Gardens Well

Let me give you a brief physics lesson. F=d/dt*(mv).

No one really knows what that means, and certainly no one cares, except maybe Sir Newton.

Now, back to the garden.

For some time, we have been following the watering schedule of famed gardener E. Gordon Wells Jr. Last night, Dave pointed out that the name "Gordon Wells" sounds a lot like "gardens well". We're just saying... you can deduce the rest.

To be honest, Gordon has influenced much about our parking lot garden. After discovering his book, we have learned a number of things about roots, pollination, and irrigation, among other topics.

This past week, we decided to give Mr. Wells a call. Our goal was to have him grace our presence at a garden-side discussion.

After drawing pea pods, Tyler's had the fewest peas, and he was relegated to make the call. It's not very often he gets to talk to a superstar like that. Let me just say that it was a daunting task for him. For half an hour, he listened to "The Eye of the Tiger", "You Raise Me Up", and "The Safety Dance" (beats me) until he was sufficiently confident to make the call. I hadn't seen him this nervous since the last time he talked to a girl (fortunately, she was deaf, and couldn't hear him anyways).

The conversation started out well:

"Hello, Mr. Wells?" (voice cracks)

"Yes... can you hold on a second, my wife is killing my plants"

The rest is history. Over the next half hour, Tyler learned three important things from Gordon:

1. They are related.

2. Mr. Wells is very busy.

3. There are at least 27 varieties of tomatoes, because that is how many Gordon is currently growing.

Rather than forcing Gordy to speak at our garden, we decided to let him do what he does best: garden. Any further attempt at acquiring some of his scarce time will have to be through some type of barter.

As it turns out, Tyler and Gordon are related through the niece of Sir Isaac. Gordon's history stops there. Tyler's continues. We're hoping that this research can be used as leverage with Mr. Wells. Now who will be dangling a carrot over who? (yet to be determined, because I think Gordon uses Miracle Gro on his carrots).

To be continued...

P.S. we forgot to water our garden, and it died.

O Glorious Peas!

A picture is worth a thousand words... but this one is worth 37 cents on eBay.

No, really: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=140420762942#ht_500wt_1154

For those who don't know how to shell (I prefer the term shuck) peas, this is one of the better instructional videos I've seen. Note the wrist turn at 0:03. It's good form. Darn good.

Dave says:

Peas to your mother.

Caught on Tape

I'm not exactly sure what to make of this video. At first, I thought we captured some type of garden vandalism. This wouldn't be the first time (see May 30 post). After closer inspection, it appears that the perpetrator may have done the damage inadvertently. After even closer inspection, and with the help of McGruff the Crime Dog, we discovered that the perpetrator looks a lot like Jordan. We decided to let this case slide.

Swag

Recently, we have been the benefactors of some serious swag in the garden. For those of you unfamiliar with the term 'swag', it means "stuff we all get".

Now, I should probably re-title this post. 'Swag' is not the proper term. It would more correctly be titled "Swawwg", a common acronym for "stuff we all wish we got". In reality, we have been 'hooked up', as the youngsters say, and our garden has become somewhat of a collectors plot for unusual, yet overlooked treasures.

Take the totem pole for example.

Hand-carved to perfection, this indian treasure popped up behind our garden a couple days ago. It stands about 5 feet tall, and has a wingspan of 4 feet, three inches. Impressive for the Polesky Bird (genus Totemna), which typically matures with a wingspan of 3 feet.

Just tonight, we were graced with the presence of the contributors: Amy, Haley, and Jackie. Bless their donating-hearts, we look forward to seeing more of their smiling faces.

Additionally, the garden was recently bestowed with a life-like memorial of the Vietnam War.

If that was it, we would be satisfied, but on Saturday, we walked outside and saw this (feast your eyes on this tasty treat):

It is our very own parking lot garden guard. We haven't worked out renumeration just yet, but I think he will do most of the dirty work for free. It's the weeding we'll have to pay him for.

As for the garden, we claim no success of our own so far. Thank you to all who have contributed - signs, seedlings, and standing guards, to name a few. We can't do it without you.

Signs of Success

First of all, let me just say that our garden is on fire (I'll post pictures after the flames go out).

Over the past week, just about everything has blossomed: strawberries, tomatoes, my love for my roommate's sister, and peas.

Additionally, without our prior discovery,

not only are our peas blossoming, but we have pods!

Even more exciting than the pods (almost), we finally commissioned some artists to paint our signs. Jordan painted the yellow one, his associate, Rachael, the purple one.

If you ask me, they were worth every penny... both of them (the pennies, not the artists).

Jill, our neighbor, contributed this marvelous sign, which came straight from Road 11 WA. She makes me happy. Jill, that is.

It came as somewhat of a surprise, but within a few hours of posting the sign, we received a notice from the city council stating that we were required to register with the department of agriculture and apply for a rezoning of the area. We'll have to talk to the property managers about this, but we'll start on the paperwork.

Sticks and Stones

If you are a person: Sticks and stones will break your bones, but words will never hurt you. If you are a plant: Hail-stones will break your stems, but sticks will save your grass.

