“You must have been warned against letting the golden hours slip by..." - JM Barrie

"...but some of them are golden only because we let them slip by."

It's August. I woke up this morning and it was already August.

Summers, they have gone by too fast for as long as I can remember. Those few dreamy months when the dry heat, long days and June bugs buzzing well into August awaken the most ingenuous spirit inside me. Immediately my soul is barefoot, cartwheeling on the front lawn and I am drinking water from the hose. What I want, what I wish I could create is an endless summer because summer in LA is this Urban Farm Girl's Neverland. I learned to fly here and I still believe summer is magical when I'm here. Without fail, always and forever time forces me back through that window where I invariably and reluctantly say "hello" to fall and put on a sweater.

I can't help but suffer from severe nostalgia whenever the beach leaves salt in my hair, sand in my car, a stomach begging for a barbecue and my heart is left perennially humbled by the people around the table. My favorite part...possibility offered in generous servings.

This summer has been like each one before it...beautiful, generous and fleeting. This time I have something to show for it and some things to share. The garden has also enjoyed these summer months and I've branched out beyond tomatoes and peppers this time around. The green beans and zucchinis have gained unexpected popularity in our house. We've eaten dozens of zucchini pancakes and made three zucchini lasagnas! Zucchini bread, you're next. We've given Urban Farm Mom (yes, that's what I'm calling my mom) some of our garden vegetables but even more than that we gave her some plants of her own. This summer the Hero Boyfriend set her up with three tomato plants, three grape plants and a pot of basil. Hopefully I'll be able to convince a little bit of this summer to join me into the fall.

Lycopene Love

We call these our stoplight tomatoes. No, we don't. We don't know what to call them. Our best guess is that they're Early Girl tomatoes...














More Early Girl tomatoes?















Romas, these are definitely Romas.














More sidewalk Romas.

 Green Beans

Our very own Moonrise Kingdom

These have been a hit at our house

That one giant zucchini makes one zucchini lasagna and eight zucchini pancakes. AMAZING.

Urban Farm Mom's Grapes

Hope is the dream of a soul awake - French Proverb

It's hard. If you believe the Great Recession ended in the third quarter of 2009, as is officially noted in some circles, then we're not running in the same circles. It's not easy out there and if I were to be frank, gardening helps the Hero Boyfriend and I stay grounded, no pun intended this time. This is my shortest blog post yet and to all my friends who are struggling, this one's for you. Chin up, mates. I've got dreams for us yet.

The blog garden would like to remind you that you can't stop progress.

Tomatoes

06.03.12

07.21.12















07.23.12 (just two days later!)

Kale 

06.03.12 - We had officially given up on eating our own kale, ever...

07.21.12 - ...but then our kale did this! And it was happy again.

“Of all the words of mice and men, the saddest are, 'It might have been.'” - K. Vonnegut

If I were to do some of this over again I would have studied abroad in college, I would never have had any pet fish, I wouldn't have bought those red Hush Puppies that I wore never, I wouldn't have worn any of the myriad of ill-fitting clothes I bought before I knew how to "dress for my body" and I would never have sang that mean song to Robbie in the fifth grade. The last one still haunts me. (I am so sorry, Robbie. I was a mean girl trying to climb the perennial ranks of popularity in grade school. The guilt runneth over). I wouldn't take back the hot pink and teal hair, the about-face I pulled on law school after my parents put down the deposit or any of the love I have given, regardless of whether or not it was returned in full (or at all). Since this is a blog and not a confessional or "couch", I'm keeping it light.

In my attempt to move beyond regret I turn to my garden as it is forgiving and to some extent resilient. It also continues to grow even if my attention to it goes on hiatus, unlike my self-awareness which makes little progress unless I implore it. Let's be real, it's the Hero Boyfriend that steps in with regularity to pick up where my interest has left off. While the grown up version of me still reels from the 11-year-old jerk version of me, my garden continues to turn over a new leaf with consistency and what appears to be ease. My plants make it look so effortless I just might turn my back on GOOP for supercilious examples of easy, breezy perfection. Don't worry Gwyneth you're still the Queen of Cleanse.

On days when my actions verge on neglect towards my garden the Hero Boyfriend without fail finds a way to get me outside to toss a few seeds in the ground or to pick up a watering can or two. I've tried to get out of my gardening responsibilities, the "it's cold outside" excuse however does not work in the middle of July, but when I have enough lettuce for a dozen salads and plenty more to giveaway or my first giant zucchini is able to feed six I'm grateful to have won one against "it might have been."

Below are some pictures from what has been a bountiful spring. No regrets here.

PS - The broccoli/cauliflower that I was so certain I was growing in my last post turned out to be this...

         Newbie Status: Confirmed. I had no idea I was growing cabbage.
 


 Turns out cabbage makes a good gift. I gave one to my satirically brilliant, ad copywriter neighbor friend and one to my boss.


Mint

From store (we brought home a few different varieties)




















To pot (all mint varieties living together)

















To Mojitos!

