Nicole Brait and Sustain Landscape Design Featured on Apartment Therapy
February 10, 2012
A project I did with Sustain Landscape Design in New York was featured on Apartment Therapy. There are thumbnails you can click on to see other work I’ve done with Sustain as well.
Link to Grist Article – What’s To Be Done With Last Year’s Skis?
February 8, 2012
By now you obviously know of my passion for gardening. What you probably don’t know is in my former life I was a competitive skier. That’s right. 6 days a week on the hill 5 months a year. Dryland training in spring summer and fall, strength training cardio; if it was grueling we did it.
I was sponsored which meant I got all new equipment every year. My school, Carrabassett Valley Academy, did a good job of recycling our old stuff – giving it to the Special Olympics, selling it to raise money for school and community projects and just plain giving some away. But I am sure plenty got tossed in the bin.
On Grist, Joshua Zaffos writes about Greg Schneider who works for Snowsports Industries America. These days Greg is hard at work to dealing with this situation in interesting ways. The article is here.
A Post After A Thousand Days
February 7, 2012
Okay, it hasn’t been quite a thousand days but pretty close. My apologies to my reader(s)? I’ve had some health issues, but things are getting better and I’m back to gardening again. A few things have changed though.
First I’m living in Austin where you can garden just about all year long, which is fantastic. Second I’m living in an apartment in the city with only a deck to garden on which isn’t so fantastic. But, I’ve got sun and I’ve got containers and I’ve already put together a container of Mediterranean herbs and two of leafy greens. It’s so great to get salad greens from your garden in February. (Sorry to all of you living in colder climates.)
I’ve been working my way through the garden centers here in my new home city and so far I’ve visited two I really feel are noteworthy. The first is Barton Springs Nursery on Bee Cave Road. (I just love that name – Bee Cave Road.) On their website read what is written on the About Us page under Our Commitment. Then read the rest of what’s written on the page. I don’t think I could sum things up any better than that.
The second nursery is The Natural Gardener owned by John Dromgoole who you may have heard of as he also owns the Lady Bug Brand of natural organic gardening products and makes frequent radio and TV appearances.
The Natural Gardener has a wonderful selection of plants as well as demonstration gardens that I very much enjoyed strolling through. I highly recommend a trip.
For years I have been trying to get my clients to not use peat moss. It is harvested in an unsustainable manner, lowers the Ph of your soil, absorbs no water when dry and doesn’t have any real nutrient value.
Recently Ken Druse; garden expert, author and public speaker, posted on Garden Rant about the ills of peat moss.
http://www.gardenrant.com/my_weblog/2009/04/ken-druse-dishes-the-dirt-about-peat-moss.html
The Sustain Blog by Nicole Brait
May 24, 2009
Brooklyn Front Yard
I have toyed with the idea of starting a blog for some time. Mostly because, no matter how many times I tell myself I am going to keep a garden journal, I never do. And I know I should. So many times I’ll look at the garden when I get home and think ‘I really should write down that the Salvia bloomed early this year,’ but by the time I get in the door I’ve completely forgotten.
So, here we go…
I thought I’d start off my blog with an amusing story. When I was a kid my Dad always had a garden, a pretty big one by suburban standards. Weekends were when he did most of his work in the garden and often he would wake me up early in the morning to help him weed or plant or look for slugs. And it was always hot and humid and I was always sneezing and getting dirty and I swore that when I grew up I would never have a garden.
About five years ago I moved from Manhattan to Brooklyn and into an apartment that had a yard. The yard was a wreak. Three foot high weeds, chunks of concrete, broken bottles, a rusty screen door. The task of making this yard usable seemed daunting but I had specifically looked for an apartment with outdoor space so I certainly wasn’t going to waste it.
So, I started cleaning it out. Once it was clear I thought, well, if I have all this outdoor space I really should plant something. I got a few perennials at the Green Market at Borough Hall and planted them in the yard. A friend gave me an azalea, another a basil plant. The plants did okay but not great.
I called my dad and asked him what I should do. He said turn over the soil and add some compost. I started turning over the soil and went to the garden center and bought a few bags of compost and somewhere in there between chopping down weeds taller than I am and picking out a rusty screen door and digging in composted manure I became a gardener.
