Rain Farmer

The weather was, well you know -wet. I left the studio for the bus at 4 pm. I got home at 5 pm. I jumped in the van and hit traffic on Ocean Parkway, but still made it before 6 pm. Above, Solidago sempervirens at Jamaica Bay's edge.

I only had so much time. Why was I so committed to planting mesclun mixes, radishes, and arugula in the rain anyway? Because of the letter from Ranger Thaddeus T. that says we must cease gardening on November first. November first? C'mon. Well, my protest is performance, because I well knew that was the end date. Is it silly? Yes. The best way to get good gardeners into these plots is to get a site manager that actually understands gardening. They could then change that silly date to December fifteen.

The garden managers have a never realized dream of tilling the whole acre under every year at season's close. I'm not fond of that idea, but reality is that no one's moving there hardscaping anyhow. They also want to shut off the water -that's the biggest concern, drain the pipes before a good hard freeze. Fine, I say, turn the water off, but let us keep going with the kale, broccoli, and greens. It's usually wet and cool enough to get by without watering at that time of year.

So there's the push to rush those greens seeds in, even though it meant getting soaked in the dim light of an October evening. I planted rather hastily, with crooked rows, and uneven seeding. I was more concerned with the big footprints I was seeing in all my empty patches -the places I seeded cilantro, parsley, and spinach. One really needs fences. Only a knowledgeable gardener suspects a bare patch is planted with seeds at such a late date in a warm season garden gone dismal. But then, why tromp through a garden at all, why not follow the trenches? It's better not to ask.

The old broccoli patch now seeded with different mesclun mixes and arugula.

The bell peppers are having a hard time turning red with all the rain and cool weather.

The collards are beginning to look fantastic without all the 'pillar holes.

Today's semi-ripe tomato haul. There's still another four dozen or so on the vines. Every tomato that rests on the ground has the buckeye rot. If it remains in the air, it has no buckeye rot. Next year -all tomatoes will be off the ground. FYI -the net isn't my attempt at decorating the shoot, although I know you're thinking how fabulous it looks. In fact, it's window screening I had in the van and made a convenient way to carry the tomatoes back home.

Elsewhere around the Ft. Tilden Community Garden:

One of the new gardeners that came in with us has planted Kale, and it's looking good.

My favorite farmer has reaped his amaranth and tackled his corn. This man operates like a real farmer, with two or three seasons of different produce. He planted his corn and amaranth around August one. Before that it was beans. Do you remember this?

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On The Mushroom Trail

We arrived in darkness the evening before I hit the trail of the woods, anxious to see it in August, never have I been present so late in summer. I was told it would be cool and dry this time of the year, but it was warm and humid, much like the NYC we had left behind. There had been significant rains in the prior weeks, leaving fresh signs of muddy torrents. The mosquitoes told the same tale, trailing me, humming it in my ear.

On the northern slopes, where the forest canopy is nearly impenetrable by sun light, and amongst the few plants, there is much fallen timber. Whether or not something is wrong with this woods, as it appears to my senses, the tangle of twigs and timber is the understory. There is little to no leaf litter, no humus, not much of anything. But, on those fallen trees, there are fungi of all sorts. Ever since my experience in the Pine Barrens of LI, I've held a casual, but definitively greater curiosity about mushrooms.

The beautiful, velvety, green and white Turkey Tail, trametes versicolor, or, if not, possibly Stereum ostrea.

Unidentifiable mushrooms were fruiting everywhere; the cool blue-tinged browns, grays and greens of the understory punctuated by yellows and oranges.

Of course, there are rotting logs and timber everywhere for the saprobic fungi to decompose.

Dappled light occasionally appears on the forest floor. Wait, is that? Yes, those are mushrooms.

Hundreds of small white mushrooms growing on a few logs, dappled by sunlight.

They are humorous in appearance -in that pubescent way.

