Today, June 2, was the first work bee of the season at the Community Garden. Where I have a plot, so that hopefully I'll have actual pumpkins this year.
Some people have been planting already on account of the bizarrely warm weather (Yellowknife was the hot spot for Canada earlier this week - WTF?), but I was either too busy, too something else, or too demotivated even to go check it out. Nonetheless, since everyone was encouraged to attend the work bee, I had marked it on my calendar a long time ago. And when something is written on my calendar, I do it. If I say I will, I'm probably just lying to make you go away. If I write it on my calendar, I have to do it. For some reason, I have great difficulty disobeying written instructions. Anyway.
The work bee was scheduled for 9 AM, so I was right on time, partly because I like to be on time, and partly because there was a specific job I wanted: painting numbers on the raised beds. Seemed relaxing. And sure enough, right at 9 o'clock, no one had volunteered for that yet. And no one had brought the right tools, either, so I had to go home and get mine, including the right shape of brush, a sanding block, and 60-grit paper. Because the beds are made of pretty well weathered wood, and you can't just paint over that.
All right then. I set to work. There are 38 beds, therefore I have to sit down on the ground and get up again 38 times. One woman commented that she was glad she didn't have that job, because if she had to sit on the ground she'd never get up again. Another one thought it must be terribly tiring because of the sanding, which of course, requires a certain amount of energy to be successful. So albeit I just sat in the dirt painting numbers, everyone seemed to think I had drawn the toughest job there, and so one person kindly pulled the dandelions from my plot, which given my enduring good fortune, was of course the one with the most weeds in the entire garden.
Meanwhile, everyone else was supposed to be doing... work-like things, particularly weeding the paths and adding cedar mulch. But then the Local Gardening Expert arrived. Now let me say that I have no knowledge whatever of her gardening achievements, and she may well be some kind of gardening guru. But the thing is, you can't have two people who know everything in the same talking space, therefore I don't spend time with her. Also, I already know 97% of everything, and the remaining 3% I can find out faster and more in-depth from Google than from listening to a Local Expert. So I kept on painting numbers, and one guy kept on weeding, and pretty much everyone else went to listen to the Local Gardening Expert. Then they gardened, and when she left, so did they.
Hey, what the? What about the weeding and the mulching and everything? Come back here, you slackers!
Dang it. They didn't even weed half the weeds. And they didn't even start on the cedar mulch. Some people...
Anyway. Once I got done painting all the numbers (and my name on my own bed, of course), I started preparing my plot.
Ok.
So.
First, weed. Because the woman did kindly pull the dandelions, but she left the other weeds because she can't bend down easily. So, weed. I was hoping to use one of those awesome stirrup-shaped root-cutting tools that was lying around; unfortunately, it had gone home when its owner did. Boohoohoo... I personally own no weeding tools, because I've never needed them. Yet.
Oh well then. I'll dig by hand, like my Neolithic ancestors. Or so I thought. But then I remembered that my Neolithic ancestors used antlers for digging, so I'm about 12,000 years behind times in my gardening technology. How sad.
The good thing though, is that after a massive amount of snow through the winter, we've had a horribly dry spring. Which isn't exactly "good" but has the very magical effect that everything is turning green without any rain at all, thanks to the moisture still held in the ground. But ground that has no plant cover, such as a raised vegetable bed, is pretty much just dust right now. And that was handy in that even some pretty fat taproots simply pulled right up, as long as you put your hand in the ground and pull the root, not the leaves. So, weeding went really quite well, if I may say so myself. Though I started to wonder why people had been telling each other to "just cut them with a knife." What? I'm pretty sure that if you cut weeds at the surface with a knife, they just come right back. And I do know 97% of everything. But oh well.
Two, cultivate. There were bags of manure donated by one of the hardware stores, which was very nice of them, except we were allowed one per bed, and mine could have used six or eight. But I didn't have that kind of money, and I'm supposed you don't look a gift horse in the... wait, let's not go there. But I pride myself on playing by the rules, so, one bag. I dumped my one bag of manure, and then turned the soil over with a big fork, until it was all, hopefully, well aerated. Given how dry it is, that wasn't too hard.
