The City Gardener #9

With the last City Gardener I showed you the bounty of my radish. These delicious little roots offered a crisp delightfulness to the perfect summer sandwich as well as highlighted an odd salad. To date, there is new form in the garden:

1) Please notice the hideous fencing (above and below) that surrounds my wee buckets. My neighbor noticed: “No more people will steal your tomatoes now!” Well, hopefully not.

With today’s watering I did notice a “casual onlooker” (see sketch below). I held back as she eyed my vegetables and Kitty hissed from inside (what can I say, she likes her fresh vegetables). With a double take she noticed me, smiled, and continued her journey. (It is quite possible this woman is just an admirer of gardens but with my witnessed tomato snatcher from last year, caution and paranoia must be taken.)

If you have your own garden and live in the tri-State area, I bid you to keep an eye out for the Garden Offender (sketch taken minutes after encounter at left). Take notice of her unevenly applied magenta lipstick, soiled white hat that covers her eyes and off-white t-shirt. She may be armed with garden sheers and should be considered dangerous. Now that she is on my radar I have other pests, namely squirrels to watch for. Evidence?

2) With the addition of fencing, the lettuce is shooting for the stars. Where previously I had not taken account of the gnarled leafy stalks, they now are coming together quite nicely.

3) 3 buckets are without fencing. These buckets once contained radish. You might recall when starting my garden indoors I planted arugula, 3 kinds of lettuce and beets. Much of it died before it could be transferred outdoors. I transferred the survivors outside and awaited growth. Now that I have harvested radish, I threw some arugula, the last of the swiss chard seeds and the remaining lettuce seeds on the open buckets. Sprouts happen and fencing must be purchased.

4) A confession: I never put buckets on the roof. While my landlords gave me the go-ahead (probably because they knew I would have done it anyway), I eventually was too lazy to carry buckets, soil and seedlings to the roof. The realization that I would also have to carry gallons of water up a ladder to the roof cemented my decision that I should concentrate on the land buckets. Leaving for three weeks and knowing my mother would carry no ladders helped too—who could have predicted those three weeks would be the wettest of the season?



PHOTOS: The top photo is (left to right): Tango Lettuce, Rainbow Swiss Chard sprouts, full Rainbow Swiss Chard.
The bottom photo is (left to right): Tomato, Arugula, Lolla Lettuce, Swiss Chard sprouts.

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