Slow Food Nation approaches

Published
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inadvertentgardener
on August 27, 2008
in Beverages, Food and Victory Garden
. 0 Comments

Slow Food Nation '08 | Aug 29 - Sept 1It’s been approaching, slowly.

Kurt Michael Friese, author of A Cook’s Journey: Slow Food In The Heartland, has been riding the train across the Plains and the Rockies, taking a paced route toward San Francisco. The vegetables and herbs in the Victory Garden have been stretching toward the sunlight – when sunlight pierces the fog, that is.

Starting Thursday, Slow Food Nation comes to San Francisco, and I’m ready to savor it.

Tomorrow night, starting at 5 p.m. at the Victory Garden in Civic Center, Slow Food Nation will launch a petition calling for New Vision for a 21st Century Food, Farm & Agriculture Policy. The Vision Statement will be a call to action to frame future food and agricultural policies to benefit all Americans. I can’t make it because of work commitments, but if you go, keep an eye out for The Mint Killer, who has been one of the architects of this statement.

Throughout the weekend, there are workshops, all manner of good food and drink to snack and sip on, Slow Food Rocks (New Pornographers and Ozomatli and Gnarls Barkley in the house on Saturday, folks!) on Saturday and Sunday at The Great Meadow at Fort Mason, and even some Slow Journeys around the region to check out local producers and their environs. Not sure where to start? Chow has paired with Slow Food Nation to develop some terrific itineraries for audiences including oenophiles, couples on a date and the budget-minded.

I’m going to check out the Taste Pavilions, and I’ll be pulling a volunteer shift at the Victory Garden on Sunday morning from 9 to noon, so if you’re in the vicinity, stop by and say hello. I’ll also be attending what might possibly be the most perfect class ever on Sunday afternoon: a tasting session that features heirloom tomatoes paired with local wines. Tomatoes plus wine? I could die and go to heaven, but I’d prefer that happen after Sunday, because it can’t be quite as exciting.

There’s one more reason I’m excited about this weekend, and that’s a new piece of equipment in my own personal arsenal. For awhile now, I’ve been craving a solid DSLR camera, and feeling like I was pushing the limits of what I could do with my trusty Canon PowerShot that has gotten me through more than two years of blogging. Yesterday afternoon, the UPS delivery person dropped off a Canon Rebel XSi, and that’s going to make documenting this event that much more amazing.

Let me stop and think about this for just a minute. Heirloom tomatoes paired with local wines and shot with my new camera? It’s going to be quite a weekend.

Hot, hot ladybug action

Published
by
inadvertentgardener
on August 25, 2008
in Bugs and Victory Garden
. 2 Comments

The bright flashes of red on the sunflower leaves caught my eye as I passed by the bed. First one, then two, then it was as if my eye had calibrated to pick them up, and the ladybugs were everywhere, scattered amidst the leaves like water droplets.

Ladybugs and I have a troubled history: I used to try to catch them as a kid, and it seemed like more often than not they’d poop on my hand or fly away almost immediately. So I’ve learned, through experience, to just watch. Let the ladybugs do their own thing.

Which, as it turns out, they were.

Over on a leaf near the edge of the garden, I noticed a bright red, misshapen dot, so moved closer to get a better look. And then, I had to avert my eyes.

Before me? Hot, hot ladybug-on-ladybug action. Right there in the Victory Garden.

I probably should have given them their privacy, but instead I did what any self-respecting documentarian would do. I took pictures. I even tried to get some video, but my ladybug skin flick came out too blurry for prime time.

Eventually I left them to their own devices and headed back toward the stage end of the garden, where Kelsey, the Garden Educator on duty, was talking to a visitor. I waited, discreetly, until the visitor had wandered off amidst the vegetables, and said, “I just saw some ladybug sex over there in the sunflower bed.”

“Were they eating the aphids, too?” Kelsey asked.

“They were a little too busy,” I said.

“This is very, very good,” he said. “The more ladybugs, the better for the plants.”

“And the more entertaining for the garden visitors,” I said.

“Maybe we need some ladybug Viagra,” he said.

Green Thumb Sunday: Dahlia petals

Published
by
inadvertentgardener
on August 24, 2008
in Flowers and Green Thumb Sunday
. 2 Comments

Gardeners, plant and nature lovers can join in Green Thumb Sunday every week. Visit As the Garden Grows for more information.