Identity Theft

There's a little diner that sits on the corner of a large intersection in the Valley where I grew up. As a 19 year old, my timing was both unusual and tragic and so I wound up spending much of my early 20's at this diner drinking cup after cup of mediocre coffee with my very favorite people during the late night/early morning hours. A little She Talks to Angels, a little of Joni Mitchell's California and a lingering "pirate's smile" doesn't just make a hippie with dark eyeliner, it also makes this Urban Farm Girl.

When I'm not trying to be the person that I would like to be (sorry grandma, no matter how hard I try I'm not even close to capturing your grace, courage or strength), I'm trying to distance myself from my man-made hurricane of fiery chaos and destruction that is the kind of certifiable lunacy that earns the Hero Boyfriend a nomination for sainthood for his unconditional support. It's not cute or pretty. It doesn't happen often but, when it does, it looks like I've been hijacked by sweatpants wearing a bad attitude. If anything, it's Jeckyll and Hyde-y. And so therein lies my distaste and distrust for multiple moniker vegetation. My envy of people who are more like tomatoes and less like the multiple alias/personality folks like myself. Some days I'm coriander and other days I'm cilantro. You can't have one without the other, but shoot, why can't I just be one? What Would Gwyneth Do?

I thought it was due to my newbie status as a farmer, but, as I mentioned in my last post, I just couldn't tell if one of my winter crops was a broccoli or cabbage plant. Well, upon further research I learned that my confusion may have something to do with the fact that broccoli evolved from a wild cabbage plant in Europe. AND its very name comes from the Italian plural of broccolo which refers to "the flowering top of a cabbage." Please, don't even get me started on the cauliflower plants I think I'm growing. Did you know that purple cauliflower is actually a type of broccoli sold in southern Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom?

So broccoli evolved from cabbage and sometimes, to some people, it's cauliflower. Really? This reeks of coriander/cilantro all over again...




I'm convinced these are all broccoli and/or cauliflower plants now. Also, check out the broccoli/cauliflower leaves on the left that have been terrorized by some garden critters. Sad.










In case you're like me and wondering where the broccoli/cauliflower is going to grow from or out of, I've taken a picture of the very spot. Right there, in the middle of the leafy green plant is where I place my hopes for a fruitful harvest.







Lettuce news:




The arugula has been unattended to and so it has become this...
















Now we have flowering arugula plants in the backyard and the sidewalk. Since we're still recovering from an economic downturn, I will be at work stomping and collecting arugula seeds in a few months as an act of supporting my own austerity measure.















Until then, there's still a little patch of mixed greens to get us through our days on the icy southern California tundra.







If you're reading this and would like some arugula seeds harvested from the blog garden, send me a note and I'll happily send you some seeds!

"We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams..." - A. O'Shaughnessy / W. Wonka

Growing up in LA you understand early on that there's a very real "give and take" between you, the Angeleno, and the universe. Somewhere along the way we traded Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall for Earthquakes, Fires, Floods and Riots. The sidewalks in Hollywood are vile and occupied with a familiar array of pro bono costumed adults. These sidewalks are literally paved to sparkle, but we can barely see the stars at night. And while we can fake almost anything in this town, we insist on putting a premium on being real. Why does anyone want to live here? It makes no sense. It's Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory without the novelty or sweetness. Here I am surrounded by a sea of people searching for golden tickets, orange Oompa Loompas parading as starlets and there isn't a single chocolate waterfall in sight. Where is the silver lining, friends?

All this said yet this is my hometown and I ache for it's smoggy embrace when I'm away. Under it's unnaturally thick layer of vehicular emissions and industrial fumes this city is teeming with diversity, hope and a December sun so glorious that I want to hold it, put it in my pocket and save it for the less beautiful days and moments ahead that will inevitably crush me. This year, LA has been not only my home, but also the home to my very first garden.

2012 will be upon us in a few hours and I can say with some certainty now that the blog garden has been a metaphor for this Urban Farm Girl's life. It's been a bit of nature in my world of plastic, something real amongst all the fake, something that "gives" in a world of "take". Ok, let's be real. It's been a welcome distraction and an exercise in overcoming that childhood obstacle of finishing what I start.


I'm ready to kick off the new year with my winter crops. Where we once housed some runaway volunteer tomato plants I have planted what I hope will yield broccoli and cauliflower. It's possible that the cauliflower plant is really a cabbage plant but it's too early for me to tell...

Skirt: American Apparel
Sweater: Banana Republic
Boots: Madewell
Purse: "New" because my previous one was stolen three weeks ago during a night out to see music with the Hero Boyfriend and his multi hyphenate drummer-surfer-actor-pharmacist friend... Schuler & Sons. The purse is from Anthropologie.

*Everything can be found on sale. Of course, you are reading this with irony...










Summer 2011 Volunteer Tomato Plants. These showed up out of nowhere and were a pleasant surprise but like 2011, they had to go... This space is now home to the above mentioned and pictured winter crops.












Here's to a new year filled with joy, celebration, courage, grace and fruitful harvests. Below are some 2011 blog garden events and before & after pictures that didn't make it into this year's blog posts. Happy New Year. Cheers!

Valentine's Day - The Hero Boyfriend gets me started with an herb garden. Nothing says "LOVE" like Mint and Thai Basil

Before & After - The first sidewalk lettuce crop

The evolution of my tomato plants. I eventually made homemade red sauce with our tomatoes.

