More Hops. A little Nugget sprout.

I’m trying to up my odds of seeing some hops survive and flourish through greater numbers.

I’ll keep sending them out just as quickly as I can nurture them.

Just call me Johnny Hoppleseed!

Unfortunately, when I went to check on the hops that I’d previously planted I found that they had died.

Last I’d checked, the hops were doing great and had lots of new growth, but I had to leave town for a bit, and that heat wave must have did them in while I was away.

So here’s some fresh hops- also planted by the rail tracks. It is a bigger, more established plant. Lets see how it does!

P.S. The last Variety of hop was Centennial. This new one is Nugget.

Time for a Quick Follow-Up on the Mario Planter Boxes!:

These Two have been broken. One side of each has been kicked(?) off.

These Two have been taken away.

And These Two have been looked after! How do I know? Check out the support that the poor little pumpkin plant has been given by a caring stranger. The lil’ dude had bent over in the wind. Someone put it up and set it right again!

Maybe these boxes are doing better because they are less flashy than the unbopped ones, but whatever the reason, I’m always completely charmed and reassured by the gardening of strangers.

Here, next to a parking lot on the corner, beside the busstop, ontop of two patio-tiled-over tree planters, we find two 3D Mario Planter Boxes- sporting the more-accurate-if-less-exciting already-bopped design!

I think my high school English teacher would hate the above sentence.

But she’d probably be a fan of the work!

Here we see the other end of the walkway.

And we can now see that the walkway only protects you about half the way. Then you’ve got to cross right through the thick of it.

Doesn’t seem to bother that lady in the last picture!

What’s in these boxes?

I’ll never tell! They are Question Blocks after all!

tee hee.

Aw, you can probably guess…

I’ve done this song & dance before….

…but it was smaller, and only in relief.

NOW IT’S FULLY SCULPTURE IN THE ROUND BABY.

POW!

I’ve also gone with the unhit block design this time, even though these boxes have clearly been hit, because the unstruck question block design is more iconic and recognizable.

I took them to this desolate wasteland of a parking lot, which was clearly designed for King Car, and where pedestrians were apparently an afterthought. I suppose we should be thankful that they were thought of at all! A section of the huge entrance to the parking lot was reserved as a pedestrian “Walkway”, and was separated by parking blocks and steel gateways to protect pedestrians from the motor vehicles in the 4-lane wide area beside them.

The walkway does keep you safe from the cars, but it doesn’t give you much to enjoy about it in crossing. I thought that the rather sad little walkway could use some sprucing up! Here we see one end of the walkway: In these boxes there is an Eggplant that is very happy and doing very well (bottom photo) and a lettuce plant, looking a little droopy from it’s recent transplantation.

I’ve grown some Hops, I’ve taken some cuttings, and now one of those lil’ cuttings is growing up a 12 foot fence near some train tracks in Toronto.

I was inspired by a video I found online of a homebrewer excited about a find of “Wild Hops” (He was let in on the secret by a friend, they were discovered growing on a fence near railroad tracks) but here’s the thing: There really aren’t any “Wild Hops”. Only female hop plants produce cones -the part of the plant used for brewing- for that reason, and because fertilized cones aren’t as desirable for beer making, males hop plants (and therefore fertilized hop cones) are pretty hard to come by. It seems really unlikely that some would just happen to blow through town and end up in a perfect out of the way spot, right under a fence! Hops are usually reproduced by cutting and cloning, and so, it seems much more likely to me that this harvest was the result of a Guerrilla Gardening Homebrewer, who planted hops some years ago! Gotta love that much DIY attitude! Here’s the video:

I can’t expect that much of a yield in the first year, but if it survives, and if I get enough of a yield for even a small batch- you can bet that I’m gonna brew up something special! I wasn’t sure what I should call this theoretical beer, but Hilaryipes, a self-professed “Beer drinking music listening garden loving good time gal” out of Vancouver came to my rescue on Twitter with the excellent suggestion: “Guerrilale”! I’ll have to come up with a neat label to go along with that great name.

I know that it doesn’t look like much now, but “The Mightiest Oaks…” ect,

Here’s a Follow-Up I forgot to post!

If you recall, when the two phone kiosks that housed pine trees in Astoria were removed, I simply shifted the surviving pine tree, “Calgary”, up the street and reinstalled her in the very next empty phone Kiosk!

Well, after featuring her in her new perch on the site, the empty kiosk was again removed, and Calgary, again spared.

So, well stocked with snark, I got ready to move her further and further around the streets of Astoria, fully prepared to play this game of Cat and Mouse until all of the empty Kiosks were removed- and that might take awhile as there was no shortage of empty phone kiosks!

But Telebeam was a step ahead of me! They removed them all! Every. Last. One.

Well done, friends! Here is my overdue congratulations and thanks!

If you’re curious- Calgary got retired to a deck, where I hope she is well watered and has overwintered well.

So, through direct action street art (Street Artivism? ) two public space issues in Astoria have been resolved- the junky phone kiosks littering the streets, and the scum river, Right? Well, no quite. The scum river has been diverted and dried up, yes, but work on the site has seemingly stalled. More on that soon from my partner in slime, Jason Eppink.

In the meantime, If you like urban guerrilla gardening, like Calgary and Edmonton the lil’ pines, then you will almost certianly LOVE this new shirt of mine:

Inspired by the most famous entrepreneurial guerrilla gardener to ever walk America, Johnny Appleseed, comes this modern, post-apocalyptic flavored update: Jack Appleseed!

Jack Appleseed, born (John Hammer, September 26, 1980), is an American pioneer, a wanderer who walks the sun bleached, lifeless roads of America- stopping only to turn the public parking wastelands he comes across only all too often, into public parks

Based on this stencil.

Funny thing: After the Ditmars Tree Twins were featured on Gothamist, whomever is responsible for all the empty “Telebeam” phone kiosks scattered around Astoria came to collect their garbage. It would seem that they were even kind enough to carefully remove lil’ Calgary here from his perch, and place him on the ground (where my timing was lucky enough to retrieve the little dude) before they removed and disposed of the phone kiosk. (I wasn’t so quick with Edmonton) This is all great! I’m sure the owner of the laundromat appreciates having his window less obscured with a garbage-collecting eyesore, and everyone tends to appreciate a less cluttered sidewalk -and man- it was just so thoughtful to not destroy the tree- but fellas, you forgot, like, all the other empty kiosks! For example- this one, just up the street. So I reinstalled Calgary in this spot. He’s been fine so far, but we’ll see if putting his picture up on the site will change all that.

One more, just up the street from the last!