Visiting california

Busy Bumblebee

Yes this is our first true bumblebee. We have seen wasps, hornets, tiny bee-like insects and flies aplenty, but a true bumblebee has yet to be seen in action.

Until now.

But this morning he was busy at work, he stopped to visit all the flowers in the garden. He visited all the squash blossoms.

He stopped at a multitude of tomato flowers.

He nosed around our first miniature sunflower of the season.
I think this bodes well for our future harvest.

I wonder where he lives. I hope he brings his friends back. It would be really cool to keep bees. Maybe in the future we can have chickens too.

Sifting the compost.

About a month ago we sifted the material in our oldest compost bin. It seemed like it had done all the cooking it was going to do in its present state and it was time to see what we had.

We bought some 1/4 in screen and stapled it on a wooden frame and just went for it.
There was still a lot of stuff that had yet to break down - you can see the some seeds and a lot of eggshells.

It took all afternoon to unpack the whole bin but then the final product was amazing, well worth the effort - light, rich and beautiful in every way.

We filled about 8 five gallon tubs with this incredible "black gold" - that's what they call it - a miraculous transformation - total success on a New York City rooftop. Now if everyone took their kitchen scraps and ..... "what a wonderful world it would be".

Well at least a small step.

Street Level

At street level I've planted a window box. I've done it for the past four years or so. Almost 2 years ago I put in the evergreens so that it would not be barren in the winter and now I plant around their presence.

This season I started with pansies from the Greenmarket and then added some sweet potato vines from last summer that I wintered according to directions from Martha Stewart. Only one of them has returned. In addition I threw in a variety of Renee's flower and herb seeds, including fennel and basil that they were giving away at the market one Saturday along with some small marigold plants that were free for the taking.
I just decided to mix it all in - as I knew that once it got hot the pansies would get super leggy and finally wither. Then, throwing caution to the wind I added some volunteer tomatoes from the rooftop garden. I actually love imagining people's surprise when the tomatoes ripen.

Well about a month after the last of these additions, the box is as fecund as could be. The tomatoes are getting huge and a zinnia appeared from out of the blue. And then I noticed these cool vines from some seeds I had planted last year that never took off - I found them on line they are called Love-in-a-Puff Cardiospermum halicacabum.

The seed company Select Seeds says "This long-loved vine has acquired many names, including heart seed and balloon vine--all very accurate descriptions of this delightful variety. Buoyant light green inflated seed capsules follow the small white flowers. Inside each capsule reside three seeds, each marked with a perfect white heart. The delicate, finely cut leaves are borne on stems that reach 10-12'. Grown in the early 1800s." I just think they are completely magical and fun.

I think window boxes are a really cheerful street presence.

Unwanted Guest

It is amazing that 8 stories above the ground unwanted guests still find their way to the garden. Today a tomato hornworm stopped by.

I can't believe how well camouflaged they are. Anyway I was so disgusted that I hastily removed not only the worm but the branch he was on as well. I just didn't even think, I knew what he was, as some friends of his had stopped by last year, but not having anything to lift him off with I just acted - rashly acted - of course I should just have removed him, as was suggested by sonomanona at http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20060730075745AARYa5V - but I just went for it.

Next time - I'll pause and act more thoughtfully - next time I'll look to see if he is infested with parasitic wasp eggs that would have done him in anyway as I found out from http://www.a-garden-diary.com/pests.htm. We have a lot of wasps and bees up here 8 stories above the streets of soho, so maybe they're all doing their jobs, since after inspecting all the other tomato plants I didn' find anymore guests.

One of the sites I looked at suggested looking at night with a flashlight, perhaps I'll have to try that.

Airing the laundry

Rooftops are also wonderful for drying the laundry. It is a source of satisfaction to use solar power for this task. Additionally it always amuses me to hang out the clothes in the view of the new Jean Nouvel tower and the Soho Grand Hotel - I don't know why but it does.

A Source of Inspiration

The rooftop garden is definitely a souce of inspiration. Jim draws and paints and even conducts art classes on our rooftop aerie. You can see a lot more of his work at

http://studiocooper.com/ - as well as at

http://jimcoopernyc.blogspot.com/

Morning Glories

We are trying to convince these morning glories to cover our water tower. They are starting to wind there way across the monofilament we have strung. The ones that are flowering we bought in pots at the Union Square Greenmarket and now we've wired 7 pots across the front of the water tower structure and planted them with 3 different kinds of morning glories.

Perhaps by the end of the summer it will be a beautiful, blue and white wall of flowers. We're crossing our fingers.

Compost

We have been composting for a couple of years now and it is amazing to see our scraps turn into soil. What is really incredible is all the plants that volunteer to grow of their own volition out of the compost.

At the moment I have transplanted about 15 tomato plants of unknown species as well as and various squash? or melon? plants that took root and grew out of the pots with the various seedlings I grew from seed and purposefully planted.

I can't bear to throw them out so I repot them, or at least the bulk of them. The only problem is that the seeds I purchased are labeled organic, but the volunteer plants could be anything.

Right now I have this pepper plant growing out of the back of the compost bin. I'm waiting to sift the rest of the compost and dismantle the bin to liberate the pepper and repot it.

Firsts

This is our first cucumber - I think I should probably pick it at this size.

And this is our first eggplant, I really don't know how big it will get.

Night Watering

Since we were out all day and didn't return home until 10pm, I was a bit worried about the garden. So we traipsed up to the roof to water. I had never watered at night before and it was a bit tricky.

The plants all appeared happy though; standing up tall - they seemed to have grown inches since the morning. Jim snapped these photos as I made my rounds.

Hope I didn't miss any pots. As you can see the peas are on their last legs, I will have to wait until it cools down at the end of the summer to plant some more.

Right now we probably have at least 100 green tomatoes. Can't wait for them to ripen.


In the night shots you can see the Empire State Building in the background, I know it is totally hokey but I imagine it watching over the garden.

How does your garden grow ...

Water towers gaze
Clean laundry blows in the sun
Zucchinis blossom

It would be so great if every New York City rooftop was covered with fruits and vegetables, blooming trees, birds, bees and laundry drying in the sun.
We can all imagine.