Gardening 2023

[cineater]

WTH Jim?  This man shows up to the garden freshly showered, smelling good and in his good clothes.  He's the cleanest guy I've ever seen and he stays that way!  I'm in my work clothes, covered in shit and sweat, hair all over the place.  And it's not like he doesn't work!

Never got to digging out the dirt for the bricks and I was there 5 hours.  Marsha's area really needed a mow and trim.  Half way through it the trimmer broke.  Karen showed up and she had hers.  She had the same thing in mind.  It looked good when we got through with it, I could do some more weeding.  Jim did give me a few tips for digging the dirt out.  It's now on my hit list for tomorrow if it doesn't rain or on for Thursday.  I was going to go back this afternoon after I did my yard but then I got on emails and now I have to go to pinball and contemplate how the hell Jim always looks so damn clean!   

[cineater]

Yea, got one hole dug before I got rained out.  Didn't take that long.  The ground is really soft from the rain.  I can get the other one tomorrow.

22 people came to the pesto and salsa class.  My kind of cooking, a little of this and a little of that, and damn that's good.  Loved the walnut pesto.

And then Mary and I went to look at the bricks.  There's a whole box of fundraiser bricks and she's doing another fundraiser.  Hole number 3 can wait until the fall or next spring.   

I think we are rain the rest of the day.  If not, Tim is ready with the chainsaw.  We still have those two trees in the drain basin.  Turns out Tim has a brush hog at his lake property.  He's willing to bring it up and mow the basin down this winter.  All this luck going to gardening and I can't do shit on the lottery tickets. 

[cineater]

Break in the rain and you know where I was.  Connie texted it was raining at the house just as I was putting away my tools.  Kevin's response was you don't mess around.  Yes I do, what do you think I was doing?    He hasn't responded to my text if we can finish it up next Wednesday.   

[cineater]

Still no response from Kevin.    The next text from me will be I'm at the store.  What kind of rock do you want?  I'm a pushy bitch.  

I was going to go up and start washing the rock but the sun came out.  I'm not putting muddy rock back on the sides only to have it grow weeds.  I have no idea how to wash the rock and not make a mess.  No clue how I'm going to lift a bucket of rock up and put it on the cart.  I kind of did the lift and swing it ahead to the next spot routine to get it over to where I have it stored, walking a bucket.

I'm off today or so I think.  Gardens just come up.  

Shit, Tim's chainsaw isn't working.  Really need to get those trees cut up.

[cineater]

Yeah, no.    In the past our fruit area hasn't produced enough fruit to send to the pantry.  This year the blackberries are going gangbusters.  Normally they were just candy for those out there working.  So my veggie group started going over there and harvesting to take it to the pantry with permission from the lead of that area.  The person taking care of the blackberries and another busy body got upset we were coming over to harvest.  I apologized, said we had permission from the person over her, Marsha.  Said we thought we were helping her out and that I was fine with just letting her harvest and take it to the food pantry.  If she harvested on Wednesdays and got it to us by 11, we could take it over with our stuff.  Knowing full well she wasn't harvesting and taking to the food pantry.  She caught me the next day, said she was fine with us harvesting.  Sure you are.  

In all these conversations, the other fruit came up because it is starting to produce.  They are busy and under construction over there.  Marsha says to me they are they are too busy to harvest.  "We can try to help you out this year."  No, not happening.  The veggie team is not responsible for harvesting the fruit area too.  That's their job.    Bitched yourself into you responsibility.  Welcome to the world of harvesting.

Marsha can drive!  She sounded real good tonight.  You know until she realized where that conversation was leading.  Growing pains.  I did throw in cooking classes for apple pie and apple sauce.  The veggie team harvests and does cooking classes.

[cineater]

Geez, we're in steering committee and I bring up something.  Marsha immediately returns to old behavior, has to disagree with me.  Thing is, it's something she is for.  Took her a minute and then she realized.  I worked into a conversation later.  I almost skipped this meeting.  They look to me for leadership and then shoot me down for doing it.

And the shit disturber approached Marsha saying somebody took some of the pears.  Her evidence, there was no fruit on the ground and there should have been between when she was there on Saturday and showed up on Wednesday.  She thinks the lock should be changed.  Er, there's no fruit on the ground, including what has been there for weeks under any of the trees if you look because Karen and I cleaned up the whole area on Tuesday!  9 hours between the two of us.

