied for years trying to grow ediblesweet corn in my own garden. I have experienced years where I had poor germination (soil too cold?), years where the wind blew the knee-high corn flat before it could tassel, years where the ears didnt fill out (too hot for pollination?), and years where I had decent ear growth, but opened up the shucks to find thatId raised only a superb crop of earworms. Ive haddecent corn stolenat the last minute by raccoons, Ive had seedlings mowed down by deer and rabbits, andIve even caught quailscratching and eating the seed as soon as I planted it. (All minor pests compared to earworms in this area.)

To borrow and modify for gardening aterm currently popular amongteenagers and young adults, I have been corn-blocked for a decade by wind, drought, earworms, raccoons, rabbits,deer, and birds. The worst of all are the earwormsas a species they are completely disgusting. I refuse to just cut off the end of an ear full of worms and worm feces andthen cook and eat the remainder.

As a descendentof several generations of Indiana farmers, my inability to grow edible corniseven more embarrassing. My long-lost Indiana, where the soildrains better, where the wind is gentler, the rains more frequent, and themid-summer heat less searing, is tailor-made for corn. You can toss corn on the surface of the ground in Southern Indiana, and it will grow and produce. Heck, it grows as a volunteer annual fromyear to year if you leave too many kernels in the field.

This year, inexplicably,the Maize God decided to take pity on my efforts and allowed me a decent crop. Not without some effort on my part, however, effort honed by years of hard-won lessons.I selected my corn varietycarefully, choosing Burpees Honey and Cream because the package noted that it had tight silks. I laid down some soaker hose along the rows and religiously deep-watered twice a week after germination.I provided plenty of nitrogen fertilizer as the corn stalks rose. As soon as the silks appeared,I sprayed weekly with cyfluthrin, stopping when the silks were brown,for a total of three applications over late June and early July.Imade sure the electric fence stayed in working order as the ears grew and the signs of deer in the yard became more frequent.

These six ears of merely slightly poisonous corn are just the first of what I hope will be a few nice meals for myself, Mrs. Professor Roush, and her diminutive clone.Idont have any innate desiretoupset all the diehard organic gardeners out there, but I firmly believe thatany residual insecticide that penetrated the husks and survived the printed withdrawal period must surely be less harmful to my health than the earworm poop.Probably tastes better too. Anyway, Im not worried about the insecticide; Ill just feed the first couple of ears to Mrs. Professor Roush and if she doesnt develop tremors,than I can safely dig in.

Remember that scene in Cast Away where Tom Hanks starts his first fire on the island and dances around shouting to the sky,I have made fire? Well, thats me today. I HAVE GROWN CORN!

Via: I have grown corn!

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