Tree partially down at community garden!

Growing season should be unchanged. Just sayin'.

20 beds - a fait accompli

Here they are!

This is the not quite done version - after this picture was taken, more dirt was spread and beds were topped off.

Lumberton USA

Mike from Metroparks was gracious enough to bring a trailer Friday to the St Vincent Deconstruction Depot to help me move the way-too-long-for-our-truck beams for which I had already paid!

I then spent the balance of the afternoon cutting boards to size! Manly shit, I grant you. Lots of splinters as well. TOUGH!

Garden Clean-up and Bed Build 2010, Week 1, Part 4

Even lovely Luci from Metroparks came by and checked out the shenanigans! We're FAMOUS!

(Hello, Mark! [also pictured])

Garden Clean-up and Bed Build 2010, Week 1, Part 3

Here is the hard working team that made all this fun happen (minus Kyle and Josie):

Next up for this crew: Lufthansa heist!

"I was a basil baron's husband"

So, wait - we were all stoked about our garden, all the tomatoes and such, not knowing that local restaurants would be willing to give us seven bucks per large bag of basil! Last week we made 21 bucks!

Today, the Baron [formerly the Bride, but for purposes of these "selling" posts, the Baron] is taking three or maybe four bags of basil to restaurants [ones you would know if you live here, but I will respect their privacy; and I don't want to get caught up in some balls-out 'supply war' with local restaurant supply bullies, who would then take an ear of sweet corn, paint a face on it, string it from a tiny noose outside our porch door and write YOU on it], a bag of thyme, one of mint and some dill...we will see how much this nets.

And, see, if we do this once or twice a week, we can save all the dough in a cigar box and use it to buy next year's starts and seeds and maybe even a TRACTOR!!

Um, yay!

"Urban Sustainable Gardening With Dipshits"

Hi! Welcome to our garden. I'm Nick, your host! Did you notice how my hair is receding in the same pattern as Nabokov at my age? No? Well, it is! Let me show you around!
















Where are we? We have our mild-ass little farm at the corner of Burns and Nathan! Careful! Don't step on the severed head!
















Earlier this year, we paid a deposit and got a key to the hydrant. The second time we used it, it could not be turned off and we had to walk over and have the friendly firemen come help, and they couldn't do anything about it, either! It was like a shitty kids' book! But, as of this last Monday, we have it all good to go again, and can water the crops and fill barrels without having to drag the hoses 300 feet from a friend's house. And next year we will have a sluice/aqueduct system that will drive the ghosts of ancient Romans out of their lead-addled minds!

















Come! Feel our exotic lettuces!

















Tiny tomatoes grow like weeds on our paradisiacal patch o' dirt!
















We very much appreciate how much you want - nay, NEED - more wide shots of the whole inaugural operation! You're welcome!































Well, that's it for now! We hope you've enjoyed your day at the farm. Here's me on the back cover of my autobiography Speak, Mammary:

















[music up, shitty Kenny G-style "lite jazz" to fade]

The Re-Compost

Our original filling-up of compost [already, this is one hideously misshapen sentence...not sure I can find my way out, so we will continue apace] has sunk from all the way filled to the top to about half! Extreme measures were taken as I went to get more compost and we topped everything off. Also, the home garden, which had a proper layer of manure, out-thrives the community one (although it is still very happy and growing nicely, ta very much).

Remember nitrogen, kids!!

Casting call

Hey! If someone around these parts does a stage play of David Lynch's old comic strip The Angriest Dog in the World,







I have just the dog actor! This guy who showed up Sunday night at the community garden thingamabob on Sunday, sans leash or any of that:

I think he should be called Buster. And he's not ACTUALLY angry at all.

It's called acting.

Gardens, as of July 7

Check out this BROCCOLI!!!1!!1!



Also, at home, thickets o' green zebras!:

OH! Garden!

Yes, all the plants are in at the South Park Community Garden/Urban Farm and Sorghum District Constituency Confab (tm).

Here is the water/hydrant doodad, in place and functioning, put in place by the good graces of my John Henry-like, supple and ultimately muscle-rippled upper body:

(water barrel projects are also underway - see next post!)