You know, I've had a sinus headache for days now after being out there so much and I'm going to punch back today. 

[cineater]

The cantaloupe is ready.  I hate that smell and you get a bunch of them together, eww.  Somebody else take those to the food pantry.

Told Marsha I was checking the security tape on the pears.  Keep it low key but start it through the grapevine.  Let's make sure everybody knows we have that ability.  Fortunately, it wasn't one of those days where I was dropping drawers behind a bush.     Earl and I live in fear of that.

The sand goes down 15 inches.  The area where the chocolate garden is going use to be the sand pile.  We have to dig all that out.

[cineater]

Not that I want to deal with the fruit incident but I did get inspired from the bitching.  Developed the "Fruits of Our Labor" sessions.  In addition to our "Cooking What We Grow" classes we'll do these short sessions.  Before the general membership meeting we'll be taste testing a few different tomato varieties, the cantaloupe, maybe the pears and something from the herb group.  The growers can speak on stuff and answer questions.  Jim's going to do the peppers at a separate session.  We can do separate sessions in the garden whenever produce is ready.  Testing it out this year on us but I can open it up to the public next year.  Call it a "Taste of the Gardens".

Maybe it was a good thing I got stuck managing the Pantry Garden.  I'm tired, hurt everywhere and the inspiration, creativity just keeps flowing from the gardens.  Okay, the secret, Grateful Dead, nickname for the gardens is Terrapin Station.  I found it, "only just a few miles down the road".  Another artist, but it all works so much better with music. 

[cineater]

The three bed plans are in!  Beka does such a great job on these.  She has the beds packed, mostly perennials.  A few shrubs, keep my pruning to a minimum.  Enough annuals to let you plant but not to overwhelm you.  My only real comment was move the bee watering station from the full sun in front of the bed to the back where it will stay in the shade longer and have plants around it to shade it.  But there may be a reason she has it there. 

From here the plans go to the Safety and Design Committee for comment.  The team works on how to get the plants.  We'll grow some, get some from our own gardens or already in the bed and hopefully only have to buy a few.  I am going to ask that over the winter, they document the maintenance needs of each plant so they know who to deadhead and who they need to keep in their spot.  Some of these plants are real good at spreading out.  I hope to hell these beds are getting adopted out, they are high maintenance.

There's not a lot of hardscape in these beds.  Tomorrow we go get the cream separator for the chocolate fountain.  I hope that works out.

The plans still have a lot of steps to go through before approval.  We dig everything out this fall and plant in the spring.  Everybody has to get settled and nursed in.  The first year, you can see it coming but it's the second and third year where your work really shows.

[cineater]

What?  So this whole idea of the trainees having a class project has been my idea and ran by me for years.  With Beka's expertise this year we really expanded the program.  I had her give an update on it at steering committee.  I've only been promoting it for months now but Joe our president finally took interest in it.  He was talking with Marsha and mentioned it was really cool.  He's been talking with our rose lead about taking those out.  He's wondering if we could get the trainees to redo that area next year.  Marsha tells him I was already looking at that side of the building for the next project, didn't include the roses.  And she's talked to me about doing the pantry beds after that.  Okay, folks steal my idea and my expert but understand this if you want it, you head it up.     And did you two forget you're the ones wanting to cut the garden budget to the bone?

The security camera doesn't reach back to the fruit area.  I can only see whose cars are in the parking lot and the front 12 feet of the garden.  It only takes pictures at intervals and not video.  I still don't think anybody took the pears.  Now they are going on about the pear trees not producing well and they want to cut them down.  No, we don't use the pears anyway and you folks need to finish up construction in there.  You have enough to do.

[cineater]

OMG    We went over to pick up the creamer.  Got a few other things that we can make into trellises.  The DJ goes, you want the frog?  Hell yes I want the frog.  He's about 24 inches top to bottom, front to back, multicolored.  Stuck him in the native area and texted them a picture.  They called as soon as they saw it.  'Say hello to your little friend.'  This is so going to energize that team.

[cineater]

Eggplant cooking class today.  Ratatouille, really good.  Seen the movie but never had it.  Eggplant meatballs, so good!  And you can dump the ratatouille on it too.  Might have been so good because Phebe is a really good cook.  She's been cooking from gardens all her life.  I, of course, was busy working the gardens.  She had enough help in class so I didn't have the excuse she needed me in there.