On Friday, we received an alert from the National Weather Service on our direct line (thanks Kyle). Our Morse Code skills were a bit rusty, and we struggled at first to decode the message. We caught something about Mother Carey's Chickens, and after some deciphering, realized that a hail storm was in the forecast. Tyler immediately forwarded the message via Morse Code to Jordan, alerting him of the impending danger. After two hours of deciphering, Jordan noticed hail coming down outside, and rushed out to cover the plants. By taking quick action, and after reducing a neighborhood tree to nothing but sticks, Jordan was able to save our garden.

This was the final product. As you can see, the plants were safely huddled under the canopy.

It may have been my imagination, but I could've sworn I heard a round of "Kumbaya" coming from under the canopy.

Impressed by the excellent knot-tying and precision stick-planting of Jordan, Dave and Tyler appointed him to work on the peas, which have recently overtaken the neighboring lettuce.

Through a series of hooks and ladders, chutes and strings, and widdles and doddles, he has given new life to the lettuce, and contained the burgeoning peas.

Most importantly, we have avoided a tragedy, and our garden now looks more like a South American rain forest than a parking lot garden. By surviving the storm (which probably wouldn't have hurt anything anyways), we have preserved our blossoming plants and paved the way for a plentiful harvest.

Here is the most recent aerial view of our tropical forest.

The Other Guys

Now this blog would be incomplete without a shout out to the "other guys". I'm not talking about Canadians, I'm talking about my neighbors, who began a garden soon after us.

Bless their hearts, they saw our gardening joy and wanted the same. They worked diligently to clear an area on the side of their house, and carefully planted their flowers and plants.

From day 1 they were faced with 3 serious challenges:

1. Stumps

2. Minimal sunlight

3. Lack of Mustached Garden Pirates

These are nearly unsurmountable challenges, but they plowed ahead nonetheless. Sadly, though overcoming the first two roadblocks, it was the third that delivered the fatal blow. Sure enough, within a few days of planting, every tomato and pepper planted were eaten by the deer. It was the same deer, in fact, that attacked our garden before the Pirate held them off.

Yes, that is right, it was a deer that ate our plants. Thank you to all that voted. It seems we received more votes than a county primary election (14 in all). Although we initially thought that McGruff the Crime Dog had something to do with it, he has since been exonerated, and we actually hired him to unravel the case. For your information, we have included his report below :

"It was 3:23 A.M on May 22, 2010. A cool breeze picked up, and the scent of fresh plants pricked the nose of a passing deer. A doe, experienced in life and hardened in crime was the culprit this fine spring morning. At first, she eyed carefully the newly planted garden (our neighbors), and without any resistance, did it in. Then, as though setting her eyes on the Holy Grail of Gardens, she snorted softly, and stared lustfully at the motherload - a truck-bed liner, set in a manufactured backdrop of cars and buildings. The veteran criminal hesitated briefly at the sight of the pirate's mustache, but approached the parking lot garden with full criminal intent.

Within moments, the Early Girl Tomato and Zucchini were maimed and dying. The Chile and Green Peppers were injured, as was the Roma. A skirmish ensued, and the mustache... er, pirate emerged victorious." (McGruff & Co, Case 14251B, Section 14.1)

That was the report. Sounds fairly legitimate to me, but what do I know? I still think it was pretty thorough for only 27 dollars.

The deer has since been reported for two other infractions, and was recently featured on America's Most Wanted: America Fights Back (no leads yet, but cross your fingers).

We initially thought ants were at fault, and laid down a hefty load of ant poison donated by my grandpa (see picture). That took care of any ants, who had taken a few bites of our spinach, and gave Jordan a stomach ache when he forgot to wash his hands before eating some jelly beans. It is a small price to pay for security.

In the end, we are happy our garden survived the encounter, and in truth, our heart goes out to the "other guys". All I can say is: better luck next year, other guys.

One for Us, One for Them

For many, the dreams of harvesting from their own garden are just that... a dream. For us, that dream came true this week (I'm still waiting to see if the one about the talking corn ears comes true. We'll keep you posted).

As it turns out, the old saying is correct: you reap what you sow (well, with the exception of the asparagus, which just popped up overnight, but we all know how that turned out).

This week we reaped our first batch of salad.

This is Tyler, harvesting the lettuce. He looks pretty darn excited.

This instructional video is included to showcase exactly how to harvest spinach, in case you were wondering.

This was the first of about 10 salads that we had this week. Others were decorated with non-parking-lot-garden vegetables, but we can't show you those due to copyright infringement laws.

Now if you're wondering about the title, let me explain.

Like every citizen of this great nation, we like to give back. However, we don't appreciate it when the giving back is done under duress or without permission.

This week we discovered that something is eating our plants (please participate in the poll on the top right of the blog to help us figure out what it is). In one night, we lost a tomato and the zucchini to something. We went out for the daily check-up and all the leaves were gone. The zucchini is coming back, but the tomato may be gone for good.

While we don't mind sharing, we believe that those who partake should also offer to work in the garden, which is why we are conscripting every rabbit, deer, mouse, cat and critter we find until we know who the culprit is.

SNOW!

Woke up to this.

Ideal for Memorial Day skiing.

Not ideal for Memorial Day parking lot gardening.