PLANT SALE March 30-31st!!!

Great house plants are hard to find; I know because it's my mission in life to fill every square inch of my house with unusual plants. And now it's my mission to help you do the same. Sure, I've got my motives...



Numero Uno: I need to make some cash for our farm. Pronto. It's a long story that I can tell you sometime if you're interested (I do love to talk about business) - but the short of it is that we scaled back our wedding work big time this year in order to become flower growers and cash flow has suffered. Now we are gearing up for our first real growing season at the farm and we need a tractor amongst other things. We hope we can sell enough plants to raise the money for a down payment on a sweet used 4wheel drive manual 50 horsepowered dreamboat with less than 1500 hours on the gear box.



In addition to funding our farm, my mission in general is to get more people gardening... more people appreciating plants and flowers. It's good for my work obviously, but it's also good for the world, in a macro sort of way. I believe that, and I hope your eyes are not rolling right now...



Before I ever thought much about plants or flowers I lived in an apartment surrounded by pavement - pavement which I pounded - like no one else - I might add. Around 2004 I got the spring fever and came home with a window box of herbs. Two weeks later they were fully infested with thrips; they soon shriveled and died. Herbs are quite difficult to keep inside, especially for a novice. What I really needed at the time was a good old Peace Lily, or the indestructible Mother in Law's Tongue (also known as Snake Plant). Slowly, I advanced. The best way to learn about houseplants sometimes is to kill a lot of them. I learned about the dangers of overwatering, the importance of drainage and the quality and quantity of the light in my apartment. I've come so far! In a thrilling recent episode of houseplant drama, I rescued a lemon verbena and Datura from the onset of a white fly infestation - a few drops of Dr. Bronners in a spray bottle, rinse, repeat - now they're thriving! For good measure I nestled a distantly perched potted Geranium in the giant Datura -- I like to think the geraniums potent oils acts as a deterrent to bugs.)



I want you to feel the same satisfaction. And maybe tap into the quiet, methodical - dare I say meditative - experience that watering and caring for your plants can lead to. I've said before that I feel flowers might be a sort of mascot - a symbol - for the great challenge of caring for our environment. The more people turn their heads toward gardening the more likely they will tune into the complexities of nature ... the more likely they are to act as stewards of it.



You know its small actions that amount to bigger ones over time. A flower leads to a plant leads to a garden leads to a farm. We always need more people growing things. I hope I sound sincere right now, because there's nothing I believe in more.

Come buy a plant and I promise to give you sound advice on how to keep it alive.



THE PLANT SALE.

Saturday March 30th and Sunday March 31st; 10-6pm

Saipua Headquarters:
147 Van Dyke Street (between Conover and Van Brunt)
T: 718.624.2929

Featuring unusual houseplants for novices and advanced plantspeople. Ferns, Begonias, Succulents and more. All profits go to The Farm at Worlds End for purchase of a tractor!

Advice given free of charge.
No reserving plants in advance.

I've had an adventurous series of days since we last spoke. From handling the limp body of a dead baby lamb last Saturday, to riding shotgun in a prop plane across the Caribbean sea. We're just going to leave it there talk about something as mundane as my culinary pursuits tonight. Because the fact that I'm cooking on a real stove, with real ingredients feels like the best big deal in the world, and you'll get something out of this, if you follow. Promise.

All my brooklyn bitches know by now that Fairway in Red Hook has reopened (after being decimated by Hurricane Sandy) and it's changing peoples universes across the borough, I'm sure. I'm excited but also sort of cranky about it -- it means that Nea and I can't use Van Brunt Street as our personal catwalk anymore -- a steady stream of speeding motorists desperate for their imported cheeses and lamb sausage (as are we, as. are. we.) returned to our sleepy streets as if a switch had been turned back on. Welcome back my fine, far flung friends..welcome back! I hope you all stop at my big plant sale in a few weeks...stay tuned. And please watch out for me emerging suddenly from between parked cars looking cranky and walking a cheerful raccoon on a leash.

But back to my culinary delights! With infinite grocery options now a mere three blocks away I found myself in a decision-making meltdown. I like to think that the powerful women of the world, the Hillary Clintons, the Christine Quinn's the Sheryl Sandbergs are faced with similar inconsequential pangs of domestic indecisiveness in their free time as they Lean In to their shopping and grocery lists. Jesus. (I'm working on my own little feminist manifesto in response to this Sandberg shit, so stay tuned for that as well.)

Last night I defaulted to one of my favorite nine o'clock fifteen dollar dinners. I can't take credit for this, it was maybe the first meal we ever shared with Russell and Sara back in the days when we had a social life. His always tastes better in my memory. But last night when I made it for the two of us - after surviving the crowded catwalk and the paralyzing indecision meltdown - it tasted pretty good.

SIMPLE SWISS CHARD RIGATONI AND RICOTTA

Swiss chard is my favorite green, most days. We grew it half heartedly at the farm this summer, and cut it as microgreens for a fish garnish. Actually we didn't really use it as a fish garnish, but that would have been ideal. Swiss chard is naturally rather salty and earthy and makes a good foil for the sweet lemon-laced ricotta. I grate a lot of pecarino on top and then a drizzle of olive oil just because I can. If you can, buy the white ribbed or yellow ribbed chard -- the red ribbed chard will make the ricotta turn pink and make the plate a bit unsightly, though equally delicious.