Really bad mood here.     The shit disturber bitched the whole morning.  And bought a baggie with her so she could collect blackberries for herself.  They didn't send a damn thing over to the pantry.  And brought up they were cutting the pear trees down this fall.  There's a reason for that but you guys need to get this area together not create more work for yourselves.  They can stay another year.  I could tell Marsha was annoyed too but she had to cut out and go home and puke in private.  She's pushing herself.

And Joe wants to work on the budget.  He wants to know what the bare bones needs are of the gardens.  I have no defense for them cutting the garden budget.  I love what we've been able to do with an increased budget.  There's been years where we had no money and we keep growing.  Granted I'm working on the public education the gardens provide, it's all free.  The gardens product no income.  I keep pushing that association with the botanical gardens but the people who would do that don't follow through.

I need to go junking.  I love finding that shit and repurpose it for the garden.  Marsha asked if I found that frog along the side of the road.     She's not into that.

[cineater]

Never a day without gardening. 

Went up and glyphosated the orchard ground.  You know that stuff as Round Up.  I don't know why the ground in the orchard has to be bare.  Marsha explained it to me once, made no sense to me.  We were discussing the minimum budget for the gardens.  We need a few chemicals for weeds and pests, some leaf mulch and some seeds and we can get through a year.  Things wouldn't improve and we couldn't replace what falls apart.  That's the holding zone.  We can hold on for a few years.  We've done it before. 

I'm not really built for that.  Neither is Marsha.  We'll get bored and move onto something else.  I don't think the rest of the group is either.  I've caution our president our resources need to go where the membership likes to go.  It's a long story I've been preaching for years.  Tonight though he parroted it back to me.  Not like it was my idea to begin with  , more like something he was lecturing me about.  I swear people don't hear what I say but I have a brainwashing effect on them.  Careful around me, I will put you to work and you'll start thinking my ideas are your ideas.  And you might just start eating eggplant too. 

[cineater]

Forgot, Kevin text me at 7:30 this morning.  He fixed the trimmers then went on to bitch about the new battery operated trimmer.  "Can we take that back?"    It's just a piece of crap but the people who wanted it love it.  It's going to be broke all the time.  I gave him permission to take his time about fixing it when it breaks down.  There's a reason the good stuff cost so much.  Don't waste your money on a hundred dollar tool.  Tools like knives are no time to get the cheap stuff.

[cineater]

Wait a minute.  Kevin mowed with the zero turn yesterday.  I took out the hand mower today and was admiring his work.  Made it easy on me.  Steve cut off a low hanging branch that allowed Kevin to mow all across the backside of the daylilies.  I kind of wondered why he didn't get the area in front of the bee hives better.  He could have only went one way.  Tell me he did not ride that mower down that steep hill and into the creek.  I left there at 12:30 and he called me at 5 to say he was done mowing.  I thought that was odd, it doesn't take that long to run the big mower.  I'm going to walk over there tomorrow and check that out.  He's a wild man on that thing.  Not the first time somebody had slid it into the creek.

[cineater]

He did fucking drive the zero turn down that slope and made the curve.  Plus he went across the slope once.  He had to back it up on that angle.  Maybe he came up it instead of tried to go down it.  Still he could have tipped it and nobody was around.  Old people thinking they are teenagers.   

Well damn it.  Just a few guilty parties but I'm going to have to put my foot down for everybody.  I'll discuss it with the leads but no produce is leaving that garden unless it's headed to the food pantry.  I don't even want to tell you some of the shit people are pulling and taking it home for themselves.  I'm always conscious that even though you think some people may have money for food, they don't.  Well if you're too embarrassed to ask for help you better get a lot better at stealing!   

Anyway, the people working on the beds met.  Things are going well.  Beka liked the couple of other things I picked up for hardscape.  She's got them moving.  They are tearing plants out in September.  I would have waited a month.  We can be pretty hot then.  We're starting to look for plants.

[cineater]

Texting with the guys on the mowing crew.  Oh yeah Kevin I am ratting you out.  I know what you did.     They get so little attention, it's fun to fuck with them a little bit.  I appreciate you and I notice what you do, that's the message.  We're going to hover around 100 for a few days.  Grass don't grow and nobody is coming to the gardens.  You're on break.

