Goodbye New York parks that helped inspire my design aesthetic.

Goodbye take out, delivery and crazy food combinations like s’mores french toast.

Goodbye gazillion H&M’s stores. They say one is coming to Portland, but I know the selection here can’t be beat.

Goodbye Harlem. After reading your great authors from the Harlem Renaissance, it was a treat to meet you in person. Your honey chicken and waffles will forever make me weak in the knees.

Goodbye friendly folks and awesome food at the Park Slope Food Coop. You were the nicest New Yorkers I ever met.

Goodbye chili dogs on Coney Island. No matter how wrong you are, you taste so damn right.

These are the sad goodbyes.

The happy goodbyes are to you, New York smells. You tempt me with a whiff of a distance flower, then hit me with a wave of urine odors. The thousands of car horns going off at all hours and the thousands of f@#$ you’s I hear exchanged from my apartment window in the streets below will not be missed. I won’t miss hearing about how great New York is for the millionth time, yet privately knowing how unattainable all those great things are when you are a poor grad student.

There is more, but let me stop here. I want this to be an amicable split.

I am going home where I can see mountains covered with trees all around me, where I can hunt for mushrooms ten minutes from my house, or ride my bicycle without feeling like my life is in jeopardy. I am going home to sink my hands in soil and get them dirty again, to smell tomato leaves and have long, lingering breakfasts in cozy places where I never feel rushed. I’m going to hold a freshly hatched egg in my hands each morning and spend late nights listening to Bob Dylan on my awesome record player while I can jars of chutney and fig preserves.

So goodbye, New York. I’m leaving early in the morning, before you are awake, and I’ll leave my keys on the kitchen counter. It was a fun fling, but we knew it would never last. I’ll do my best to come visit from time to time, but I just don’t want to live together anymore. There’s no right or wrong, bad or good. We are just different people, you and I. Take care, pal.

I miss plants - a lot. My friend Denise is also a plant junkie, so visiting the New York Botanical Garden became a fun excursion for us while she was here visiting. It’s not super easy to get to though. We had to trek up to the Bronx on the subway, which took probably an hour or so on express lines. Then we had a 20 minute walk from the nearest station. Maybe not such a big deal, but it gets so hot and humid here.

I am pleased to see so many botanical gardens including a bigger emphasis on edibles. They were no exception and had an exhibit featuring vegetables. If Pottery Barn had a vegetable garden, I think it would look like this. Some of the plants were already looking pretty wilty, so we were not the only ones trying to be tough with the heat of summer.

Did I know this tip already? Not sure, but I liked seeing the little signs tucked in with plantings. Reading a chalkboard signs seems much more fun than fancy interpretational signs.

I guess I have a thing for purple-blue-white color schemes. Maybe this is my version of Picasso’s blue period. They just look so elegant to me, and cooling. They even worked in a chartreuse accent here and there.

This is an old, historic building on the grounds and I forget what it was used for. They are renovating it and I think it will become a restaurant and a place you can rent out for private parties. If I were getting married in New York, this is where it would happen. There are Japanese Maples nearby that will look spectacular in the Fall and the river runs right below the patio.

And finally, Martha Stewart’s Herb Garden is part of the edible plant exhibit going on right now. I love geometric gardens and this one was a good example of that style. Boxwood made the hedges and cardoons were inside. Lots of herbs were tucked in here and there and along the edges.

I didn’t really find any of the edible stuff that mind-blowing, but I know I am not the everyday man when it comes to plant knowledge. Most people probably find it helpful to see that edibles can be beautiful and also feed you with a little work. But after visiting so many gardens this summer, I’m kind of over it. I’m ready to get my hands dirty in my own garden again.

It’s hard to see exactly what they are growing in here, but this as close as I could get. I could make out things like corn, squash, and I think some herbs and maybe tomatoes? And I tried to remind myself that they have gardeners on staff, so it’s okay that my vegetable gardens over the years have never, ever looked this tidy.

