Urban green space

A typical street in Hanoi, Vietnam

I empathize with people in cities or in places without much green space - it's not easy to connect with nature without having green space, parks, community gardens, container gardens, or balcony gardens, much less easy access to more 'wild' nature.

A peaceful place in central Hanoi

In the urban whirl that characterizes Hanoi today, the central lake and its surrounding park provides a bit of a connection to the natural world. It's a traditional park with walking paths and landscape plantings.

Closer to home, I remember seeing a woman in Washington, DC last summer waiting for the homeless shelter to open, 'planting' weeds that she'd collected, echoing perhaps a distant memory of planting a garden. I wish I had talked with her about what she remembered.

I read a piece a couple of years ago written by a woman who'd had a difficult struggle with illness, and she wrote poignantly of the meaning that being able to be out in her garden had for her. And I am always grateful for the green respite that our garden provides, and the sustenance that seeing growing things provides.

Cornell Lab of Ornithology recently rolled out a new program called Celebrate Urban Birds, promoting small-scale habitats with container gardens and rooftop gardens in cityscapes.

It's a great site and full of encouraging ideas about planting pockets of urban green.

But those of us in small cities and rural areas have even more opportunities to improve our community plantings. Why not focus on restoring natural diversity in our commercial landscapes and roadsides? We have the space; why not plant a diversity of (native) trees and shrubs in streetscapes, parks, and medians?

The benefits of shade

I'm rethinking a bit why the basil sown thickly in a flat near the potting bench is still relatively succulent compared to its brethren in adjoining pots and in the ground. I thought it was the benefits of fluffy potting mix, and richer fertilization, but now I'm thinking it's extremely useful that the flat is in filtered morning and afternoon shade.

I've always thought of basil as a warmth-loving plant (which it is), but maybe the blastingly hot afternoon sun here simply shuts down leaf growth, closing stomata and depressing photosynthesis, and therefore leaf expansion. The plants I transplanted to a container (from the flat) that receive more afternoon sun are looking more and more stressed as the heat wave continues, whereas a single plant in soil that's shaded by beans and in a spot that gets full afternoon sun looks quite nice. Perhaps I'll need to do an experiment! And more investigation about how basil flavors develop, etc., would also be interesting.

Certainly the combination of extreme heat and 10 hours of full sun isn't ideal for many vegetables - here in the South, both plants and the gardener are looking for a respite.

Sorting seeds

I thought I'd organize my seeds a bit to get ready for planting the first sowing of lettuce. I usually try to keep them in a (vaguely) organized way in containers, according to planting season. But my flurry of seed ordering activity in early summer had overwhelmed that 'system.' So I thought I'd spread them out on the breakfast table.


This is a pretty amazing array of seeds, even for me. (Notice that the seed packets are stacked, and the full containers of flower and spring vegetable seeds....). Uh-oh. I think my idea had been to give seeds away at upcoming vegetable gardening programs? Plant things in the Food for Thought Garden?

Since I'm really not a file-sort of person (I have started shoving my seed order packing slips in a folder, however), and like my (somewhat) orderly stack method of working, I normally just enjoy discovering seeds that I'd forgotten I'd ordered -- and hadn't yet planted.

But this does seem a bit of an overabundance of seeds. I don't have enough room to plant half of these things....

I knew I had ordered some unusual sort of winter radishes, and hmm, I still have some scorzonera and salisfy seeds (both root crops that I saw growing in a restored colonial garden in Old Salem, NC). I think I germinated some, and didn't manage to get farther than that. Canola and sesame seeds were a momentary enthusiasm -- they're good cover crops to reduce nematodes, I think. Growing spring wheat is always fun, of course -- need to remember to do that again.

I have LOTS of different sorts of lettuces, asian greens, chicories, kales, mustards, turnips, sprouting broccoli, spinach, beets, chard, arugula, radishes, lettuce mixes, edible flowers, etc. etc. An embarrassment of riches to be sure. I'd better get going and plant some of them!