2 bunches of swiss chard washed and chopped in 1 inch pieces

[With water still clinging, steam the chard for 7 minutes or till mostly wilted. Then add...]

5 cloves of finely chopped garlic and
a a few tablespoons of olive oil and
a sprinkling of salt and
a big sprinkling of pepper flakes

[let that all cook on medium together for around 5 minutes. Then empty the cooked chard into a bowl and set aside. Fill the cooking pot with water and get that water boiling while you check email and pour a glass of wine. When the water boils, salt it heavily and add...)

a pound of rigatoni

[While the rigatoni cooks...]

a pound of ricotta and mix in...

the zest of half a lemon and
a tablespoon or two of olive oil and
salt to taste

[Drain the pasta rather quickly, leaving a little water still clinging to it. Mix the chard into the pasta and then add in the ricotta mixture. late with the grated cheese and a drizzle of olive oil as I mentioned above.]

Ten of us worked on a big wedding Saturday at Blue Hill Stone Barns, on top of valentines day which I ignored, but then couldn't ignore - it was a long week. I look forward to showing you pictures of the wedding when I can. I am very proud of it.

The drained feeling I have after a big event is accompanied almost always by a deluge of strange emotions and then, if I'm lucky - clarity. On our way to the farm we stopped for coffee at a dunkin donuts in Cairo. I got teary at the counter - the two girls asking Eric what sort of donuts he wanted, they had such patient eyes. I thought; You girls are kind. 
The day was a wash.



Flowers are starting to get really good, after a long cold winter with drat. The hellebores I had planned on for the week were not blooming yet, so I took matters into my own hands and sought some plants at a greenhouse in PA. I like doing this because then of course I get to beef up my hellebore garden at Worlds End with the plants once we're done cutting from them. That will actually be a good project for our April 6th work day.

I stopped and saw Lloyd and Stephanie at Peace Tree Farm on my hellebore trip. Spending time in their greenhouses makes me very happy. Most of the begonias are flowering now and it was a real sight for sore eyes. Talking with Lloyd about plants, famous gardeners, brilliant plantsmen...made me want to jump out of the wedding world altogether and focus on horticulture.



But I keep faking it. On the way home from the farms I stopped at a Travel America truck stop on I-78 to change my clothes. Applied makeup in the bathroom, like a hooker. Two hours later I was at a walkthrough at The Metropolitan Club. I still have a hard time fitting into certain parts of my job.



I think sometimes life forces things at you...and you have to hold these things for a while before you know what to do with them.

friday february 15th, 2013

[Still sorting through Australia images here]

Hi, hello, good evening.

It's been a long day. at the flower market in the city this morning I did all the things, got all the flowers, talked to all the people. Then i got in the truck, turned on the news and heard about the meteor, then the asteroid (you should know the difference). Then of course the cruise ship.

I kept thinking: today is the sort of day that something bad happens...or something rather phenomenal in my personal life. The news of someone's death, and you'd always remember the day - the way it started like any other, then the strange news on the radio, and then the bad news. Just another reality unfolding objectively in the passing hours. The world goes on around you...



...but nothing bad or unusual did happen to me today, I'm happy to report. Though I did cut my finger with my clippers...something - dare I say - I've never done before. My eyebrows already furrowed, I watched myself carelessly cut a stem too close to my thumb.

I must have clipped a finger before - and if I was trying to be really honest (I'm not)(whatever honesty can possibly mean in such a format as this) I'd tell you that every time I clip a finger I announce to whoever I'm with that  - by god - that's the first time that's happened.



This past christmas eve, holed up in the city and refusing holiday obligation, I had myself a little festive Lars von Trier marathon and watched Melencholia. Today's asteroid passing reminded me of it. And for a minute this morning in the truck...in trafic on the west side highway...I thought to myself. What if this near-Earth asteroid - 2012 DA₁₄ - 190,000 tons of compacted space dust was indeed on a collision course with earth. And scientists had already buried themselves in underground bunkers with decades worth of supplies or blasted into space on secret space craft.

Then months ago, when they decided about all the important types of people they'd need to save with them in the bunkers in order to keep the human race going...well us florists we would really get the short end of that stick.

yesterday

jammed a bunch of old flowers in a vase, and then broke that vase.

Good monday morning. Good ranunculus are starting to come on to me at the flower market. Greenhouses burning coal like no tomorrow through these very cold weeks to get them juiced. It may be local, but it's taken a lot of energy to produce it. Oh geeze, I don't want to get into that this morning. I'm feeling glad February is such a short month. I've been ordering flower seeds and tubers and talking about fencing and irrigation like there's no tomorrow and feeling especially excited about the farm and what we're going to accomplish this spring. On a long walk there last week my mind was really going. I was jazzed. I thought, what if by the time I die we could grow every single flower to supply the market in NYC? My mind actually went through what that would be like. That's what winter and all it's free time does - it makes you delusional. A farmer friend reminded me of this last week as she shared some of her ideas.

But you have to dream big, and then go to work with whats in front of you. I'm in the city this week and so today I'm going to head down and play with the half dead remains of what the shitty february flower market could cough up for us. Making something out of nothing is always my favorite practice. Especially when I can be alone and listen to whatever I want. This song on repeat.

Also I'll spend some time with my plants. Inspired this morning by Tovah Martin.