Discovering Beauty in Everyday Life

Last year Coffee, our small New York Kentucky Coffee Tree, barely survived.  Stunned by some unknown environmental factor, Coffee almost lost her life.  The Parks Department and the Carnegie Hill Neighbors Association said there was a chance of a recovery of her spirit in spring, and we showered love and blessings upon her, with a little bone meal. Well!  Look at Coffee now!  Strong, green, bursting with energy.   Big Coffee is also doing super well, heavy with green leaves and new sproutings.  Thank you all good forces in the Universe and those  beyond space and time.  We'll show you Big Coffee very soon.

Window Blue, May 2011 > Window Blue, May 2012. Christian, Urban Tree-Bed Consultant, and Person with Hat, May 21, 2011

Just wait until the daffodils are in bloom!

Today, it was pouring rain. With little to do in the evening, I strolled outside and snapped a random shot of TreeBed #1: Low and behold, it appeared there was a small, pale ovoid  growth in the lower left. I quickly zoomed over and took a closer look... My oh my!

Ripening, ripening, ripening...

Our garden squash leaves are 10 inches across and already overflowing their tree beds.  The tomato plants are 3 feet tall.  Is that a spot of yellow?  Hmmm.  I take a closer look under the canopy of velvet leaves smelling of summer.  The sight takes my breath away.  Yellow Squash Blossoms! They are everywhere.  A scant two months ago, there was nothing here but earth that had been under concrete sidewalk slabs for over 90 years.  Not a leaf and not a weed.   Just add seeds, sun, and water.  Protect with bamboo sticks and a string. 

As it is easy to see, the stalwart Bloomberg Administration has removed 64 Square Feet of sidewalk from our front 'yard'.  Why?  to foster Urban Agrarian Sustainability.  Land in such neighborhoods as this is difficult to acquire and even harder to till. The tenants simply have no proper farming equipment or decently appropriate clothes. Persistence, inch by hard-won inch, is needed by a dedicated cadre of hardy Volunteers. See the bare places among the lettuce leaves in front of the two foot high tomatos? Behind the impatiens?  The competely organic salad pictured below is made from those exact missing leaves!  There is no actual point to the paper bag.