Although I was still giddy over the lovely
article published about the Stoddart Avenue Community Garden on Monday by The Columbus Dispatch, yesterday Neal
told me that there had been an official editorial
about us published on Friday. It was, of
course, wonderful. It lauded community
gardens everywhere. Entitled: Victory gardens grow with pride, it begins:
Walk into any of the dozens of community gardens in the city,
and it quickly becomes clear that what is being tilled and tended and harvested
isn’t just locally produced food. It’s
neighborliness. It’s pride. It’s a
reminder of the good things that can bloom when people set their minds and
muscles to it.
Of course, I’m not sure the community garden run by the
Redeemer Moravian church will appreciate being referred to as a garden club. (Compared to the SACG, it’s giant). Also, I don’t understand why the editorial
needed to publicize my age. That being
said, I think readers can take heart that if I can do it, they can, too.
People have been sweet. One of Mari's neighbors brought her some tomato seedlings for the Garden. A new Stoddart neighbor stopped by just before it started raining to thank me for our efforts. One of my neighbors mailed me an extra copy of Monday’s
article and the Chair of my church stewardship committee (on which I serve)
plans to post it on a bulletin board. A
college friend particularly loved the reference to my stubbornness. (Since everyone knows my age, you can figure
out for yourself how long he has known me).
It reminds me of how Cathy described me last
year when we were campaigning for the demolition of the building next
door.
Anyway, this has been a fun week at the SACG. Sunday night I went over to water and pick some
berries. But you know what they say
about best laid plans. While Barb was
tending the Block Watch flower garden, she happened upon a dispute of some sort
between a working girl and a large gentleman (who, I was later told, was really
intervening on behalf of two other neighborhood working girls). Barb called 911 and felt compelled to stay
with the first girl until they arrived, but she had been on her way somewhere else. I told her that the girl could come with me
to the Garden while we waited on the police.
One of the two other girls felt compelled to tell me – in the nicest
possible way -- that I was helping a
prostitute (like I couldn’t figure that out on my own). She also felt compelled to warn the first girl
– again in the nicest possible way – that the other girls were carrying weapons
and would really mess her up. When one
of them started over to talk to her in the Garden, I had to explain that I didn’t
want any trouble and would feel more comfortable if they did not have converse
any further. The police came and I had
to explain what I knew, etc. They
finally drove off with her (hopefully to her home on the south side). For conversation in the meantime, I suggested
– as nicely as I could – that there are safer ways to make a living. She said that she needed to earn money
because her child’s father had been injured in an industrial accident. Barb and I are now waiting for the shoe to
drop by way of revenge vandalism from the guy and/or two other girls. Or maybe not. We feed everyone, including them, at some
point in the summer.
Some neighborhood kids came by and wanted to plant
tri-colored carrots in Christen’s plot.
So, we had to dig through the seed container until we found the correct
package of seeds. Then, we marched over
to the kids’ section of the Garden and planted and watered the carrots. That task completed, Christen and I turned to
picking berries. Rose came by with more popsicles, but nothing will deter me
from picking berries and you cannot do that with one hand. Christen, on the other hand, is a kid who
doesn’t turn down popsicles on hot evenings.
She began to think better of her choice when she saw how far behind me
she was in picking berries.
Also, our OSU student gardener, Chelsea, came to weed her plot
back into some normalcy. It’s been hard
for her to keep up with the weeds while she’s working two part-time jobs and
completing an unpaid internship with Nike (that’s in Oregon, folks). She was explaining to me that she might be
gone for a week if she’s called to Oregon again this week.
On Tuesday, DeShaun and his cousin came to water his
plot. He seemed pleased with its
progress. Micayla stopped by to water
her plot and admire the carrots growing in her bed. We had an extended conversation about all of
the volunteer sunflowers I’ve left to grow in place near the front gate. Micayla then showed the other girls where she
helped me transplant sunflowers in the front flower bed and where we planted
cosmos flowers. But mostly, the kids
focused on picking and eating berries.
That’s what they are there for.
When I returned on Thursday, Christen and I continued
talking about school. She’s a straight A
student. I promised to bring her some
new books to read, but the only interesting ones I felt I could safely give her
from my own library (i.e., no s-e-x or b-a-d language) were The Madman the Professor and Miss Manner’s Guide to Raising Perfect
Children. She has started Madman and likes it. None of the other kids in the neighborhood
have books to read this summer and I could really use more books appropriate
for kids between the first and fifth grades.
Saturday was a long day. First, I could not get into the
Garden because the locks were busted. One of the area landlords came by and
helped me open the back gate, but was a little put out when I wouldn’t give him
the combination. If he doesn’t have it,
he can’t be a suspect now, can he, if something goes wrong. None of us were able to open the front lock,
so I’m going to need help cutting it off.
In the meantime, Rose came by with more popsicles, but I was too distracted
with the lock situation to eat.
After all that, I got a late start with weeding, fertilizing
tomatoes and blueberry bushes, trimming the alley weeds and volunteer weed
trees, and composting the flower beds. Derek,
the manager of the Helping Hands Community Garden in Clintonville, was in the
area and stopped by. His garden raises
produce for the food pantry at the Clintonville Resource Center. I gave
him a brief tour and encouraged him to borrow (on an indefinite basis) one of
our extra rain barrels. He explained
that he didn’t have time to dig up some extra black raspberry seedlings for his
garden because he was getting married that evening at 7. ( I hope the weather cooperated for
him). However, when he saw how many
extra wood chips we had, he said that he would make time to fill up a trash can
with those to take back with him. Cassie
came by to weed and cut back her bolting spinach. When
Neal came, we repurposed some old fence from the demolished building next door
into a trellis for his tomatoes. His
father turned 91 on Saturday and he was off to a celebration. Meanwhile, Cassie’s sunglasses fell of her
head while she was weeding and we couldn’t find them. I told her I would come back to help her look
after I delivered our food pantry harvest because the pantry closed in about an
hour.
When I returned, Cassie was gone, but Neal was there with
his parents and girlfriend. Neal is
very proud of how well his plot is growing.
He probably wishes he had gotten a bigger plot at this point. Earlier this week, he took my suggestion and
planted pole beans around his corn (which is taller than I am). We are considering pruning back some of the
stalks . . . . His cucumbers are crowding out his new lima
bean seedlings.
I knew that I was forgetting something when I finally left
around 3. It was not until it began
raining last night that I remembered failing to replace the bibb locks on the
rain cistern. So, back to the Garden in
the rain I went. Once there, I
discovered that the gutter was blocked and was not re-filling our now-locked tank. One more thing to take care of this week . .
.
All that being said, I’ve harvested tons of berries, kale,
bok choy, spinach, and lettuce, 3 cucumbers, 2 zucchinis, some peas and some
beans in the last few weeks. Not bad. Time to make some bread and butter pickles and
edge my back yard before heading back to Dublin to teach my niece how to drive .
. . . . . This will be the scariest thing I do all week.
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