Gardening (NYC)

Check out this lettuce!

That’s Romaine there.  We’d been away from Gnome Appetit (our currently-gnomeless (please send!) community garden plot) for over a week due to my Albany trip and wow have things grown!

We believe this is Arugula. It’s technically in the walkway but along the edge so we’re leaving it and just making a concerted effort not to trample it.

This is technically the beet patch but it seems the former owner’s dill was planted here.  Hmm.

Basil looking good.

Cilantro coming up.

Hmm.  It seems when we were watering, the seeds all migrated to one side.  This is parsley or more cilantro and…. something.  Oops.

And lastly – herbwise – the basil from seed.  Coming up great!

Nasturtiums also doing great:

We planted one tomato and one cantaloupe from the apartment. If they do well, we’ll plant the rest. More soon!

Hazelberts (upstate)

We got some of these last year… well, TWO… but the bushes are coming up again this years.  Hazelberts are a Hazelnut/Filbert cross and are delicious.  Our hope is to use them in pesto.  We’ll see what we get. 

Going green.

Very green up in Upstate NY this weekend. We’ve had 4″ of rain since the beginning of May (or something like that – I’m feeling too lazy to open that new ‘tab’ and look it up, such is life on a lazy Sunday at cabin….).

Some spring flowers have sprung and a lot of grass has grown.

A view of the cabin full opened up for summer. Basically sleeping in a screened in porch.

I literally went green taking these photos, walking around barefoot on freshly mown grass. Oops.

Signing off listening to a lot of bird song and Rusty the neighbor’s rooster yelling about something – thankfully FAR off in the distance. We caught a glimpse of the gorgeous (we believe) Tree Swallows today but they were too fast for a picture. Something to aspire to, I suppose….

Apropos of Nothing

Beautiful up here at the cabin. Birds are chirping, boy is mowing, I am doing nothing. Zilch. Zippo. Plans for the weekend include copious amounts of the nothing followed by more nada.  Awesome.

But to give you something exciting to review, here is a link to the interview I did Thursday on WAMC public radio about the concert we sang last night at EMPAC in Troy, NY. Concert went great and was a blast. Go us! Weekend of nothing well earned. I plan on excelling at this.

The Roundtable: Dogs of Desire, Albany Symphony Orchestra

More action soon….

Greetings from Albany

I am up here to sing with Albany’s Symphony’s Dogs of Desire this week, a gig I look forward to each year. The music is extremely eclectic – we have a couple rock type tunes, some full on semi-atonal new music, a couple jazz-influenced songs, an operatic Telenovela set to music (which is hilarious), a bunch of 1960s type things, and well, you name it, we’re doing it this year. There’s just one performance and it is always a hit! I recommend you check it out. Like much new music, it’s not recorded – this really is the only opportunity to have it touch your soul. Don’t miss it.

Tickets for May 18, 7:30 p.m. Dogs of Desire at EMPAC

Also, this Thursday, May 17, at 10:06 a.m., I will be doing a brief radio interview about the Dogs on a program called the Roundtable, on WAMC public radio. If you are not local, I believe you can stream the program from their website linked above. If you are interested in hearing about the Dogs and my experiences with them, please tune in and keep me company. Fun!

Wow!

We have growth! Since Saturday’s posting, things have grown rapidly in the tomato planter. Seriously rapidly. Monday morning, most of these were about a cm high. By evening, they had become at least 4 cm/1 inch. Nature is cool, yo.

Gardening….

It has been a very busy couple of weeks here at the Nook!  In addition to spending many hours learning music, knitting, reading! and (mostly) NOT watching TV, we updated our garden a bit:

The former plot ‘owners’ had installed a trellis which had windowbox brackets so we got some planters.  These boxes are planted with basil (not commercial seeds – boy had saved them himself!), cilantro, rosemary, dill and parsley.  Hopefully the seeds will take!

Just in case the basil *doesn’t* take.

I know.  The Frog Trio took some convincing of the boy but he broke at my sad face and insistence that at $3 it was a totally necessary purchase.  Is it not just the ephemera needed for any distinctive garden? Anyone can have a gnome, but these guys?  Come on!

(We are still holding out for a gnome.  Please send!)

We have burgeoning lettuce, nasturtiums and beets.  Our carrot (left from former owner) is looking good and it seems we have some leftover dill as well.  I did plant a bunch but I can’t get enough so we’re leaving it for now.

Lettuce:

Carrot.  Apologies for the seasick-inducing aerial view.  That said, you can see how tiny that red leaf lettuce is in comparison to the carrot.

Some more ‘leftover’ flowers are about to bloom:

Beets!

Cilantro (I think):

Nasturtiums and dill (same pot – who will survive?!):

Last but not least:

In indoor gardening happenings, the bf donated this cool tomato starter to the cause.  We are starting orange tomatoes (supposedly lower acid) and cantaloupes in here.  Both need to be planted outside with warmer temps so we’re getting them started indoors.

More music to learn.  Off to cram….