But also a bit alien, mysterious. These turn out to be Lycoperdon pyriforme, pear-shaped puffballs, edible when young. Tom Volk says the name can also mean pear-shaped wolf fart, if translated -"Lyco" meaning wolf, "perdon" to break wind.

An aging Coral mushroom, possibly Ramaria stricta, along side the little puffs.

Simply striking.

And startling.

Well named and creepy, Dead Man's Fingers, Xylaria polymorpha, easily spooks those prone.

It is hard to seek out mushroom IDs on the internet. The characteristics often necessary to ID fungi are often overlooked, often underneath, sometimes microscopic, and often discovered after the fact.

Quite possibly Chinese Snow Fungus, Tremella Fuciformis. I'm guessing "Tremella" for its shaky nature and "Fuciformis" for its seaweed-like form. Am I getting good at this?

I really want this to be called Bread of the Woods, Panisilva mellidermis!

And these could be called Toadstool People, Mycosella minipopulus.

Any

suggestions

for

these?

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Park Drive

Horse chestnut.

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Beach Farm Allergy

These are the leaves of Common Ragweed, Ambrosia artemisiifolia, a widely dispersed North American native. Notice the deeply cut leaf with rounded edges. Click on any of these images for a more detailed look.

Above Common Ragweed's rounded, deeply lobed leaves are its flowering spikes. Notice how each individual flower appears green, is well spaced, and tends to hang down. Ragweed is wind pollinated, indicated in part by its drooping flowers. Wind blows, rustles ragweed, out falls the lightweight pollen, into the breeze, your nose, then sneeze. Below an illustration of its form.

USDA-NRCS PLANTS Database / USDA NRCS. Wetland flora: Field office illustrated guide to plant species. USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service.

There are a few plants that could be mistaken for the allergy causing plant. I photographed some in our community garden at Ft. Tilden, where they all grow in masses along plots and fence lines.

These are the deeply cut leaves of Mugwort, Artemisia vulgaris. Notice the pointy leaf tips and hairy stems.

These are the flowers of Mugwort, whitish/yellowish with a tinge of red. The flowers form in compound racemes, or panicles -branched clusters of flowering stems. It blooms alongside Common Ragweed in the late summer and fall.

These are the leaves and flowers of Lamb's Quarters, Chenopodium album. Notice how the lower leaves are spade-shaped and toothed. On large plants you'll find the upper leaves to be lance-shaped, or lanceolate, and smooth-edged.

These are the cymose, densely-branched, white and green flowers on a large specimen of Lamb's Quarters. It also blooms alongside Common Ragweed.

This is Seaside Goldenrod, Solidago sempervirens. It is one of a hundred types of Goldenrod that also bloom at the same time as Common Ragweed. Its flowers are bright yellow and face upwards -an indicator that this plant requires flying insects to pollinate it. Goldenrod's pollen is sticky, and does not blow in the wind.

It also does not cause hayfever. I have been hounded by allergies every time I go to harvest at the beach farm. The breezes of the ocean blow Common Ragweed's pollen, which is everywhere around us, right up the nose. I suffer for a day after, then diminishes. Ragweed is one of those barely noticeable green things that has for so long gone unidentifiable by most people. I hope this helps.

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Beach Farm: Week 8

This is celery, apparently more difficult to grow than other vegetables. Constant moisture is one need. Another is moderate temps and a long season. Also, a sleeve needs to go over it so that its stalks look like those in the bag at the grocery -light colored and erect.

On the celery -this guy. Ah, go ahead, who want the leaves anyhow.

Broccoli has given up all its main florets. Now its side shoot season.

I was impressed to see such large shoots growing from under the soil.

Siamese tomato?

Speaking of tomatoes...they look like sh*t. Once they hit the ground, hello blight.

Speaking of disease, I think bean anthracnose infected one or two plants. That said, we harvested more healthy beans than we know what to do with from about 8 plants.

Our Swiss chard never did well and I pulled some out. While pulling, I discovered some grubs.

I think 'Buckeye Rot.' Close contact with soil, green tomato, warm and wet days. Only one specimen.

