Friday, April 22, 2011

A Plant Exchange Does Happen in NYC

When we started gardening, we were such newbies that we were a bit overwhelmed.  I looked for other garden blogs from fellow New Yorkers and they became my inspiration! I am truly amazed by how city folk could create such amazing edible landscapes in this urban setting that we live in! From rooftops, to fire escapes and balcony gardens, and edible front yards, nothing stopped these urbanites from growing their own food. It was inspiring to find so many like minded "urban gardeners". What I like most about reading other nyc blogs is seeing what they are growing in the same climate region. It really opened our minds as to what we can grow here in our zone. Earlier this week, I saw that one of the bloggers that I follow, Bucolic Bushwick, was offering a Sungold Cherry Tomato Seedling giveaway.  If you don't know her blog, do check it out, she has an amazing roof garden in Brooklyn.  She also makes her own DIY Self Watering Containers, which I think is pretty darn cool.  I've always read about how wonderful Sungolds were, but we have never grown them.  She and I had traded seeds a couple of months ago, and so I contacted her and arranged a plant swap.  We had a spearmint plant that had sent out runners last fall, and we planted many of the runners in hopes that it would produce roots and turn into seedlings.  Indeed it did, and I had arranged to swap the mint plant for the Sungold.   Luckily for us, Bucolic Bushwick also had a Fairy Tale Eggplant seedling that she offered to trade too.  Cool!  Having never grown this type of Eggplant, I Googled Fairy Tale Eggplant, and was surprised to see that it has these cool white stripes on the purple fruit. Really pretty!  These are the plants she gave me.  Don't they look awesome?  She uses a grow light system, I really have to get my hands on grow lights.  These seedlings look so much nicer than the ones I started indoors. 
I arranged the plant swap on the day that I had to go into the city for a client meeting.  I brought the mint plant with me.  The hubs drove me to the subway station with mint plant in tow.
It's a bit of a ride to the subway, so I put the mint plant in the cup holder on the console.  A perfect way to transport seedlings if you ask me!  Don't forget, today is the last day to enter for a chance to win some leaf shaped pie cutters!  To enter, you must leave a comment on this post.

5 comments:

  1. Very nice.

    Have a happy Easter.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Local plant trades are the best way to get great plants and make connections!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Oh, how nice! You will love the Fairy Tale eggplant. With regard to using grow lights, regular flourescent shop lights will work just great for a fraction of the cost.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Fairy Tale and Sungold are two of my favorites. The Fairy Tale even does well in containers.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I know of a plat exchange coming up in May. It will be my first one, so I'm pretty darn excited!

    ReplyDelete

We love to hear from you. Thanks for leaving a comment!

Related Posts with Thumbnails

Book Recommendations

ad