free digger
Monday, June 06, 2005
Fencing
Yesterday, the temperature climbed to the high 80s. Humidity high. Finally, release from winter.
Busy day gardening. The President Street garden just had a new steel picket fence installed. So seven of us went to work cleaning up after the construction and doing some seasonal maintenance. The New England asters are especially rambunctious in that garden. We spent a lot of time pulling unwanted asters and trimming down the remaining ones to make them bushier/less lanky.
The new fence is getting mixed reviews. Vida from the block says that the bars make the garden seem like a jail, and its’ harder to peek in and see what’s happening, especially close to the ground because of the more densely spaced litter guard. Others like the sturdiness and “elegance” of it. Me, I prefer chain-link. Chain-link is transparent, and cheap. I wish somebody would come up with a design that uses chain link with more elegant posts and cross bars. The Garden of Union is getting a new black vinyl-coated chain-link front fence, which I understand is the new GreenThumb standard. Again, the difference between a Trust for Public Land owned garden and the parks department-owned garden . TPL provides the most expensive material, all the way around. Parks provides the cheaper, and just in the front. There was a bit of a board controversy over whether to accept the chain-link or to hold out for steel picket, for which we would have to raise funds. Thankfully, the group decided to graciously accept the new chain-link.
Saturday, June 04, 2005
Two Poems from Walt Whitman 2004
Beautiful gathering at Faerie Camp Destiny last weekend. The weather was perfect, despite what had been forecasted. And the gathering got me writing poetry again. Here are two that I wrote for the Sunday night No-Talent Show/Poetry Slam.
Hearth
The campfire sends messages.
It warms me, we become one,
blazing together, burning, releasing energy.
A bright light! A penetrating sear!
Renewed by the labors of those who work
the land around us.
A raindrop hisses.
Thursday, May 26, 2005
Wild Roots
I’m posting an essay I wrote last year on gardening at Faerie Camp Destiny. I wrote it on the eve of traveling up to the Walt Whitman Gathering, which I’m about to do again. I leave tomorrow. So, here are my notes on gardening at Destiny. . .
I divided some Calamus one weekend in May. On the next, I brought it up to Destiny and planted it near the new meadow—my first act of gardening at Destiny.
Calamus is the name of the cluster of poems in Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass that express most explicitly, and I feel most movingly, his homoeroticism.
Calamus is the name of a plant also known as Sweet flag. It’s this rushy kind of thing that loves wetlands. It grows from a rhizome, kind of like an iris. When broken, the rhizome smells pungently of sweet marshy earth. It’s a smell like no other, like a lover. A smell that stays with you, brushing faintly at the inside of your back nostrils. Once collected, it is here among you, always.
Monday, May 23, 2005
What’s Up With Adrian Benepe?
Great article in today’s New York Newsday on the underfunding of small neighborhood parks. According to the article, civic groups claim that NYC’s operational budget for parks has been slashed 60% in the past two decades. However:
Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe disputes the critics. The department has a model assessment system for the city’s parks, he said, and has rated more than 90 percent in good condition or better.
The jewels in the crown--Central Park, Prospect Park, Madison Square Park (which is across from where I work)--all have non-profit organizations that supplement what the city provides. For instance, the Central Park Conservancy raises $20 million annually.
I have to hand it to New Yorkers for Parks—their advocacy seems to be getting a lot stronger. But shouldn’t the Parks Commissioner be making a case for more support? Or at least not fighting those who do.
Of course, the public land that really gets the least support are community gardens. I don’t believe the Parks Department even has it on its radar to do basic sidewalk repair, much less better fencing, water hook-ups, and other infrastructure fundamentals.
Thursday, April 28, 2005
Gardening Futures at Destiny
I realize that by doing this blog, I’ll be making visible and publicly connecting different parts of my life that are somewhat disjointed. At work I talk about work; at my community gardens I talk about gardening; with friends I talk about shared interests that vary from friend to friend. I have my cooking friends, my political activist friends, my sci-fi friends, etc. And never the twain should meet. In a way that speaks to my having electic interests. But it also speaks to a kind of segmentation that at least one friend has questioned.
What does this have to do with urban gardening? Well isn’t that an urban condition, being able to have several different lives, all anonymous to the other?
For instance the Radical Faeries--an involvement that I don’t talk to a lot of people about, but in many ways are my closest community. They’re my tribe. I’ve posted below a text I wrote for this encyclopedia of queer culture and community on who they/we are. I was away last weekend at the annual meeting for Faerie Camp Destiny, where we talked about building, and fundraising for building. But when we get done, some wonderful gardens will surround the buildings. Check out Matt Bucy’s blog, the architect for the building project.
Monday, April 18, 2005
Wingnuts at the BBG
Spring is here, and people are out and about more. I realize how important to my social life running into people on the street is. Not that I’m an isolate in the winter, but it’s just more work keeping in touch and arranging dates with friends. On Saturday I was going down to the Garden of Union when I saw my friend JK peeking in. I hailed her, and she invited me to go for a walk with her and Ariane later that afternoon in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.