Gotham Gardens in the Clouds

Herbal Heights

The New York City Chapter of the Garden Writers (GWA) held a meeting last night in Manhattan in one of those glorious rooftop gardens that inspire movies and poetry among artists and envy in gardeners – especially the urban gardener.  

Ellen Spector Platt hosted the meeting cum dinner party at her building’s rooftop on the Upper East Side. 

What's better than sitting in a garden in the sky, eating and drinking and talking about gardens?

Ellen explained she nurtures this garden solo.  

I remarked how lucky her neighbors are that she takes care of the entire garden.

Without hesitation she asserted, “How lucky am I that I get to work in this garden every day?!”

The world of gardening took on a decidedly selfless and inclusive perspective from this height…

The rooftop garden with the view

Just like any proud gardener, Ellen couldn’t wait to take us on a garden tour – showing off her herbal and vegetable garden. 

Ellen Spector with her herbs 

Ellen and me (and the basil)

She told us about a quaint tradition she started a few years ago, encouraging neighbors to come to the garden and “Pinch an Inch” of the herbs to use in their cooking. 

It’s like having your own private garden estate a mile up!

For those of you not in the neighborhood, enjoy the garden from the blog, “Garden Bytes From The Big Apple” http://www.gardenbytes.com

that is written and maintained by “The Two Ellens” as I heard them referred to.

That would be Ellen Spector and Ellen Zachos. 

Zachos is an energized talent that is in constant motion. She is a singer, writer, gardener and also is the Garden Coordinator for The New York Botanical Garden’s Continuing Education program in Gardening. 

Not to mention a wonderful supportive garden goddess. Whew!

                                          Pictured is Ellen Zachos, Left talking it up with author Cindy Krezel

It was a Pot Luck Dinner. The buffet table laid out with fabulous food fare. 

I brought the spicy wild arugula and mache from Satur Farms. 

Eberhard Muller and his spectacular wife, Paulette Satur, own and manage Satur Farms.

Chef  Eberhard is a legendary master chef and he will be featured in my book:

“The Long Island Homegrown Cookbook” about Master Chefs and the gardens that inspire them.

Satur Farms is an amazing operation.  Beautiful, flavorful, clean vegetables and herbs picked and delivered fresh every day.

You can find Satur produce in all the best restaurants and in Whole Foods and Fairway.

Eberhard showing how the produce is cleaned and admiring a fresh-picked leek below

To top off the greens, I brought the edible flowers from Windfall Farms, from their stand at the Union Square Greenmarket. Pretty and colorful confetti of nasturtiums, violets, chamomile and johnny jump ups.

Just saw the talented and dreamy farmer, Kevin Caplicki there at Windfall Farms today. 

We first met farmer Kevin and owner Morris Pitts last fall when we visited Windfall Farms for Savoy Restaurant’s Chef Peter Hoffman’s location of choice photo shoot for the book.  It was the garden/farm that helps inspire his culinary art. 

One look at their luscious vegetables and herbs and there is not doubt how the colors and textures seduce chefs and cooks…

HSNY Penthouse Perch

Great Rosarians of the World Lecture Series

Tomorrow, be sure to attend The Horticultural Society of New York event featuring Sarah Owens, Curator of the Cranford Rose Garden at Brooklyn Botanic Garden. 

A horticulturist and ceramic artist, Sarah will speak about the beloved Rose and its ability to inspire artists. 

I worked with Sarah at BBG and she contributed to the Fine Gardening team for Duchess Designs, LLC, my landscape design firm.  She possesses an artist’s soul – and a Hollywood style that she makes her own!  (People often say she looks like Julia Roberts) 

But whether discussing roses with Martha Stewart on air or explaining best hort practices with a client, she is utterly charming. 

Don’t miss this rare opportunity to see and hear Sarah.

Thursday, June 17^th

Celebrating Forgotten Treasures: The Use of Uncommon Roses in Today’s Landscape with Sarah Owens

http://tinyurl.com/22ktvma

Register Online or call 212-757-0915 x 100

Year Round Gardening

NYBG Barbara Garden Lecture

Barbara Damrosch

Year Round Gardening

The second lecture in the New York Botanical Garden 2010 Lecture Series, “From the Ground Up: Gardens Re-Imagined” featured the renowned yet practical Barbara Damrosch.  I love Barbara’s book, The Garden Primer.  It is one of my most favorite how-to garden books. 

 The Garden Primer

She and her husband Eliot work a garden/farm in Maine -- Four Season Farm - with pretty much a year-round crop of vegetables. 

http://www.fourseasonfarm.com

The NYBG brochure hails them as a “model of small-scale sustainable gardening.”

The popularity and seduction of Barbara’s garden style is not that it’s the Next Big Thing (hello, green walls!) but rather it’s the Last Big Thing – meaning the best thing.  

Barbara’s approach to garden style is to practice the tried and true garden lessons that have served us successfully over the generations. 

It is all so elegant in its simplicity. 

At the same time, it’s a lot of work, no doubt. Yet, what could be more satisfying and pleasurable than to grow your own delicious, fresh food?