Green Thumb Sunday: Poppy

Published
by
inadvertentgardener
on August 17, 2008
in Flowers and Green Thumb Sunday
. 4 Comments

Gardeners, plant and nature lovers can join in Green Thumb Sunday every week. Visit As the Garden Grows for more information.

Guest post: A garden out of control

Published
by
inadvertentgardener
on August 13, 2008
in Family, Other People's Gardens and Vegetables
. 18 Comments

Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Chase Ledebur, my cousin Kären’s son. Chase has been gardening this summer for the first time at home, and I wanted you to hear from this wonderful and talented 12-year-old in his very own words.

Hi, I’m Chase - welcome to my garden. This is the first vegetable garden I’ve had at home. At school I was a part of planting a community garden, but it is a flower garden.

My Mom and I built the raised bed together and then planted 4 varieties of tomatoes, summer squash, three kinds of peppers, zucchini, Japanese eggplant, basil and oregano.

I have really enjoyed watching the plants grow and bear fruit. At first it started out small, but it’s now out of control. It’s so out of control that we had to cut back all our plants, stake some of them, and we are constantly harvesting all of our vegetables.

I love the whole process. Next year I think we’ll plant less, or maybe we’ll add another bed.

Photography shouldn’t distract from weeding

Published
by
inadvertentgardener
on August 11, 2008
in Family, Other People's Gardens and Vegetables
. 2 Comments

On my way out to Oakland from Iowa, I made a stop in Grand Junction, Colorado, at my cousin’s house. She and her son Chase had planted their first vegetable garden in a beautiful raised bed off one side of the house. Tomatoes, squash, basil, oregano – the garden was still filled with seedlings when I got there, but had the promise of an amazing summer of production.

Chase gave me a tour of the garden before I headed out toward Salt Lake City, where I had a dinner planned with Kalyn of Kalyn’s Kitchen, and I started shooting pictures almost as soon as I got out there. Chase put up with my paparazzi-esque behavior while he weeded the garden, but only did so for so long.

“Genie,” he said, looking up at me with a pointed look. “You really could stop taking those pictures and start helping me with the weeding.”

Well, I did help. A bit. And just recently, I asked my cousin if Chase might be interested in giving my readers an update on how the garden is doing, now that the summer season is in high gear and veggies are popping out all over. As it turned out, he was interested, so stay tuned – on Wednesday, I’ll be turning the floor over to Chase, who is more than just an excellent gardener – he’s a fantastic kid!

Green Thumb Sunday: Sunflower unfurling

Published
by
inadvertentgardener
on August 10, 2008
in Flowers and Green Thumb Sunday
. 0 Comments
Sunflower, unfurling

Sunflower, unfurling

Gardeners, plant and nature lovers can join in Green Thumb Sunday every week. Visit As the Garden Grows for more information.

Puppet shows, live at the Victory Garden!

Published
by
inadvertentgardener
on August 9, 2008
in Victory Garden
. 2 Comments

Yes, folks, if you are of the ilk that likes puppet shows, fun carnival games and other interactive experiences, but are also of the ilk that does not like to pay for said shows/games/experiences, do I have an activity for you.

On Saturday, August 16, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Victory Garden, there will be a Community Day and Sustainability Resource Fair. I also have on good authority that there will also be a group celebrating Pakistani Independence Day, but that is independent of this particular event.

Regardless, it’s going to be a wild and wacky day at the garden, so why not come down and join the party? I’ll be there all day, helping guide you through the World Famous Victory Garden.

My indoor plant license should be revoked

Published
by
inadvertentgardener
on August 7, 2008
in Exasperation, Gettin' Dirty and Herbs
. 17 Comments

When I gave up the opportunity to plant a garden (even the balcony variety) at my own apartment, I did not forego all outdoor space. My Oakland apartment building boasts a rooftop deck and an interior courtyard, and although I-880 hugs the building on its opposite side, it is possible to sit outside on one of the lovely wooden benches and get some fresh air and sunlight.

“Maybe you could get them to let you put a tomato in a corner of the upstairs deck,” one of my friends said when I moved in.

No such luck. Although I’m a renter, my landlord is a condo owner, and it’s a condo building, complete with everything that comes along with it: sterilely manicured open space, a list of approved movers to use when entering or leaving the premises with your worldly belongings, and, although I will admit I haven’t asked the question, an absolutely-not policy on putting tomato plants on the roof.