Three, water. Water is donated by the town and there is a very long hose and a pump, though I haven't determined how it gets its energy. And since so many people were there (not the ones from the work bee, who were mostly gone by then, but the ones who showed up fashionably after the bee), there was some waiting for the hose. And I didn't like how they were watering, because first they had one of those fancy nozzles that breaks up the water into various patterns like "shower", "jet", "mist" etc. Very cute, but it's a big waste of water. The more you break it up, the more surface area it has; the more surface area it has, the more it evaporates; the more it evaporates, the more you have to use. So just water straight from the hose. And second, they were barely using any water. Now granted, when 40 people have to share trucked water on a hot weekend, it makes sense to use it sparingly, but it's not much good putting a tiny bit of water on dust-dry dirt. And besides, if you're trying to save water, take that nozzle thing off and water straight from the hose.
But what do I know, right? I mean, other than 97% of everything. So when it was my turn with the hose, I took off the nozzle and watered as much as I dared. Somebody else was waiting, so I couldn't just leave the hose there for the afternoon, but I was hoping to get water at least as deep as I was going to plant. Which, as it turns out, I failed.
Four, mulch. Someone had brought in a big bag of grass clippings, which I had immediately claimed. There are some disadvantages to grass mulch, which the Local Gardening Expert explained and I didn't listen, but there are some advantages in that it contains lots of water, and in a drought, I think that will help me retain moisture. Unfortunately, it had been sitting for some time, and the grass was fermenting and quite smelly, not to mention really hot. But as I didn't have any other, I used it anyway. I covered my entire bed with grass mulch until none of the soil was showing. It's at least an inch thick, two in some places. And did I mention, none of the soil was showing? I thought that was the point of mulch. That way it keeps heat and moisture in the ground and, hopefully, weeds too. But meanwhile, most people used no mulch at all, and those who did used some very dry hay that was available at the site, and laid it on so thinly that you could see everything that was underneath. Um... What? How is that going to control heat, moisture and weeds?
I was getting aggravated. All these people listened to the Local Gardening Expert and then cut their weeds at the surface, used hardly any water, and threw on a very thin sprinkling of hay. I, who know 97% of everything, cut my weeds way down the roots, watered heavily, and mulched heavily with fresh grass clippings. And we can't both be right. But if I'm wrong, then why does my flower garden look so good?
It's bugging me.
Anyway, once my plot was weeded, fertilised, cultivated, watered and mulched, I had to plant it. So I went home to fetch my seedlings, only to discover that the landlord had broken the second elevator. Whenever the landlord is in town, he breaks at least one elevator. This time, the first one had crapped out early in the week, if not last weekend. The second one had broken down once on Thursday, but been reset by the Fire Department. The landlord got in on Thursday or Friday, did nothing about the elevator, and got his army of badly paid, under-the-table, no insurance, no training, casual-labour goons running all over the building, as usual, and sure enough, today he broke the one remaining elevator. So now we have no elevators at all, and it's an emergency call-out for Blair the Elevator Mechanic, who has to come from Yellowknife. So he'll be here tomorrow at a considerably higher cost than had we scheduled him to come in on Friday, or better yet, not broken the elevators in the first place. And what's more annoying is, this isn't the first time. One time there was one elevator down for nearly three weeks, and the other one acted up for a week before it quit, and yet nothing was done until we were without elevators for the weekend and Blair the Elevator Mechanic had to come on an emergency call-out. And now the Fire Department is very unhappy because if they get a call while we have no elevators, they'll have to walk up and somehow try to get hypothetical victims down the stairs (where some of the lights are burnt out, I might add). And of course the RCMP aren't gonna be running up and down the building babysitting rowdies if they have to use the stairs. Though as to that, it's very quiet in here tonight, so maybe the rowdies decided to go party somewhere they don't have to walk up. But I digress.