The bucketful of growing your own food benefits are well known: cost-effective, energy-efficient, healthful, safe, good exercise, fun, empowering, getting what you want/greater variety and so on…

But nothing beats the pure luxury of taste J

One thing that struck me about Barbara’s garden practices is how she practices “Serialized Gardening.” 
This continual successive plantings and interplantings allow for more yields from even a comparatively small parcel of land or even from containers.

It gives the lie to those who argue, “But I have no space to grow food.”

Or those that say, “All that work for one salad!”  (I admit, in the early years of my gardening, I invested in a baby or miniature vegetable garden and that one salad did make me feel a bit silly.)

Barbara shared the fact that their garden produces approximately $80,000 worth of produce per acre.  They have about 40 acres under management in what is a 3-season garden/farm.  This effort and claim supports a point I’ve heard made by foodies and chefs and real farmers. I’ve heard Dan Barber, chef from Blue Hill restaurant and a James Beard award winner posit how the naysayers believe we can’t grow enough food to feed the population with smart, sustainable agriculture – well, we’re not doing that now with big corporate farms. There are people who are starving.  And then there’s that pesky issue of mold, e Coli, and corn in everything.  And don’t get me started on processed food…

Back to the Farm

Barbara and her family team plant in grids on a 12” x 12” or 30” beds.

She said she loves using a 29” wide rake she concocted – with red markers over the tines – to make the plant rows. 

It looked like a brilliant way to make the 4-row, tick tack toe schematic for the beds

With her relaxed and confident way and with the use of big screen images, Barbara took us on a seasonal walk in her gardens. She demonstrated the succession plantings.  They use cold frames and small greenhouse off the kitchen to claim fresh food even in winter. They don’t do any canning or freezing – everything is always fresh.

The pictures of the entire crew and family enjoying the bounty of the garden at mealtime would make Norman Rockwell groan… Beautiful.

She had me at fresh all year round – but if that wasn’t enough, Barbara pointed out that cultivating successively in a densely packed garden will also keep the weeds down. 

At the most, once a week they use a “Culinary Hoe” that they invented and sell.  It has a blade on a long handle that allows you to skim the surface of the bed without having to get in the bed.  Much easier.  Brilliant solution.

She also said that healthy gardens are not hospitable to “bad” insects or pathogens. 

A most natural pest control occurs when the plants are healthy.  Pests are attracted to gardens that are stressed. How do they know??

So short of downward facing dog, er dogwood J no yoga for the garden – just keep it healthy.

I heard this admonishment echoed at an NYBG Companion Planting class at Stone Barns recently. 
Good advice.

Barbara had us all smiling with their most natural slug patrol:  Ducks.

And they built glamorous duck digs for them, calling it, what else, “Duckingham Palace!”

Not surprisingly, Barbara rhapsodized about the glories and beauty and utility of making compost.  “It makes it all work,” she claimed. “It’s the magic bullet.”

What in her compost?  Mainly kitchen waste and manure. The balance is a balance of green and brown.  She characterizes Brown as Fuel:  straw, spent hay, leaves in moderation.  Green is Nitrogen: grass clippings, kitchen waste and manure

She showed us how they build their 6-sided, wire compost bins.

Somewhat conspiratorially, she leaned in with a Secret!  “Whenever the compost is empty (“How could that ever be,” I thought?!)  They stick a funnel and replace with carrots or Asian greens, etc that will grow in the environment and then they restock the compost in the summer but have a crop in the meantime!

I would characterize a homegrown garden’s ability to provide a more robust, varied selection of food – an unlimited collection of even rare, or culturally exotic vegetables as another real luxury of growing a garden. 

For much of the audience, it seemed one of the more interesting crops Barbara showed was frisse raised the European way – using “hats” to keep the frisse white.  So cute.

Here is a picture of Chef Eberhard Mueller at his Satur Farms showing how he put frisse on the growing list, using his European background to produce one of his most favorite and delicious greens.
I took this picture last summer while we were at Satur Farms for the photo shoot for my book, "The Long Island Homegrown Cookbook," that will feature master chefs and their garden inspiration.  Along with recipes and garden art and plant lists....

At Four Season Farm, they employ the use of cold frames and greenhouses to realize their fresh food even in the winter.  They placed the greenhouse right outside their kitchen and pantry!  Based on her husband, Eliot’s design, their moveable green houses for commercial sale.  Barbara sang the praises of the Socrates cukes, peppers and eggplants grown in the greenhouse and the spectacular yields they’ve been able to achieve.

I learned a lot from Barbara’s lecture – about smart gardening practices, tools, edible landscaping and common sense, seasonal gardening tips. 

I also enjoyed hearing from a gardener who sincerely loves and respects growing and eating fresh, great-tasting food. 

She was also gracious enough to provide a flyer with a list of resources:
www.johnyseeds.com for seeds, cold frames, and tools designed by her husband, Eliot Coleman (and an author in his own right)

www.fedcoseeds.com

www.territorialseed.com

Companies that offer greenhouse models based on Eliot's designs but that they have no financial connection with any of them (I have to ask, "Why not?! ^:^)

www.rimolgreenhouses.com

www.fourseasontools.om

www.moveablegreenhouses.com

Barbara took a number of questions from the audience and then signed copies of her new, revised book.

Here I am with Barbara:

The book sold out that day -- but you can order here: