Victory Garden

Posted by bronson Thu, 01 Jun 2006 03:03:00 GMT

5 May:

A useless dirt patch

There’s a nasty dirt patch in front of our place and I’ve been complaining about the lack of quality produce on the east coast. Whatever can be done?

Amazingly, the landlord gave us permission to do a little planting. Cassie and I went out and bought gardening stuff: seeds, shovels, and 40 lbs of cow manure. At 5¢/lb, manure must be one of the cheapest and most complex substances on the planet.

Because it’s icy cold in March, the garden started inside. We took an old Trader Joe’s egg carton, drove a hole in the bottom of each egg cup with a screwdriver, and suspended it with twine. Then we added a bit of potting soil, dropped a seed or two into each cup, and left it in front of a sunny window.

Thriving little plants.

We kept the soil moist and look what we got! It’s really satisfying.

When my dad visited we stuffed these little guys into the ground. It’s a good thing he was here. Cassie and I would have taken all day immaculately laying out our wide rows. Plants don’t care – just chuck them down.

The biggest problem we needed to solve was how to water our plants. The building no longer has a water faucet on the outside (apparently landlord books say that water usage is the best way to figure out how many people are living there). It’s too much water to move with buckets.

Water problem solved.

Now water flows from the T-junction under the sink, into the hose, through the living room, and out the 2nd floor window. living across from a hardware store has its benefits. I had to get the nonstandard adapter that connects the small sink/toilet flare to the big garden hose nozzle from Republic but everything else came from crappy Economy.

I did have one difficulty. It turns out the most common valves don’t work in reverse. Unfortunately, there’s no avoiding this with the adapter I got. 1/4 turn valves work but even they seem to leak a little. It’s easy enough to just relieve the pressure in the hose every few days.

Water, dirt, seeds. That should be everything. Come on, little plants, grow!