Clover Club

Tonight's unexpected and thoroughly fun activity: expert cocktails and apps at Clover Club, a well-concepted and well-executed cocktail bar in Carroll Gardens.

Drinks: New York Sour, The Slope, Mint Jules, and one other whose name I am nowhere close to remembering.

Foods: Deviled eggs with four flavors, chicken wingettes with roquefort sauce ("wings, but without wing sauce and with roquefort sauce"), fancy pigs in fancy blankets, and oysters on the half shell.

The dozen or so different cocktails consumed at our table yielded not one loser, as they ranged from "very good" to "holy fucking shit this is the perfect drink" (Stefan's, and then Monica's Something Swizzle, it was strongly pineapple...little help here? Be the one to leave the third comment on this blog).

Also - with my bad-ass new eyes, reading all the fine print on this bag ain't no thang:

Welcome.

Lyla June Jones.

Born at 9:44 a.m. on 6/27.

Glad you made it.

You'll have fun.

Laser Eyeball Surgery

"They see better than they look."

On Friday, 25 years of serious nearsightedness came to an end with a 20-minute procedure. It's astounding. At my follow-up appointment yesterday morning, Dr. Moadel pronounced my corneas "awesome" and I read the bottom line.

They gave me goggles to wear while I sleep so I don't rub my eyes on accident. They make me look like this:


Here's a fun YouTube video that makes the process look worse than it is.

Gard Report 2

I wasn't able to play softball with my friend's team as planned tonight after unexpectedly having my eyeballs dilated this afternoon, so I did a couple things out here. On the third tomato plant from the bottom on the left side of this picture, look how it's just about up to the fourth rope on the lattice tonight. In the picture from this morning (last picture in next post), it was just about up to the third rope. Wicked.


These peas have been a minor issue since last weekend. I came home last Sunday after a huge rainstorm dumped a ton of water in Brooklyn and found these plants knocked pretty flat (this was before I staked the yellow tomato plant, and it too was lying on its side). They'd bounced back a little ways but were still lying pretty low. As you can see by this "before" picture.


So I found this length of thin moulding in the basement and cut it into eight sticks, about 10" tall. After completing my first Neighbor Borrow and scoring a ball of string, I tied the sticks together near their tops. I pulled the plants apart from one another and looped each plant over the string to get them off the ground.


Last thing: I pruned the yellow tomato a little bit and then worked the upside-down cage up and off of it as carefully as possible. It was harder to get it back over the plant with the smaller end down but I don't think I did much damage.

The decision to re-install the cage was a toughie. When I first realized I did it wrong (after checking out on Sunday how my Dad did his), I figured I'd fix it as soon as I got home. When I saw how much tomato plant had grown around the upside-down cage, I thought it might be better not to manhandle the plant since tomatoes could probably grow just fine on an upside-down cage, right?

When I looked at it again today I thought I'd go ahead with the fix since the garden is starting to look pretty awesome and there's no reason to have a big metal mistake sitting in the middle of it for everyone who looks at my garden in person or in pictures for the rest of the summer to see.

It wouldn't kill me to be a little more comfortable being a beginner.

And then it occurred to me that it might be cool to leave the mistake there, a conversation piece commemorating a rookie mistake and giving the garden some extra character.

Since I've pruned off the suckers and stems that have grown recently from near the bottom of the plant, though, it's growing much more at the top. The larger diameter rings at the top of the cage will do a much better job of supporting the heavy growth at the top than the smaller rings could. The shape of the cage matches the shape of the plant now. And having the prongs in the ground (per the original design of the cage) should make it more stable than when it was just standing on its head.

The Gard Report

This is on Thursday, after I finished tying up the lattice and then installed a tomato cage upside down.

Note the back row tomatoes reaching up to the second row of the lattice, and the tall yellow tomato plant about even with the top of the wooden post.

Here's the whole setup this morning, the 25th. The yellow tomato grew more than a foot taller in five days.

I came home last night and saw these little yellow flowers on the yellow tomato plant just an hour and a half after being told that my plants weren't going to bloom. Stick that in your pipe, Trev. Also, who knew not to pick the buds? I did.

The tomatoes in the back row, now up to the third row of rope. Hoping to see some flowers start to sprout here in the next couple of days.

Trellis Day

Here's the frame. I pounded four-foot lengths of steel pipe about halfway into the ground and then slipped the vertical supports (5'6" tall) over them and then connected the top piece. It seems pretty strong and I'll keep an eye on it as plants grow up it.


I'm tying the lattice together out of lengths of 3/16" nylon rope. I hung the vertical ones first. I was able to get the first two horizontal rows strung ahead of a short but strong rain storm and will do a few more on Wednesday.


The plants had started growing away from the trellis (toward the sunny side of the yard) and the stems are thick enough that they're just a little stubborn about being redirected now. I'm glad I didn't wait any longer to tie them up.

This will be the first night that the plants are uncovered. I'm hoping they're still there in the morning.

Garden Update 6/5

Everything looking pretty good. I planted two of the three tomato plants that I got from Burpee in addition to the three that were already there. The third Burpee one is sitting in the planter in the top corner. I'm thinking about planting it in a separate container, outside of the main garden.

Up closer on the big yellow pear tomato and the quickly-growing beans, which are looking great. After taking these pictures I did my first round of thinning, down to one stalk where each plant is located for the beans, peas, and lettuce. All of the seedlings that I pulled up looked strong - in some cases it was a coinflip which one to keep. With less competition now, I think the plants will grow even faster and stronger now.

Last thing I did today was plant another square of lettuce. I re-planted marigolds in the same square next to the tomatoes on Monday, since the first seeds I put down never germinated.

Office Decor

Anne, do you remember this thing? I've been meaning to tell you that I've been rocking this in my office for the last year or so.