But I did find it funny that my reaction to the garden was “This is what all the fuss was about?” On the huge expanse of the White House grounds, this takes up like 20 x 20′. Seriously? This was SO jarring and such a crazy, wild idea that the media needed to go nuts with news stories about it? I guess with how controversial it seemed at the time, I was expecting it to be this huge swath of garden taking up a big portion of the backyard. Turns out, not so much.

They had some signage nearby that explained the history of growing vegetables at the White House. It included in this 1867 plan of the grounds that showed Lincoln’s one acre garden just to the west of the house. Now an acre of vegetables… that’s definitely sizable. As America gets more used to the idea that it’s okay to trade in some lawn for a food-producing garden, perhaps the one at the White House can grow over time.

They also have bees! They are positioned pretty close to the vegetable patch. I don’t remember seeing any news stories about this, but maybe I missed it?

Now if we can get a huge fruit orchard in there for them to pollinate…

One of our stops was to the Botanical Gardens. My sister urged me to check it out and she made a great recommendation - I loved it! Entering the building you already get to see cool plants, most with name tags. They had a couple interesting displays like this one using baskets to hold trailing plants.

Another cool display were plant hammocks. This could be a playful idea to use in the backyard.

I enjoyed the simple design of the entry garden leading up to the front doors. They had a nice, cooling purple and gray theme going on. It made the 100 degree temperature feel not quite so hot. I looked for plant tags, but they were not as consistent in this area. I noticed purple asters, artichokes, sage, agave to name a few.

Painting a fixture in the garden, like this trellis, a strong complimentary color seems like a good way to exaggerate the color scheme. Everything looks more purple, blue and gray with that in the mix.

The inside of the garden has different rooms. They have a really extensive collection of tropical plants I have never seen before. I got to see an actual pineapple plant, papaya, cardamom, allspice, bananas, cinnamon, trees with spikes on the bark, and more crazy outer space flowers. Not sure if you could really grow these inside at home though because they had misters that turned on frequently to give it a moist atmosphere inside.

They also had a cactus room, which was cool. Coming from the Pacific Northwest, none of that stuff grows there. I have kind of a fascination with dry, arid climates. This beautiful Parry’s Agave had cool, chocolate colored tips.

In the children’s garden area they had some fun garden creations, like this mossy covered frog. They also have water features that kids could pump and play with. Okay, I played with them too…

And then they had a whole room devoted just to orchids. I know there are people in the world completely obsessed with orchids. They are awesome flowers, and definitely look like something from outer space, but I love so many other flowers too. For the orchid-obsessed, this is the room for them.

We really had a blast in DC. I enjoyed seeing the White House vegetable garden from afar and the botanical gardens were a great way to meet new plant friends. I got a good “plant fix” to tie me over for a few more weeks in the concrete jungle in NYC. And I left feeling inspired with new ideas to try back home.

I was surprised at how large the garden is - they include a lot in a small space. There is a Japanese-style pond garden in one area, a children’s vegetable garden, an herb garden area and many more in between. Established in 1914, the children’s garden is full of life and delicious looking vegetables. There were tons of school kids in there doing some sort of summer camp, learning all about growing vegetables. For city like New York, it is so essential these kids have opportunities like this to get connected to nature.

The ornamental areas were nice, but it was like 100 degrees outside so we really made a beeline straight for the foodie areas. The herb garden was definitely the highlight of our trip. It was really a mixture of vegetable crops and herbs together.

You could learn a lot about garden design by visiting this area throughout the year. They used perennial herbs like sage and thyme to create borders and structure, but filled in annual areas with contrasting colors of swiss chard, kale, etc.

They also talked a lot through signage about the origin of various edible crops. I knew corn and tomatoes were native to the Americas, but only found out this summer from a plantation in the South the watermelon and okra are originally from Africa. I always find it interesting when Italian meals are not made with tomatoes, since that means the recipe could possibly be pre-Columbus.

The herb garden area had an amazing array of color schemes to showcase, this one using amaranth, chard and dark red beets to create a fiery display. It will look striking in Fall when temperatures cool down and the trees all begin to change.

