Small Justice Achieved in Carrot War

So, I'm in the garden last night tying up tomato vines, and one of the kids who hangs out in the park (see Park Urchins entry below) comes over and says, "Excuse me?"

This is one of the nice kids, probably the most polite and least rotten of the bunch. Rotten only by association, really. "Hey Jacob" I say (I make a point of knowing all their names).

He shuffles his feet and shyly says, "Christian's rabbit got out, and we're trying to catch him." He points, and who do I see but the kid whom I suspect of carrot-napping, desperately trying to corner a rabbit beneath a bench in the park next to the garden.

"That's too bad," I say.

"Um, yeah," Jacob replies, and shuffles his feet again. "Um, can we have a carrot from your garden to catch him?"

Hmmmm. "I'm sorry, but I can't help you," I say. "Someone pulled up all my carrots. If someone hadn't pulled my carrots up, I might be able to help you. Too bad, huh?"

Jacob turns just a little red, and says, very quietly, "Yeah."

"But thanks for asking me," I say, meeting his eyes. "That's the right thing to do, you know. ASK."

Who knows if it will sink in at all? Maybe. Ten year olds aren't great at Cause and Effect. But maybe they'll think twice next time about asking if they want something from my garden.

Or not. But at least I felt a little bit better. When I finished up in the garden an hour later, Christian was still trying to catch his rabbit.

Rotten #@$%# Park Urchins

When I went out yesterday evening to water, I found the season's first evidence of park urchin inflicted damage. About three fourths of my carrots, bless their little stubby roots, had been pulled up and scattered around. They lay there like fallen soldiers in the path, their frothy tops only just beginning to wilt. About half an hour earlier, I'd ridden by the garden on my way home from work and seen two of the local ten year olds (boys, of course) using the hose next to my patch. When they looked up and saw me ride by, they scattered like roaches. Hmmm, what are the odds that they were rinsing off the only couple of carrots they found that were actually big enough to eat?

This is THE bummer thing about gardening in a community garden, particularly one that is next to a big slummy apartment building (with no yard) filled with children that are apparently unsupervised about 95% of the time. Most of these kids come from large families that live in one bedroom apartments (I've seen the living conditions in there, and it's not pretty). The majority of the adults are absent (presumably working) most of the time. In short, there are few if any consequences in these kids' lives for bad behaviour, and I seriously doubt that any parent or guardian has bothered to explain to them that taking things from the garden is stealing -- or that stealing is wrong.

I'm debating what, if anything, I should do about this particular incident. Talking to the kids themselves will get me nowhere -- if anything, they'll just take it as a challenge to be more sneaky and do more damage. A couple of the fringe members of the gang live in houses nearby and do have responsive parents, so I guess I'll start by talking with them. But I'd be very surprised if those kids are the ones who are partcipating in the vandalism. And the parents of the ones who are, if I can even locate them or catch them at home, don't speak the same language I do and would probably find it laughable for some gringa woman to bitch about their kids pulling up a few carrots.

Sigh. There's a big sign on the notice board at the garden that says any vandalism should be reported to the police department. But again, I can't quite bring myself to call the cops (who are busy right now with an overwhelmingly active drug trade and a bunch of recent violent gang related events) to report the damage to the garden. "Uh yeah, officers, I know you're busy trying to figure out why people are randomly shooting at houses in the neighborhood, but a couple of ten year olds pulled up some of my carrots and I want you to stop them from doing it again." Yeah, right. We'll get right on that, ma'am.

Miracle of Growth Occurs for 100 Billionth Time

Every day, I go over to the garden for an hour or two to putter. Inevitably, as I'm watering and trimming and poking and tying, some friendly passerby will stop to lean on the fence and ask me how on earth I've managed to grow vegetables that LOOK LIKE THAT:


Usually, this is followed by a very well meaning comment about the wonders of synthetic chemical fertilizers, as in "wow, they aren't kidding when they say Miracle Grow!"

It never ceases to amaze me that there are people in the world who actually believe that plants might require the "miracle" of a synthetic compound created in a factory in urban New Jersey to grow. It's really not that complicated, humanity. There's no need to develop chemicals and test them in the eyes of bunnies to get your food to grow. Just put some shit in the soil and pay attention to your plants.

I'm thinking of writing a gardening book. I'll title it "Put Some Shit in the Soil and Pay Attention to Your Plants". It wouldn't need to be very long. Maybe a few pointers about what kind of shit to put in the soil and when to put it in, and what kind of attention to pay to the plants (I treat each plant like an individual, and check it over every day). Really, that's about it. There's an old addage that says you should spend 90 cents of every dollar on the soil and that's absolutely true -- if you have good soil, the plants will be quite happy to perform the miracle of growth fueled by little more than sunlight, H20, and good ol' poo. No sparkly blue weirdo package chemical stuff required.

