Day One

A few weeks ago Kelsey and I finally got up the gumption to face the tangled mess of brick and weed that was our backyard. Before we can update you on our latest trials and tribulations we have to take you back....

...to this.



This is what we had to work with: a crumbing garden path, clumps of weeds, and a humongous pine tree that grows like some sort of she-demon out of our neighbor's backyard.

Oh yeah, and the ghostly outline of some ancient beds:



My guess? I think this might have been some sort of WWII victory garden because as Kelsey began the painstaking 8-hour job of relaying the brick path, I began to dig out beds and between the two of us we unearthed dozens upon dozens of flaking orange bricks. Some of them were stamped with logos of old industrial companies, some simply said "Brooklyn" and some were mere dust. What we could salvage we stacked wherever we could find space:



As we worked we had various helpers (and non-helpers) wander in and out. Sebastian and his friends came over with two bags full of fruit and a hand juicer. They sat in the shade making various juice concoctions while Kelsey and I labored away, pausing every few minutes to get a shot of fresh grapefruit or orange juice.



Our longtime polish housekeeper showed up with plastic bags for our accumulated piles of weeds. Even though she speaks only the tiniest lick of English somehow-- through gestures, pointing, and thick-sounding pseudo-English words-- she began ordering us around in the garden. After she left our eighty-five year old landlord Mary came out to comment. "She thinks she's the boss!" Mary complained in her long, drawn-out Brooklyn accent.




Mary has lived here her whole life. She grew up only a block away and moved into our building when she married her husband, who spent his childhood in our tiny apartment with his eight other siblings, parents, and grandparents. She has a deep connection to this place and I think she had a hard time seeing us dig up her backyard. Change, even if it's for the better, can sometimes be pretty terrifying. I caught her more than once staring out at us from behind her lacy curtain windows. We're hoping once we can lay fresh flowers and herbs on her doorstep she'll change her mind.

Finally, after a long day of toil Kelsey had worked her magic on the garden path and I had dug out two beds and a border.








We also put in our first plant-- a beautiful new purple rhododendron named Rhonda!


After every last stretch of sunshine had disappeared from our backyard and it was getting to be dinner time Sebastian showed up as our handy-man-in-shining-armor to put together the wood for our new raised beds.






Sun burnt, exhausted, and feeling highly accomplished, we dragged ourselves upstairs a little past eight. From our fire escape we looked down on our newly minted beds, the rows of straightened brick, and rhonda sitting sleepily in her twilight corner of the garden. It was a good day.




by: Asia