Matthew – Bloomingdale Garden

Garden Party, June 11

We’ll be hosting a small social event in our sidewalk garden next week, and if you live nearby or are a friend of the garden, you are welcome to come and socialize with neighbors from the block.

Spring Showers, Vibrant Greens

We’ve had a good bit of rain this last week, and it’s helping to keep everything looking bright and verdant.

Earlier today we spotted an online “curb alert” from a neighbor who had seen a small gargoyle sitting in a sidewalk trash pile, spurring me to dash out in the middle of a video call and snag it for addition to our sidewalk garden.

It’s currently surveying the herbs, but next week I might move it to sit among the sunflowers…

Potager Garden Bed

Most of the garden is accessible from the street, but there is one bed that’s behind a locked gate, which is where I’ve placed most of the herbs and vegetables.

It’s just five square feet, so it’s not going to replace many trips to the grocery store, but I’ve crowded a bunch of things in so my neighbors and I can have a couple of tasty nibbles this summer.

From left to right, more or less: bibb lettuce, ghost peppers, sweet banana pepper, chives, two varieties of spinach, basil, habanero peppers, leeks, peppermint, Caribbean red hot peppers, and corn.

(The corn is unlikely to produce any edible ears, as it’s tricky to pollinate in isolation like this, but hopefully it will at least be picturesque.)

Garden Signage

I finally got around to putting up a little sign with the name of our tiny sidewalk garden, and a link to the website for folks who might like more information about the various plants.

Broadway Treebeds

I did a bit of cleanup work in the treebeds along the east side of Broadway from 106th to 104th Street this week: cleaning out some trash, breaking up the compacted top soil, and mixing in a couple of bags of compost. I’ll come back next week to scatter some flower seeds and hope that a few of them will come up over the summer.

Caring for treebeds in this high-traffic area can be frustrating — fresh trash is tossed in them on a regular basis, dogs routinely urinate along the edges, and it’s challenging to get the storefronts to put any effort into maintaining them — but I remind myself that they’re still better off with some care than without, and perhaps over time we’ll see greater community engagement.

Spring Cleaning

After a long winter, and a couple of weeks out of town, I finally spent a few hours out in the garden getting ready for the growing season: cleaned up a bunch of last year’s foliage, mixed in two cubic feet of compost, and planted two flats of colorful annuals.

I was super pleased that two neighbors jumped in to help — one aerated the planters behind the fence and dug in some flower seeds, while another cut and attached new pieces of bamboo to reinforce the outdoor bench. (A third had swept up trash and dried leaves while I was out of town last week.) So nice to have the community support!