The Brooklyn Botanical Garden is well-designed in that different areas will make pretty amazing displays year round. They have a garden for cherry blossoms, that will look magical in early Spring. The lilac area will be great in early summer. And pretty much everything will be brilliant in Fall as the leaves change. We probably would have enjoyed the trip more if it wasn’t 100 degrees and humid that day, but we got in for free and it was fun to visit plants again for awhile.

Also, they have a really surprisingly good gift shop! I am used to seeing kitschy junk at those stores, but they actually have cool stuff. They have an extensive book collection, seed packets, stationary, pottery, jewelery, metal work - some of the stuff locally made and some shipped in from China. Denise bought me this totally awesome deck of cards that has botanical drawings on one side and history/medicinal uses for 50 herbs. I couldn’t find it in their online store, but I did find it here.

More garden-nerdy spots in New York to come!

Mount Vernon was the estate of George Washington and it is located right outside of Washington DC, about a 30-45 minute drive. A sign on the estate reads “While the world remembers him as a great military and political leader, George Washington would have told you he was first and foremost as a farmer.” He was so devoted to the garden that he would write letters with specific details on its care whenever he needed to be away for a period of time.

The above pictures is of the orangery, a structure popular back in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries on large estates. It is used today as a meeting space, but originally would have houses exotic citrus plants that Washington collected from around the world. The outside garden is a classic, formal knotted design. Next to is a wild ornamental flower garden where the large citrus trees have been rolled out for the summer months.

Crop rotation today seems like a no-brainer. You rotate what you grow to a new space each season to give the soil a chance to recover and use some cover crops to build it back up. This was a really new idea though back in the late 18th century and Washington was an early farmer to practice crop rotation.

Small details like fencing are pretty interesting on the estate. This rustic split rail fence was used to keep the sheep in a large field. Split rail fencing is movable and works well when you need to arrange it around trees or other obstacles.

We saved the best for last during our four hour visit to Mount Vernon: the vegetable garden. Amazing! Facing toward southern exposure, the space is enclosed with brick walls that protect the crops from critters and create a warm micro climate that extended the growing season.

There are 2-3′ high espalier fruit trees creating a hedge around the paths. Can you believe that? These trees have to been tightly pruned for so long! Bushy lavender and rosemary were other gorgeous plants used as hedges in this garden.

I probably don’t need to include two panoramas of almost the same spot in the garden, but I am going to anyway. Click on the pictures for a larger view. This one shows the water pool in the middle and the geometric design of the garden beds that hold vegetable crops. Grape vines loosely hang off the open fencing around the space.

And from another angle, here you can see the taller espalier fruit trees that grow along the brick walls that enclose the vegetable garden. I love all the vegetable crops planted in geometric patterns, the edible hedges, and the life that is bursting from this space. What an inspiring garden!

This one is a creation of Mark Bittman’s, the Minimalist from the New York Times. It is tasty, quick, and something you can make should the apocalypse come leaving you with only basic cooking supplies. If you happen to be working with only 12″ of counter space and no measuring utensils, this recipe is even better for you!

The original video to this recipe can be found here and I suggest you watch it. Mark Bittman is always entertaining and very approachable when it comes to explaining how to cook his dishes. Here is the basic gist:

• Cook pasta noodles for two large servings in salted water according to the package
• Meanwhile, saute 1/4 c. break crumbs in 2 T. olive oil until crisp and light brown, about 2-3 minutes. Place toasted bread crumbs in a bowl and set aside.
• Add another 1-2 T. of olive oil to the pan and saute one chopped white onion until softened, about five minutes
• Add about 1 tsp lemon zest (or 2 T. lemon juice), 2 T. capers, and one can of sardines packed in olive oil and heat until just warm
• When pasta is done cooking, reserve 1/2 c. of the pasta water. Add pasta and 1/4 c. chopped parsley to the sardine mixture and toss. Add in some of the reserved water if needed so the noodles are shiny and well-coated.
• Dish onto plates, add bread crumbs to the top. Eat with a big green salad, sliced baguette and enjoy!