So instead, I’ve been trying to make do with a miniscule potted plant collection in my living room window. I have a low table and plenty of light (although not much direct sunlight, to be honest), coming in, and that has caused me, in moments of weakness, to buy plants that I am probably dooming to certain death.

My indoor plant track record has not ever been good.

The first arrival on the scene was a mini Gerbera, bought at Trader Joe’s. The movers had just arrived that morning, and I was exhausted and at the store expressly for the purpose of impulse-buying large quantities of cheese and wine and convenience foods, and the cheery red flowers (oh, how I do love Gerberas) sat there muttering at me as I went by, “Hey lady! Lady! How ‘bout just a little taste?”

Of course, the following weekend, I was leaving for Hawaii for a week’s vacation, with no plan for watering the Gerbera while I was gone. It still has barely-surviving foliage, to be sure, but since I returned from Kaua’i, has refused me additional blossoms.

Then, last week, after my first stint in the Victory Garden, I decided to buy a basil plant that was on sale at Whole Foods. (You may notice a trend here, a trend that involves shopping when hungry AND needy-of-plants.)

The basil plant was beautiful, indeed, but I purchased it and did what I do with every plant I ever take home, whether I’m on vacation or not: I forget to water it. Or, worse, I remember that I should water it and just think, Oh, I’ll do that later. And then later becomes dinner out with friends and then there’s that workout I really should be getting to and then I have laundry to do and the dishes to wash and then…and then…

This is why outside plants and I get along so much better. If I don’t plant them under a godforsaken Black Walnut, they have such a better shot at getting what they need from the sun and the rain and the earth-that’s-not-potting soil.

This leads me to the inevitable, which is Sunday, when I suddenly looked at the basil plant and noticed that it was utterly droopy. This set me atwirl, trying to remember if I’d watered it, or if I’d over-watered it, or if I’d maybe given it some wine just for fun one night?

I decided to go with under-watering, because that’s my usual M.O., and gave it a drink. The water ran right out the bottom as if it didn’t even want to stop to say hello to the dirt, so I gave it some more, operating in my usual, I-have-no-idea-what-I’m-doing manner.

I also watered the Gerbera, which is really just a pot of Gerbera greens, which is really a plant that I kind of want to just throw out, but which makes me guilty so I keep it and begrudgingly nurture it. I am like that guy in The DaVinci Code, the albino monk? That Gerbera plant is my cilice.

By the next day, the Gerbera was waving its little fronds of greens in the air like a happy camper. And the basil, while still clearly in need of more attention, looked at least a little less limp. That’s really all I can ask for.

Except that I’m going away for the weekend. I promise I’ll water the plants before I go, but seriously…if they gave out licenses to garden indoors, mine would have already been revoked.

A different kind of weeding

Published
by
inadvertentgardener
on August 5, 2008
in Plants, Seeds and Victory Garden
. 2 Comments

While Lauren and I were locked deep in conversation with a Victory Garden visitor (Well, let me be honest about this…said visitor was expounding on the lack of grocery stores in the Tenderloin and the state of Grocery Nation in San Francisco, and Lauren and I were more trapped than locked deep…), I noticed a man down at the far end of the garden. He seemed to be running up to the statue that sits between City Hall and the garden, smacking the statue and then running away. Then repeating this. Again and again.

I dismissed this behavior as a figment of my imagination, and turned my attention back to the lecture at hand.

A few minutes later, a man in a black leather jacket strode forcefully past the garden, heading toward UN Plaza.

“Want me to come plant some weed?” he yelled.

None of us were quite clear about what he said at first, so I yelled back, “What did you say?” I can hear the collective groan of anyone and everyone who has told me not to engage crazy people in the street. But I cannot help it. I simply have to be polite.

“Some weed!” he yelled back, never breaking stride. “I’ll come in there and plant some weed. It’s a community garden, right?”

“I guess that’s why they have 24-hour guards,” Lauren said.

“Oh my gosh,” I said. “I never thought of THAT kind of vandalism. That’s kind of subversive and brilliant.”

“I think that guy’s having his own kind of day,” said the man who we’d been talking to. Lauren and I turned, and I realized that the prospective weed planter was the same guy who had been slapping the statue down at the other end of the garden. There he was, his arms wrapped around the narrower sibling to the first statue, lifting his body up so his legs stuck out horizontal to the ground. Then he dismounted the second statue and strode toward the street.

“I think,” said the grocery store lecturer, “that’s what happens when you start your day with a breakfast of vodka.”

“Or weed,” I said.