My seedlings included pumpkins (Baby Pam - I slew the Atlantic Giant because it was taking up too much space), onions (Red Zeppelin - I had to buy them because of the name), cauliflower (Orbit, because it's too cool not to) and Brussels sprouts (Jade Cross). I hauled them back to the garden and dug holes through the mulch to plant them, and then firmed the ground and closed up the mulch around the plants again. They looked happy enough, though indeed the water didn't go more than four inches down in the best places, which is sad. Also, there wasn't room for all my seedlings. I planted almost all the pumpkins and all the Brussels sprouts, half of the onions, and less than half of the cauliflower, of which there weren't many to begin with. I hope I get one head of cauliflower, because I really want to taste this variety. If it's good, maybe I'll get two plots next year and grow more crazy cauliflowers.
Also, I had peas, but I hadn't started them because they're fast-growing. I just poked holes in the ground with a dowel, hopefully to a more or less suitable depth, dropped one or two peas in each, and closed them over. Now of course the mulch might prevent the peas from coming up, since it's supposed to prevent things emerging from the ground. That's among the 3% of things I don't know yet. Time will tell.
After that, I watered again, more than the first time. Because you always water in when you transplant, obviously, and because I hadn't watered enough the first time, also obviously. Also because there was hardly anyone left by then and the water tank looked about half full still, and because I wanted to cool and saturate my mulch. I'll go back tomorrow and give it another soaking.
Now my plot looks totally unlike anyone else's. In fact, it looks terribly messy, because it's covered in grass clippings. So I better be getting a kick-ass crop of everything, otherwise I'll look like I should have listened to the Local Gardening Expert, which is the last thing I want to do.
Still, it's hideously dry out, and it's also June 2, that is, 22 days before the average date of last frost. So anything that can keep my plot warm and wet has got to be a good thing. If we get a frost, with how dry and bare those other plots are, I think their plants are gonna be really sorry they're not mulched.
Inshallah, right?
Some people have been planting already on account of the bizarrely warm weather (Yellowknife was the hot spot for Canada earlier this week - WTF?), but I was either too busy, too something else, or too demotivated even to go check it out. Nonetheless, since everyone was encouraged to attend the work bee, I had marked it on my calendar a long time ago. And when something is written on my calendar, I do it. If I say I will, I'm probably just lying to make you go away. If I write it on my calendar, I have to do it. For some reason, I have great difficulty disobeying written instructions. Anyway.
The work bee was scheduled for 9 AM, so I was right on time, partly because I like to be on time, and partly because there was a specific job I wanted: painting numbers on the raised beds. Seemed relaxing. And sure enough, right at 9 o'clock, no one had volunteered for that yet. And no one had brought the right tools, either, so I had to go home and get mine, including the right shape of brush, a sanding block, and 60-grit paper. Because the beds are made of pretty well weathered wood, and you can't just paint over that.
All right then. I set to work. There are 38 beds, therefore I have to sit down on the ground and get up again 38 times. One woman commented that she was glad she didn't have that job, because if she had to sit on the ground she'd never get up again. Another one thought it must be terribly tiring because of the sanding, which of course, requires a certain amount of energy to be successful. So albeit I just sat in the dirt painting numbers, everyone seemed to think I had drawn the toughest job there, and so one person kindly pulled the dandelions from my plot, which given my enduring good fortune, was of course the one with the most weeds in the entire garden.
Meanwhile, everyone else was supposed to be doing... work-like things, particularly weeding the paths and adding cedar mulch. But then the Local Gardening Expert arrived. Now let me say that I have no knowledge whatever of her gardening achievements, and she may well be some kind of gardening guru. But the thing is, you can't have two people who know everything in the same talking space, therefore I don't spend time with her. Also, I already know 97% of everything, and the remaining 3% I can find out faster and more in-depth from Google than from listening to a Local Expert. So I kept on painting numbers, and one guy kept on weeding, and pretty much everyone else went to listen to the Local Gardening Expert. Then they gardened, and when she left, so did they.
