The garden is growing well now. Here are a few progress shots.
In the back of the picture you can see two giant tomato
plants—one of which will produce “black tomatoes.” A row of green bean plants is
on the right, and a couple of eggplants are in the middle. In the front are four monstrous zucchini
plants and two rows of “peaches and cream” sweet corn trying to get out from under
the zucchini overgrowth.
My friend Jason has come over a few times, helping me to
build the trellis and ward off pests.
For a while the green bean leaves were getting devoured by snails, until
I found about 15 snails hiding under nearby bushes, and I smashed them with
rocks. This was a horrifying scene to one
watching roommate.
“Noo! How could you kill something so slow? Anything that slow is obviously harmless and cute!”
“Their eating my leaves,” I said, and I crushed a small
one.
“No! That was a baby! Sol, go in the house. Right now.” he said, pointing to the
house. We later dubbed the event the “Genocide
of the Snails”. I’ve painted a
garlic-salt solution on the wooden border, and ever since then there has been
no more snail problem. My roommates do poke
fun at me every once in a while for my garden.
We joked around one night about what might happen if we all went mad and
started a no-holds-bar roommate fight-to-the-death. Greg said that the first thing he would do is
be outside wrecking up my garden. “Even
if someone gets me while I’m at it, I’ll know that at least I took out your
garden.”
Watering the garden is a relaxing thing. It adds an element of “slowness” to my
fast-paced mind. I can’t rush
plants. They grow at their own
pace. They live within their limitations
as plants—not doing more than they ought, not going faster than they should. They are humble. I can learn from them.
