free digger
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Mavis Staples
I know, this is totally not garden related. But Juniper and I saw Mavis Staples last night at BAM. Her encore was “We Shall Not Be Moved.” Like a tree that’s standing by the water, so it goes. It’s remarkable how much garden imagery is in social justice music. Gardens represent utopia. And visa versa. My favorite song last night was “I’ll Take You There.” Very utopian, perhaps not gardenesque. But again, I do think there’s a link.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
First Meetings
Busy weekend…
Friday: First meeting of East Bushwick CSA with Paula Lukats, organizer for Just Food
Saturday: First meeting of Brooklyn community garden coalition
Sunday: First non-manifestation meeting of the New York chapter of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.
Who knows. Maybe some of the shenanigans will hit this blog…
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Back from beyond
It’s been a long, long while since I’ve posted. It’s a lot about writer’s block, I think. I actually found it terrifying to sit down and compose an entry. Not a big deal if it’s just a personal blog. But it was getting in the way of getting things done at work. It’s hard to be a communications person who has a mental barrier to sitting down and writing. I took down Jane Anne Staw’s book Unstuck: A supportive and practical guide to working through writer’s block. Very, very helpful. Especially the discussion on how blocked writers punish themselves. Her core solution: sit down, and write for a minimal amount of time everyday--say 15 minutes to start. Don’t go under, don’t go over. Just do that minimal amount. After a time, you’ll have some work under your belt that probably won’t be half bad.
We’ll see.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Do you need a BA to be a GreenThumb gardener?
I’ve joined the Granite Street Community Garden, which is just about a couple of blocks away, on the same block as the Biko Center. The garden had been promised a load of top soil by the local GreenThumb contact. It’s a very active, sociable garden—much more so than a local Trust for Public Land garden called the Contented Heart Garden, which received a load of top soil months ago, even though it appears to me that only one person ever really works in it. Of course, being a Trust garden, it has significant organizational support—much more than any Parks Department garden.
I emailed GreenThumb to find out what’s up. Here’s the response I got from Susan Fields, the deputy director:
Thursday, June 07, 2007
Crimson and Clover
Click for a larger view.
You can see more pictures here.
I’m thrilled with the crimson clover. I bought a big bag of it to use as a green manure to start building up the sandy soil in the front yard. In the back of my mind I thought an expanse of it along with a grass—in this case annual rye—could look really cool. And it does. The pictures, as usual, don’t do it justice. It makes a field of soft red spikes. The neighbors like the color, but are wondering why I don’t cut the grass. I like the movement and the wild meadow feeling. Also, I’ve found that the neighborhood children—darling as they are—are less likely to run across the garden now that the grass is higher. I plan to put stepping stones down, both for myself and others, but in the meantime I’m enjoying my little unruly prairie.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
The World, My Garden, pt 1
I’m reading a chapter or so every day or so on my loooooong new commute into town out of a book called The World Is In My Garden by Chris Maser and Zane Maser. The co-author bit is strange—it’s written in the first person singular in in the book is Chris, the guy, who actually talks a lot about Zane, the woman, his wife. Whatever. It’s a philosophical book, as you can tell by the title. Normally garden books that wax philosophical make my skin crawl. They’re typically just a half a skip to a greeting card. Just give me somebody bitching about fungus on their roses; at least that’s real. But the Maser book is actually getting me thinking.
Of course my big issue these days is a sense of displacement. When I first moved to Park Slope, the neighborhood was off the map. Abandoned buildings, a bustling drug trade, street crime. Practically the only restaurants were diners and the rent was cheap rent. It was fine. The neighborhood did have a strong grassroots activist tradition. It was known as a center of Lesbian culture—whatever that is. The Park Slope Food Coop was an integral neighborhood institution. But at that time it only had half a building, as opposed to the full two that it has now. No shopping carts, or even baskets. Instead, you grabbed a shipping box and kicked it along the floor. Wheels were for the suburbanites.
But the neighborhood gentrified, with rents shooting more and more quickly. I could have hung on, but by last year I was feeling like a scenic attraction in my own neighborhood. A specimen of Park Slope eco-activist. Wasn’t I quaint.