I had warned a different gardener that she was about to lose
her plot if she didn’t come last weekend to weed and harvest. The weeds in her plot were up to my chest and
her food was rotting. She didn’t come
and so two neighborhood girls spent Wednesday evening weeding it, hacking out
dead corn stalks (with rotting ears of corn) and thinning out the dying
sunflowers. They each took home a bag of
tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers for their efforts. They were very excited. One of them had moved
into the neighborhood too late to get her own bed or plot and had been pestering
me virtually every week to let her garden with us. Now she can. 
But not all was ugliness this weekend. We participated in the PICK IT UP litter
pick up with the rest of the City this weekend.
Most of our gardeners and three of the young men in the neighborhood walked
up and down Stoddart Avenue to pick up litter.
Charlie also picked up litter in the alley between Stoddart and
Morrison. I fed them with lollipops
donated by Christ Lutheran Church’s youth program and beet red velvet chocolate
cupcakes that I baked last night with a beet from my SACG plot. We also had water donated by Keep Columbus
Beautiful. I told them that they only
had to pick up litter for 30 minutes to qualify for refreshments, but no one
wanted to stop. Even after we picked up
all the litter between Main Street and Bryden.
I had to make them stop because I had too much work to do at the Garden
(with watering, harvesting and hopefully beginning to plant fall crops). There wasn't nearly as much litter to pick up as there had been last Spring. That's nice. 
Except for Charlie, all the SACG gardeners stayed behind to
garden. Tom harvested potatoes. Mari pulled out dying squash and aphid
infested kale. Neal mowed the grass last night and harvested
tomatoes today. He’ll be back tomorrow
to clean up DeShaun’s plot and plant some fall crops. Neal’s so funny. This is his first year growing ever and he’s
had a lot of luck. He is also such a
bachelor. He apparently does not
cook. Instead, he takes the food he
harvests to Ken Yee at Wing’s Restaurant just outside Bexley (where we met
during March Madness last year) and Ken cooks him up something fabulous for
Neal and his guests. This is killing
me. We should all have such friends.
 |
| Zephyr found a screw driver today |
Charlie gave Neal a bunch of his special peppers. Apparently, Charlie didn’t realize that his
chores last month included taking out the trash. Sadly, I didn’t either and had inadvertently
lead Neal to believe that was part of his chores. So, I suggested that Charlie might want to
share some of his peppers with Neal to make up for our collective failure to
review the chore chart. He didn't have to do it, but Charlie's a good guy and very generous about sharing his produce.
Antoinette stopped by to water her bed (where we had planted
some fall crops on Wednesday).
I made our food pantry donation and then returned to harvest
my own produce and do some planting. The
new girls across the street stopped by to watch me garden this afternoon. The oldest was cheering at her first football
game this morning and her entire family went to watch her. I still had a lot
more work to do, but the OSU football game had already started and I still
haven’t had anything for lunch.
We were lucky to have three of the neighborhood boys help us
pick up litter this morning. Today was
the day of the Children’s Parade, which Cathy from Urban Connections (and our
Board) organized with Courtney from Central Community House. Burt (from U/C) took a slew of the
neighborhood kids (on bikes Ioaned by U/C) to the Parade. So, the kids couldn’t help pick up litter. They march from Miller/Keton to the Hot Times
Festival in Olde Towne East. However,
two of the boys who helped us planned to go to Delaware County to some place
with indoor trampolines and therefore couldn’t march in the parade. Sounded fun.
The third had planned to march in the Children’s Parade, but had arrived
too late. We almost drove him, but . . .
.
Somehow, someone is still getting inside the Garden to steal
produce. I haven’t figured out how
yet. Someone else took landscaping
stones from one of our compost bins and threw four of them into our neighbor
plot. I can’t even begin to imagine why
they would want to kill the kale and collard greens. Then, someone pulled off all of the birdhouse
gourds growing on our fence and bashed them into pieces. Again, I cannot imagine why. This was all very disappointing. But overall, this has been a good week, so I’m
not obsessing.
Well, I’ve run out of things to type. I needed to write a lot so that I would have
a reason to post all of the pictures I took this morning.
I told the LSS Food Pantry that they might not see me for a
few weeks. My nephew has started playing
football for Dublin Coffman and his games are usually on Saturday
mornings. His sister has also returned
to playing soccer on Saturday mornings.
So, I have to go be a supportive aunt and put my gardening off until the
afternoons for a few weeks. Luckily, it’s
Fall and it will be cooler. . . . and Faith Mission takes produce donations
until 5:30 p.m. . . . .
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