[cineater]

Got up there at 6:15 and that's only because the sun wasn't up.  It was really muggy already.  Radio is playing Walk Me Out in the Morning Dew, yeah that's right.    High humidity and I'm worried about the fungus among us.  Extra water for the pantry beds.  They will go to every other day through this heat.  Broke up the ground where the liriope is being moved to before it turns into baked clay.  The code to the tool shed lock got changed, figured it out but Kevin is going to have to change that back.  Was out of there by 8:15.  Had to wait till 8 to send some texts out to a few gardeners.

On the home front, the windows are so covered with dew I can't see if the cats want back in.     Believe me they do, nobody wants to be out there.  My cool spider is back.  Haven't seen it in years.  It's a little bit bigger than a half dollar, black and yellow, building a web on the patio.  Has a very distinct web, funnel type.  I'm freezing in a sweet covered shirt in the house.  Quick trip to the grocery store, not going through this heat wave without ice cream, and I'm going back to bed.   

[cineater]

Oh damn and it's only day one.  11:00 and it's still 93 heat indice.  Humidity is way up there.  I'm saving my outdoor plants for in the morning watering.  Another wake up at 5:30 day coming up.  Looks like I'm doing that all week.

Marsha is doing so well she can start her chemo early.  She wants to dig out a path rather than rent the equipment.  Yeah we kind of have to spare that money.  I need it dug out so I have a place to go with the sand.  I already told her no digging.  You just got through surgery and I don't care what her doctor said.  I assigned her to supervision and driving the zero turn with the pull along cart.  I control the shovels and she isn't getting one.    I'm only talking all this stuff with her to keep her mind busy.  Don't push it lady.

[cineater]

We had the harvest done and on the way to the food pantry at 9:15.    Besides the pantry people nobody showed up to work today.

Kevin tried to act like he didn't know what I was talking about with the mower and then decided to act like it was no big deal.    Got him to inspect my work on the holes for the bricks, I passed, and then to check out the rocks we had saved for the project.  From there he filled up the holes with rock without me even asking.  We sort of transferred possession of the rest of the rock we used.    We left the bag of what we possessed on top of the rock in case somebody asks, did they?     Kevin's better at this sort of thing then other people.  Anyway, one step closer to getting that project done.

Lets see how tomorrow goes.  I have a meeting with Marsha and the new demo garden plant sale coordinator.  This was my idea over a year ago and Marsha shot it down, now she is using the term and declaring the person is part of her team, not the demo gardens.  She recruited the person.  I don't have to be the coordinator and I'm not responsible for the person who is?     Why would I fight about that!  We just have to work out the procedure for the leads to order their plants from the plant sale and get them to them.  Marsha that's all on you.  I just take orders and march out with the plants.  How we get to that point, I'm not arguing with the pro on that.

Next meeting tomorrow is education committee.  I'm the only one doing education at the moment.  Quick update and I'm out the door to my next appointment.  The chair is a little upset with me.  I asked that the approval for their $1000 projector and computer be rescinded.  It's been delayed for further discussion.  Does it make sense to spend $1000 on the off chance they may have to turn down teaching one $50 class?  And you have no plan on how to sell these classes.  If it wasn't for my connection to another garden club, they wouldn't have sold any classes.  I had the classes sold before they even put them up on the website that nobody goes to.

Then I am hosting the tomato, cantaloupe and pear taste testing before the general membership meeting.  I hope I don't get there tomorrow and David took all the cherry tomatoes that were in the frig to the food pantry.  Maureen showed up with a bag of veggies from home after we left with the harvest.  Just put them in the frig and I will take them over to the pantry Friday with the leftovers from the meeting.  David found another zucchini and I told him to just put it in Maureen's bag and what the plan was for that.  But 5 minutes later when he got into Marsha's meeting, they informed him of Maureen's donation and somehow it totally forgot everything I told him and decided he would run it over today.  So where both groups told him a bag, there was two extra bags of tomatoes in there I've been talking about for two weeks now.  Did he think those were Maureen's too or did realize people were saying a bag as in one.  I'll see tomorrow.

Yeah, that was long winded but as soon as Marsha told me, I went, fuck.  I deal with David, Kevin and a whole other handful of people like that everyday.     I keep my guard up.  In this case, Tom has the big tomatoes home with him, Kristine has the pears and I have the cantaloupe.  The cherry tomatoes were just extras.

Busy day tomorrow but I'm planning on smooth sailing, look how wrong you can be.