Plot of the Unknown Gardner Has Been Planted on Cherry Street

This morning, Dwain helped me build (-- ok, he built it while I watched and held his tools) the raised bed for the new community service plot along Cherry Street next to the Stoddart Avenue Community Garden. Then, Lawrenced helped me unload the 17 bags of topsoil from my car. I spread newspapers and top soil and then planted bibb lettuce, an eggplant, a zucchini, a cantalope, one basil plant, six bell peppers, two jalapeno peppers, two chili peppers, at least a dozen pole beans, and several roma, cherry, celebrity and beefstake tomatoes from my extra stache. Anyone who passes by can help themselves. Hopefully, this means that they will not help themselves the produce inside the fence.

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Of course, like everything else, there are a few challenges. One, is that there is nothing but solid concrete beneath the northern 2/3 of the bed. Not only will this prevent roots from going deep and require more frequent watering, but it also meant that I could not pound the tomato stakes very deep. Also, we're actually out of tomato stakes and I had to double up the tomatoes with each stake (which, as mentioned, is already pretty shallow). We'll see how that works. Finally, the cedar planks are not very thick and I hope will last at least the entire growing season, if not into next year.

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Now, I can wash and eat the peas, lettuce and chard I harvested this afternoon. It turns out that my bike's front tire is a lost cause and it's back to the shop for a few days . . . . .