The harvest. Those over-sized cherry tomatoes are coming on strong. I was waiting for the cubanelle peppers to turn color, but instead they turned to rot -so I picked em green. Hungarian wax to the far left and a bunch of ichiban eggplants. The hot hot peppers are just now beginning to turn, forget the cukes -two little boogers. Yellow wax and Roma beans by the dozens. Bell peppers should be ready next week, but the cooling temps and heavy rains are putting the damper on the hot weather produce.

However, I did get some seeds in on Sunday morning. Snap peas under the cuke trellis, spinach, parsley, and cilantro where the green beans had been. Next weekend I put in the different salad greens and maybe some radishes. All the rains have been just what was ordered for those newly planted seeds.

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Odd Quasi Nor' easter Coming

Very wet indeed.

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A Walk In The Woods

Word was the woods were filled with Indian Pipe, Monotropa uniflora, in exuberant quantities, unlike never before. I headed out -on and off the trail. From the trail, I observed a little patch here, a little there. It was only when I went off-trail that I saw how extensive the slopes were covered with the myco-heterotrophic, chlorophyll-free flowering plant. I just discovered this plant for myself last year in Forest Park, so I have little sense of how unusual such a large population is.

But Rex, having been a woodsman all his life, assured me that he has never seen so much Indian Pipe in any of his woods. This patch was right beside his trail, the oak leaves piled high from a recent oak death above the spot.

Rex, who keeps his trails open to his neighbors, excitedly put up a sign identifying the mysterious plant for neighborhood walkers. I was excited to see his sign, I love signs -tell me more.



This is Hogpeanut, Amphicarpaea bracteata, swamping an area of the woods where a few large trees came down and let in some sunlight. I thought it was a weed, possibly invasive. Instead, it's native to eastern woods, edible, fixing nitrogen in the freshly sunlit soil, and probably is invasive to any garden given half the chance.

Indian pipe, caring not for photosynthesis, crops up even under the hogpeanut.

Adjacent, in the clearing, new oaks grow on the fallen.

And asters.

This clearing, towards the western boundary, is wet, causing much of the trees to fall over in storms. This maintains the clearing, allowing the sun lovers to grow.

Upslope and westerly, the woods abruptly ends at a fence line. Here, goldenrod.

Standing at the edge of the woods, looking northwest, we stare into the top edge of the gravel pit -so called because it was actually an active gravel excavation pit in the past. On the slope into the woods, piles of glacially rounded stones, and some chunks of concrete remain from those active days. Now the pit is covered with birch trees, some cedar, a very different plant community than just 100 feet to the east. No water stands in the pit, it seeps straight into the greater area aquifer.

Walking along this trail, on the northern boundary, we enter a valley with sloped sides.

The recent heavy rains unleashed a torrent down the northern slope. It's hard to make out, but a cleft in the slope, center top, is where the torrent ripped through purely black soil, washing this light gray clay onto the valley floor. It swamped everything in its path. Rex says it will kill the trees growing here. The cleft has been growing every year and there is no will to try to slow the water down that pours through here during heavy rains. There is no humus, no undergrowth to slow the moving water. This is a glacial landscape in flux, hills filling basins.

The red dot you may have noticed in the previous photo was a cluster of berries, the fruit of Jack-in-the-pulpit, Arisaema triphyllum.

First they are green.

Then mixed, finishing up red. These seem to be the only plants that grow in the deep shade under the maples.

Rex is always clearing the fallen twigs and timber, making piles he promises one day to burn.

There are about 8 piles now, all taller than me.

The southern exposure, which faces the large wetland, is occupied by an army of Buckthorn, Rhamnus cathartica. Can I make the greatest claim for invasive species management? That is a whole understory of buckthorn is really boring to explore. All green, all the time and nothing else.

I don't remember what these berries were attached to.

The occasional woodland sunflower.

The occasional woodland ladybug.

The occasional marble. I always find marbles when I am gardening.

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