This Year's Rooftop Garden

So my rooftop garden is up and running again. I'm not planting any Don Knotts this year like I did last year, but I *did* convert my old papasan frame into an herb garden, so hopefully that makes up for it.

Why not join me on a tour?

This is kind of the skyline view of my rooftop garden. Thankfully now that everything's potted, the pots have stopped toppling over the edge of the roof. In the foreground you can see my ladybug sandbox that I garbage-picked, the lid of which the cats sleep under on hot days and stalk birds from (unsuccessfully)...



And in closeups...

Black-seeded simpson lettuce, lavender, grape tomato plant, Zooey:



A couple heirloom tomato plants, more lettuce, wildflowers, moonflowers, mint, and green onions:



This is what my cats and I refer to as "the stink pipe" which is the pipe connected to my downstairs neighbor's toilet. As you can see, my goal is to camouflage it a bit (and discourage the cats from sniffing in it all the time)... Planted here is catnip, leeks, chives, basil, wildflowers, and a jalapeno plant.



This is my newest addition to my rooftop garden: my papasan herb garden. It's made from an old papasan frame and some landscaping fabric. The white twine leading out of it and up onto the doorframe is going to (hopefully) allow the peas to climb. In it: basil, cilantro, chives, green onions, black-seeded simpson lettuce, and peas. Fran is a big fan of the shade it produces, as you can see.







And finally: a small portion of the 36 basil plants I have growing. Yes, I am ridiculous. And yes, I love me some basil.



Stay tuned for more tales of urban gardening as the season progresses!

Urban Gardening--WHAT WHAT!

I'm getting all hunkered down for gardening again this year. I've got a bunch of basil-seeds planted and propped up in my sunny windows. I've got some sunflower seedlings prepped (I'm going to plant them on either side of my entryway this year). I've got all my seeds bought--wildflowers, creepers, herbs, and peppers. I have plans to pick up tomato plants next month. And I'm going to start working on MacGuyvering my papasan frame into an herb garden, hopefully this weekend.

I'm nerded the fuck up about gardening this year!! So stay tuned for pictures once things start a-brewing!

I've also been reading a bunch about urban gardening and guerrilla gardening as of late.

So have a seat (ok yes, you're probably already sitting), and let's chat a little.

What is guerrilla gardening?

"Guerrilla gardening is political gardening, a form of direct action, primarily practiced by environmentalists. It is related to land rights, land reform, and permaculture. Activists take over ("squat") an abandoned piece of land which they do not own to grow crops or plants. Guerrilla gardeners believe in re-considering land ownership in order to reclaim land from perceived neglect or misuse and assign a new purpose to it."

These are the books I've gotten out from the library thus far (with many more to come), and I figured I'd share.

This one is my favorite guerrilla gardening book so far:



And this one is somewhat interesting too (though not as much as the other--it seems to be more historical) This one fucking rocks as well (perhaps even more, I've realized upon further perusal). The pic on page 68 of a 15,000 sq ft guerrilla garden actually made me tear up a bit. Definitely an awesome book:



My favorite tidbit thus far has been the idea of seed-bombs:

CHECK IT OUT!!

Love love love the idea.

If guerrilla gardening intrigues you, my city dweller friends, you can get more information on guerrilla gardening at Guerrilla Gardening.org!

I also found this book really useful as well (it's about urban gardening, not guerrilla gardening):



If you're a city dweller who's gardening from a small plot or on rooftops/balconies/fire escapes, this is a great starter book. They list out the best plants to grow under these conditions, including various tips on how to grow them and the best containers and all that. And they have general tips as well on how to grow out of containers, best soils, utilizing space, etc.

Good stuff.

Now get thee to some urban gardening and seed-bombing, loves!

Since Inquiring Minds Want to Know...

This is my roof garden:



Isn't it just the loveliest? Doesn't it make you want to squeal with glee? Isn't almost impossible to NOT rip your clothes off while basking on it's beautiful gloriousness?

Perv.

This is Franny running across my roof in front of the garden, most likely to attack a bug. Or also, a leaf. Both are apparently her arch-enemy:



And THIS is my roof garden with Zooey in the right-hand upper corner, thinking that she will FINALLY figure out how to leap from the roof and be united with one of her many cat boyfriends. She's kind of a slut:



When people post pics of their individual plants on their blogs, I'm always kind of like, "Wow, dude. Your tomato plant is SOOOO much more interesting than ANY OTHER TOMATO PLANT I've ever seen. NOT!"

But I am conceited and also hypocritical, so today I am posting my own. And also because MY TOMATO PLANTS KICK YOUR TOMATO PLANTS' ASSES!

This is what I'm growing in my roof garden...



Tomatoes--roma and big boy. If you can tell me which is which just from the pics, I will send you $1.*







Flowers whose names I cannot remember:





Basil:





Your mom:





Green peppers:






Soybeans:





Don Knotts:





And then, I labeled all these plants, but the labels blew away. So these are some sort of lettuce that I cannot remember, peas, Moon flowers, and snake squash in no particular order. I STILL am not quite sure which is which, so it'll be like having my own garden surprise party once something finally appears other than leaves!










See. What did I say? MY boring pictures of plants are WAY more interesting than yours, my friends.

So don't even post yours.

It'll just make your plants feel inadequate.


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*$5 shipping and handling charges may apply.

What?!?!?!?!? I Mean... WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

OMFG. I think I just wet myself with laughter.

I cannot believe that's what brussel sprouts look like when they're growing.

MUST. GET. BRUSSEL. SPROUTS. FOR. GARDEN. IMMEDIATELY.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

So I'm reading Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, and I've gotta say: It's fascinating so far. (Though I DO realize that I'm only about 100 pages in, and seeing as my friend P texted me a menacing "I'm interested in seeing what you think of it once you're all DONE with it," I'm guessing some animal-killing's gonna go down at some point.)

But right now, I'm just a-gog (I likes that word) over vegetables. The book is essentially about our disconnect with food and plants and where they come from (which is a disconnect that fuels factory-farming as well, as all of you are MORE than aware), and it's made me realize how little I really DO know about what vegetables look like when they're growing, or where they come from, or ANY of that stuff.

For example, she discusses asparagus in length in the first few chapters of the book. And asparagus has always been one of my favorite veggies. But I'd never really given thought to what it looks like while it's growing. And after reading her description of it, I was dying to google some pics of it.

And check this out. I mean, maybe I'm the only one who's in la-la land on what it looks like growing, but then again, I'm guessing not. And I don't know what the HELL I thought it looked like, but not this.




(Crazy-ass asparagus!)

And even more amusing--white asparagus:



I mean, could it be any more "Penis meets Tremors."

I'll spare you the penis pic, but hee Tremors:



Anyways, I'm really glad I accidentally timed the reading of this book with the planting of my rooftop garden, as it's been bringing me a lot of joy actually watching my vegetables pushing forth from the earth while reading a ton of fantastic, loving details about them.

Needless to say, you can expect the occasional post and/or picture about various vegetables as I stumble across them in the book and realize how ridiculously little I know about them.

So: STAY TUNED!

(Animal, Vegetable, Miracle website)