So I have the beginnings of a windowsill herb garden. Super simple - a basil planted in an unglazed ceramic pot. The window faces west, so it gets the heat of the day. That means I have to water it a bit more - like every other day. But there is at least one small corner of my world where I can brush my fingers over leaves and smell the deliciousness of summer.

Hopefully I can resist the urge to bring home an Italian parsley, chives and thyme. Those are my cooking staples. With only a few short weeks left of summer in New York, I don’t want to drive west with pots crowded in the backseat. So for now, just basil.

I was first introduced to étouffée when I passed through New Orleans in June. After a nine hour drive to get there from Austin, a warm plate of richly flavored crawdads served over rice really hit the spot. I did some recipe searching and found a good starter recipe.

Étouffée is often made with shellfish, although some make it with chicken. I didn’t want to search New York for crawdads, so I chose a shrimp recipe instead. Here is how I modified it to serve four:

• 4 T. butter
• one white onion, chopped
• 3 celery stalks, chopped
• two cloves garlic, minced
• 3 tsp. flour plus more
• 2 T. Old Bay seasoning, more to taste
• 1 cup water
• 1 cup white wine
• 1 lb. thawed and cooked small shrimp
• salt and pepper to taste

1. In a large skillet, melt butter and gently simmer the onion, celery and garlic for 45 minutes.
2. Stir in flour until combined, which makes a simple rue. Add seasoning.
3. Add water and wine and stir until well combined. Simmer for 20-30 minutes until it becomes a thick gravy.
4. Stir in cooked shrimp and simmer until just warm. Serve over white rice.

The people of Louisiana apparently get into heated debates at times over what makes an authentic étouffée. Some say it has to be butter while others insist on oil. Some say you need to brown the rue, but in the case of this recipe you do not let it brown. Cajun cooks refer to the combination of celery, onion and green peppers as the holy trinity. If I were to make this again, I would try to incorporate green pepper into the recipe.

I was in the other room working while this was simmering on the stove. I would check it periodically to make sure the heat wasn’t too high, but it didn’t need constant stirring. I was actually quite surprised by the depth of flavor you get by that 45 minutes of simmering celery, onion and garlic. Don’t rush that part!

This will become a regular in our recipe box and I hope it turns out well for you as well. If anything, it is a starting point that you can tweak to fit your taste.

I was lucky enough to pass by recently when they were having an open house potluck. We didn’t stay to eat, but I did take a nice long walk through the winding paths to admire the plants I know and love. While there, I noticed some interesting gardening techniques.

A friend of mine actually did a major research project on community gardens of the US and shared some of her research with me recently. She mentioned that gardens in ethnically diverse areas will incorporate strategies people brought from this original homes outside the US.

This picture below was something she mentioned is common with community gardeners from Asia, although I know word has gotten out to the masses as well. It is a squash plant that is being trellised up over some Asian greens. The squash can grow bigger without taking up valuable ground space, while shading the Asian greens which would otherwise bolt in the direct hot sun.

Another cool thing that I am no stranger to is the three-bin compost system. We have a much more rustic version with ten bins at the Urban Farm, but this is a very tidy, well crafted design. The newest compost goes into the covered bin. Once it has partially broken down, it gets tossed into the middle bin. That aerates the compost, so it breaks down faster. It sits there for awhile until it is almost completely finished, then gets tossed into the furthest bin to finish up.

The great thing about a three-bin system is that you have three constant stages of compost: unfinished, partially finished, and fully finished. When you need compost for the garden, you empty that last bin and move the other two over into new bins. That first bin is then empty again and ready for a new compost pile.

They have wood slates on the front of their structure, which allows them to make the opening as high or low as they need based on the size of the pile and whether they need to get in there with a pitch fork.

Good ideas for just around the corner and a very productive garden for such a small space. It makes us look like land hogs out west!