There goes the neighborhood...

Confessions of a closeted nerd:
I try to keep it under wraps, but those who know me see right through the platform stiletto, vintage hero boyfriend shirt wearing, get made up to look like you just got out of bed, don't look like you're trying, boho fashion plate that I so clearly am... Move over Mary Kate Olsen, I've got the unflattering, ill-fitting, rarely matching corner of fashion usurped.

But really, I'm the girl that a couple years ago asked for a dictionary for my birthday. Also, if I were stranded on a deserted island and could magically receive only one periodical it would be the Economist. I miss the Dewey Decimal System. I think reading is magic.

Enter Urban Farm Girl wearing one of her favorite hats, the Policy Wonk hat...

NIMBY...If you're a part-time policy wonk like myself it's likely that you have heard this term. Politicos like to throw it around like it's some kind of bad word, but rest assured it's not as bad as "gerrymandering." It's suppose to simultaneously spook you and threaten you. Definitely it's suppose to incite something in you. NIMBY...Not In My Backyard.

Example - Public Transit:
"Then the westside residents got all NIMBY about it and blocked the subway from running up Wilshire to the beach."
NIMBY Origin 1980-85. Related forms: Nimbyism; noun

It's elitist, pretentious and I just don't like it. On most days the way I feel about NIMBY is how I imagine Kim Kardashian feels about privacy. I'm against the very principle of it. It's bad, does nothing for anyone and I want none of it in my life. BUT then Manduca quinquemaculata caterpiller finds it's way back and all I can think is NIMBY!!! That's right, there goes the neighborhood.

The charming, domestic partnership living, Italian/American neighbors were in their front yard gardening the other weekend and guess what was making itself at home in their defoliating tomato plant???




That's right, this guy... GO AWAY!!!
Please. Please go away.















It was a beautiful tomato plant home for this guy while it lasted. Check out the neighbor's heirloom tomatoes! Garden envy...

















Again, circle of life. Once more, Cranberry gets the prize.











Urban Farm Girl - "I cannot deal with another one of those piece of sh*t worms for one more second."

Shirt: Bergamot Station Gift Shop
Shorts: Old Navy
*At this point, you should be reading this with irony






The day wasn't all scare tactics and squirm, there was plenty of gardening involved. I planted the lettuce seeds we harvested along with some herbs.






Seeds that we harvested from left to right:
lettuce mix (red leaf, romaine, butter lettuce/Boston bibb), coriander/cilantro, arugula








So it's definitely not all doom and gloom. Winter will be upon us soon and our winter crops have already begun to peek through the soil. The real question at this point is...will we have enough eggs to get us through to spring? That worrisome tale is for the next blog post.

Things that make me go "ewww"

Look, I don't scare easy. I take the train downtown at night alone, and not to the gentrified tourist trap by the Staples Center, but to Spring Street by the court house and police headquarters. I walk fast, but not scared. I make enough eye contact with questionable characters to say, "I see you", but not so much so they think I'm saying, "I can take you." I turn my iPod down, low enough so I can hear my surroundings but I keep them on so I don't invite random solicitations for bootleg cigarettes, hats or good old fashion cash money. As Halloween is fast approaching I thought I would write about things which bring on fright. For me, this includes things which slither, rodents of any size (except the barrel shaped 90 lb. Capybara which I think is kind of adorable) and anything that would qualify as a "critter." Now I know many of these "critters" are good for the garden. I accept this and am eager to protect ecosystems and the general circle of life. But then I find these "critters" and all intellectual thoughts and theories give way to irrational fears...

Meet Manduca quinquemaculata caterpiller, also known as a tomato hornworm. This guy, and his ilk, can be found throughout the United States, northwestern Mexico and southern Canada. Apparently, they're often found clinging onto defoliated tomato plants, which is exactly what this worm was doing.


We were working on changing over the crops this weekend and as the hero boyfriend was pulling out the long gone tomato plants I noticed that nasty green guy on my bell pepper plant. In a surprisingly calm voice I asked the hero boyfriend to take a look at this giant caterpillar I found. He was delighted, I was horrified. The hero boyfriend wanted to give the giant worm to the chickens, you know, circle of life stuff. Cool. But there was no f***ing way I was going to touch it.









Cranberry, the littlest chicken of them all, took the "prize." It was like watching some kind of animal kingdom Coliseum, ancient Roman, crazy making. I wanted to run, but I couldn't look away...










In other chicken/worm news, the hero boyfriend took out the meal worms on this same glorious day. I don't involve myself in this process. In fact, I want nothing to do with this process. And really, this is usually when I pull the URBAN farm girl card.

Note: These are clearly not Urban Farm Girl hands









In less gross but also in the vein of odd/Halloween things, is this. One of the very last tomatoes picked from the past season's plants was this conjoined mutant tomato. Yes, all this on the same adventurous day in the garden...lucky Urban Farm Girl.







In happier/prettier news, I am pleased to introduce this fall season's pepper collection! Meet Habanero, Serrano, Jalapeño and Bell.