World Domination

The garden has plans for World Domination. I can practically see it over there in its high tech control room, stroking its white Persian cat and having a Cuban cigar. It's planning to take over civilization, I tell you.

Case in Point : I am fairly certain that my once tiny Tomatillo (Tom -- this is a plant that demands a name) is not really a Tomatillo at all, but some sort of an alien flora growing little spawns that will some day burst out of their fragile yet tough green shells to pose as members of the White House cabinet (oh NO, too late! The country is being run by aliens with the brains of tomatillos!). Of course, I plan to make Salsa Verde of these particular specimens before they mature, so it's probably a moot point. For comparison, the last tomatillo I tried to grow reached approximately 10 inches in height and formed one tiny, pathetic fruit which turned brown and dropped off almost immediately. Tom, on the other hand, is not a plant so much as it is a presense. It's a bit hard to get the scale from a photograph, but Tom stands about five feet tall and spans, I kid you not, about six feet in diameter. Let's just say that I never thought I'd have to sink a freakin' tree stake for a tomatillo. That's. One. Big. Tomatillo. You are all getting Salsa Verde for Christmas this year :


And the alien spawn pods, of which there are an uncountable number, are hanging all over the darned thing :


And then there's the corn. If I didn't know better, I'd think it was fake. It's Showroom Quality Corn (TM). It's amazingly perfect. Every day I comb it looking for flaws, and thus far nothing but perfect, beautiful ears, and dozens of them. And it's nine freakin' feet tall!








And the tomatoes. I'm growing six supposedly finicky heirloom varieties (nope, no Early Girls or Best Boys or Gaffers or Key Grips or whatever they call those big commercial performers for me). And they're all absolutely covered with juicy and well formed fruits. Even the leaves are spotless and beautiful this year (I think the hot summer we've been having really helps) :



And one more image -- a happy green pepper that is slated to become part of my breakfast tomorrow :

Church Blend

So the other day, mom and I got to talking about soil and amendments and what not, and she clued me in to Church Blend. Now for those of you who aren't in the know, I grew up in Salt Lake City (that's UTAH, folks) and mom still lives there, so there can be absolutely no question as to WHICH church we're talking about here. It's true that there are special Church versions of many things in Utah, but never would I have guessed that there'd be specially sanctioned Church manure. We got to wondering just what makes Church Blend Church worthy, and after some effort we decided that there must be a blessed secret ingredient : Elder Urates. Picture if you will a group of stalwart young LDS elders in their Sunday best, outlines of Garments proudly visible through their perfectly starched white shirts, peeing into the compost pile with all the pride and responsibility that God has blessed them with. Ah, yes. Elder Urates. That's absolutely gotta be it.

Here's the best part -- doing a Google Search for "Church Blend" and "Utah" brings up four sites : Three of them are landscaping supply places in Utah, ones that ostensibly sell Church Blend (mom's going to try to score a bag to bring to me next time she visits, although we're pretty sure they ask to see your Mormon ID before they'll sell it to you). The fourth site is labeled "XXX Adult Hardcore Exclusive". I didn't look at it too closely, but sure enough, the words "Church Blend" and "Utah" are right there in the keyword listing. Even my mind, known to "go there" almost without effort, boggles at the idea of eroticizing Church Blend. I guess it's true what they say about internet porn -- if you can think of it, there's a fetish site dedicated to it. Perhaps it's pictures of elders peeing into the compost pile sans pants??? Who knows? It's probably best not to think about it too much.

Anyhow, I've decided that I've got to score myself some Church Blend and do a test case next year. I'm partially convinced that the soil amendment will somehow detect my non-member-osity, and my crops will wither and be plagued by locusts. But my mom's (non-member) friend Dave swears by the stuff, so I'm willing to give it a try if mom can sneak some across the border in to Cali-fornica.

Following are some recent pictures of the crops, which as you can see are actually doing quite well without the help of Elder Urates, thank you very much!

A good lengthwise shot of the largest bed. That's eight foot tall corn back there behind the 'maters and sunflowers:


Pole beans and a giant sundial sunflower, which is just about to bloom:


Cukes and melons (a cantalope varietal that seems to be doing quite well, there to the right of the climbing cucumber vines):


Tomato close up (variety Stupice, which despite sounding like a combination of the words "stupid" and "useless" is actually proving to be quite a good performer):


Two pictures of the scarlet runner beans, which are one of my very favorite things to grow -- aside from being lovely vines, the beans are really great fresh and dried. Oh, and there's a glimpse of purple bush beans visible in the second shot:




Two lovely-as-fuck sunflowers. Man, I just adore sunflowers. Maybe next year, we have an all sunflower garden!!




And a great shot of the dog decked out for the beach, just for good measure:



Okay, that's it! Go about your business, and do your best not to picture all those pants-less elders peeing into the compost pile!