Hey, what the? What about the weeding and the mulching and everything? Come back here, you slackers!
Dang it. They didn't even weed half the weeds. And they didn't even start on the cedar mulch. Some people...
Anyway. Once I got done painting all the numbers (and my name on my own bed, of course), I started preparing my plot.
Ok.
So.
First, weed. Because the woman did kindly pull the dandelions, but she left the other weeds because she can't bend down easily. So, weed. I was hoping to use one of those awesome stirrup-shaped root-cutting tools that was lying around; unfortunately, it had gone home when its owner did. Boohoohoo... I personally own no weeding tools, because I've never needed them. Yet.
Oh well then. I'll dig by hand, like my Neolithic ancestors. Or so I thought. But then I remembered that my Neolithic ancestors used antlers for digging, so I'm about 12,000 years behind times in my gardening technology. How sad.
The good thing though, is that after a massive amount of snow through the winter, we've had a horribly dry spring. Which isn't exactly "good" but has the very magical effect that everything is turning green without any rain at all, thanks to the moisture still held in the ground. But ground that has no plant cover, such as a raised vegetable bed, is pretty much just dust right now. And that was handy in that even some pretty fat taproots simply pulled right up, as long as you put your hand in the ground and pull the root, not the leaves. So, weeding went really quite well, if I may say so myself. Though I started to wonder why people had been telling each other to "just cut them with a knife." What? I'm pretty sure that if you cut weeds at the surface with a knife, they just come right back. And I do know 97% of everything. But oh well.
Two, cultivate. There were bags of manure donated by one of the hardware stores, which was very nice of them, except we were allowed one per bed, and mine could have used six or eight. But I didn't have that kind of money, and I'm supposed you don't look a gift horse in the... wait, let's not go there. But I pride myself on playing by the rules, so, one bag. I dumped my one bag of manure, and then turned the soil over with a big fork, until it was all, hopefully, well aerated. Given how dry it is, that wasn't too hard.
Three, water. Water is donated by the town and there is a very long hose and a pump, though I haven't determined how it gets its energy. And since so many people were there (not the ones from the work bee, who were mostly gone by then, but the ones who showed up fashionably after the bee), there was some waiting for the hose. And I didn't like how they were watering, because first they had one of those fancy nozzles that breaks up the water into various patterns like "shower", "jet", "mist" etc. Very cute, but it's a big waste of water. The more you break it up, the more surface area it has; the more surface area it has, the more it evaporates; the more it evaporates, the more you have to use. So just water straight from the hose. And second, they were barely using any water. Now granted, when 40 people have to share trucked water on a hot weekend, it makes sense to use it sparingly, but it's not much good putting a tiny bit of water on dust-dry dirt. And besides, if you're trying to save water, take that nozzle thing off and water straight from the hose.
But what do I know, right? I mean, other than 97% of everything. So when it was my turn with the hose, I took off the nozzle and watered as much as I dared. Somebody else was waiting, so I couldn't just leave the hose there for the afternoon, but I was hoping to get water at least as deep as I was going to plant. Which, as it turns out, I failed.
Four, mulch. Someone had brought in a big bag of grass clippings, which I had immediately claimed. There are some disadvantages to grass mulch, which the Local Gardening Expert explained and I didn't listen, but there are some advantages in that it contains lots of water, and in a drought, I think that will help me retain moisture. Unfortunately, it had been sitting for some time, and the grass was fermenting and quite smelly, not to mention really hot. But as I didn't have any other, I used it anyway. I covered my entire bed with grass mulch until none of the soil was showing. It's at least an inch thick, two in some places. And did I mention, none of the soil was showing? I thought that was the point of mulch. That way it keeps heat and moisture in the ground and, hopefully, weeds too. But meanwhile, most people used no mulch at all, and those who did used some very dry hay that was available at the site, and laid it on so thinly that you could see everything that was underneath. Um... What? How is that going to control heat, moisture and weeds?