Here is the proud instigator of the whole shebang in ACTION:

And even the local yokel neighbor tots got involved! M. (center) showed an aptitude unparalleled for watering, and was also quite adept at taking a red Sharpie and drawing on leaves of a nearby tree, while her sister L. (right) looked stylish in silver vest and shared that she had a "four-wheel bicycle." That's not strictly a bicycle, darling, but good for you!

"She'll take THIS seriously..."

Ahem.

Anyway, the Bride had the day off Friday, and instead of napping all day (the nerve!), she got yet more compost for our various garden plots, and did a whole plethora of other stuff - including harassing the city water guys into hooking her up with an attachment to the fire hydrant on site at community thingy, so we can then water all of our crops.

I, of course, figure this will lead to some sort of disaster, our having to tighten and untighten a fire hydrant all the time; but then when the Mighty Conflagration occurs, yours truly will be rousted from sleep to be called into service, driving the last horse-drawn fire wagon in the city from burning corner to corner and using my summer-honed arms to unleash cascades of lifesaving water...PLUS, the heat will broast some of the tomatoes just right, so that's dinner made as well! Hurrah!

[portions/plot points of this post stolen from Animal House and "The Fourth Alarm" by John Cheever]

[sings]: "Beth, I see you see shov'lin'..."

Here are the Bride and our friend Beth, hard at it.

Seeds -- and a malcontent!

A wide assortment of seeds...and Sharpies...

!!! x 100,000,000!!!

Just add water...

Water added!

"What the hell're those? Mice?"

"..."

"Y'all are boring! Why cain't we set somethin' on far???"

We'll have a barrel of rain!

Hey, lots of folks have responded in wanting to help with the garden; in particular, there is an abundance of willingness re: rain barrels. Epic!

"Think the rain'll get the rhubarb wet, ma?"

Filling the beds with layers of leaf mulch, which will then get manure and compost on top. The straw strangles any grass that may get bullshit ideas about staying alive, or so we are told. It's important that these striations are layered in a manner that allows the...zzzzzzzzzzz...

I may need to buy some tools, and stop being a wuss 4eva

Here are scenes of the beds, assembled Friday night, with the able assistance of Richard and Gabe!

"...as if some strange ceremonies had taken place..."

12' x 4', for those playing at home.

Compost bin! Gonna paint it a tasteful green, perhaps!

Scenes from the moors

Conditions were not the best Saturday for this...hard to tell from a still photograph, but the trees were bent clean in half! Probably!

(sings): "Luci in the forklift with Mul-ul-ulch!"

Here's the totes adorbs Luci who works for the Metro Parks and hooked us up with cubic tons (maybe?) of loamy, loamy leaf mulch. Worms in it, even!

She even let us borrow her truck to hasten our mulch-move! What a dear!

Here's some random freak:

Still have all my fingers

Oh, and the community garden! Sweet!

I dropped off some skids last night in the to-be-gardened field, the site of some demolished low-income housing. Pulled up in the truck, put the hazards on and chucked them out in a pile...while I was doing this, a neighborhood lady smoker walked by shaking her head, because I must have looked like some guy who just chose to pull up and throw some skids in a vacant lot. As one does.

Commenced sawing our vintage-ass boards to scale (beds will be 12' x 4'). Had never even touched a circular saw, but plunged right in! Cats enjoyed the sawdust smell as well!

Feel free to show this set-up to handy friend and have them whistle in disbelief: "Whew - he's lucky to be alive!":

My handy borrowed-from-work weapon of choice. As dusk loomed I could feel her getting thirsty for my blood, even!:


















Our friend Richard came with a proper carpenter's square and set me on the path to doing it right, although I had not even utterly fucked up anything beyond redemption!:




















The Bride came home and added some class to
the proceedings!:

Friday night we will screw all the boards together in anticipation of Saturday's mulch/compost/manure bedfilling day! (and, after that last sentence, if you found this post when googling some weird fetish thing, sorry! And join as a follower!)