I was getting aggravated. All these people listened to the Local Gardening Expert and then cut their weeds at the surface, used hardly any water, and threw on a very thin sprinkling of hay. I, who know 97% of everything, cut my weeds way down the roots, watered heavily, and mulched heavily with fresh grass clippings. And we can't both be right. But if I'm wrong, then why does my flower garden look so good?
It's bugging me.
Anyway, once my plot was weeded, fertilised, cultivated, watered and mulched, I had to plant it. So I went home to fetch my seedlings, only to discover that the landlord had broken the second elevator. Whenever the landlord is in town, he breaks at least one elevator. This time, the first one had crapped out early in the week, if not last weekend. The second one had broken down once on Thursday, but been reset by the Fire Department. The landlord got in on Thursday or Friday, did nothing about the elevator, and got his army of badly paid, under-the-table, no insurance, no training, casual-labour goons running all over the building, as usual, and sure enough, today he broke the one remaining elevator. So now we have no elevators at all, and it's an emergency call-out for Blair the Elevator Mechanic, who has to come from Yellowknife. So he'll be here tomorrow at a considerably higher cost than had we scheduled him to come in on Friday, or better yet, not broken the elevators in the first place. And what's more annoying is, this isn't the first time. One time there was one elevator down for nearly three weeks, and the other one acted up for a week before it quit, and yet nothing was done until we were without elevators for the weekend and Blair the Elevator Mechanic had to come on an emergency call-out. And now the Fire Department is very unhappy because if they get a call while we have no elevators, they'll have to walk up and somehow try to get hypothetical victims down the stairs (where some of the lights are burnt out, I might add). And of course the RCMP aren't gonna be running up and down the building babysitting rowdies if they have to use the stairs. Though as to that, it's very quiet in here tonight, so maybe the rowdies decided to go party somewhere they don't have to walk up. But I digress.
My seedlings included pumpkins (Baby Pam - I slew the Atlantic Giant because it was taking up too much space), onions (Red Zeppelin - I had to buy them because of the name), cauliflower (Orbit, because it's too cool not to) and Brussels sprouts (Jade Cross). I hauled them back to the garden and dug holes through the mulch to plant them, and then firmed the ground and closed up the mulch around the plants again. They looked happy enough, though indeed the water didn't go more than four inches down in the best places, which is sad. Also, there wasn't room for all my seedlings. I planted almost all the pumpkins and all the Brussels sprouts, half of the onions, and less than half of the cauliflower, of which there weren't many to begin with. I hope I get one head of cauliflower, because I really want to taste this variety. If it's good, maybe I'll get two plots next year and grow more crazy cauliflowers.
Also, I had peas, but I hadn't started them because they're fast-growing. I just poked holes in the ground with a dowel, hopefully to a more or less suitable depth, dropped one or two peas in each, and closed them over. Now of course the mulch might prevent the peas from coming up, since it's supposed to prevent things emerging from the ground. That's among the 3% of things I don't know yet. Time will tell.
After that, I watered again, more than the first time. Because you always water in when you transplant, obviously, and because I hadn't watered enough the first time, also obviously. Also because there was hardly anyone left by then and the water tank looked about half full still, and because I wanted to cool and saturate my mulch. I'll go back tomorrow and give it another soaking.
Now my plot looks totally unlike anyone else's. In fact, it looks terribly messy, because it's covered in grass clippings. So I better be getting a kick-ass crop of everything, otherwise I'll look like I should have listened to the Local Gardening Expert, which is the last thing I want to do.
Still, it's hideously dry out, and it's also June 2, that is, 22 days before the average date of last frost. So anything that can keep my plot warm and wet has got to be a good thing. If we get a frost, with how dry and bare those other plots are, I think their plants are gonna be really sorry they're not mulched.
Inshallah, right?
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