Lobby Stalker Wish List

In my apartment building, the first floor is community space and we've got about 20 people who don't want to be alone during the day.

For years, these people who hang out in our front lobby, but the space  got really uncomfortable. They would stare people down, or closely monitor when people came and went and talk about it, or talk about guests who came. Rumors would begin and spread in the lobby. A popular repeat rumor was that the water in the building is "poison." In the four years I've lived here, that came around 3 times with people getting really upset about it.

Dennis follows the vending machine guy and stands right next to him to watch him fill the machines. He learned the guy's schedule and would wait for him in the lobby. When the guy changed his schedule, other Lobby Stalkers would call Dennis' apartment to tell him to come see the vending machine guy fill the machine.

George volunteers to man the package closet. When the mailman comes and has packages bigger than our mailbox, he gives them to George with a log, George locks them up, and from 4-5p, George waits for people to come pick up packages. With changes in postal service, George spends all day in the lobby waiting for the mailman. He has some buddies who sit with him. There are a lot of residents who count on the mailboxes being their chance to socialize and mail is really exciting for them. Changes in the schedule meant more people would wait for the mailman. When he comes, he goes into a room behind the mailboxes to fill them. Someone figured out that if they opened the door to their mailbox and sit, they could see whether the mailman had gotten to their box yet. 

This trend spread so now, twenty or thirty mailboxes are open and people are sitting in chairs across the room watching. But they don't just watch. They comment on when he's done sorting the junk mail (goes in first) and the contents of the junk mail. Eventually, someone will go grab the junk mail from an open door to see what it is, announce it to the room, and put it back. 

"He's on the 4th floor." 

"Oh! He put a package slip in 515! Who lives there? They're getting a package!"

"He's not done yet. He's hasn't been here yet" to anyone who walks in the room.

The mailman can hear all of this. Sometimes people would talk to him through the open doors. It made the mailman absolutely insane. He's surly. He hates it if anyone approaches him when he's outside at his truck.

After a resident survey of things that we'd like fixed up (like the elevators that break down constantly, cleaning the hallways better), the comfy chairs in the lobby were removed and a sign was put up limiting the number of people waiting there to people waiting for deliveries or rides only.

Where to go? What to do? There is no way to get these people to stay in their apartments and they don't want to be alone. More than half of the first floor is a community room with a pool table, TV, a few different suites of comfy furniture, a kitchen, lots of tables and chairs. A lobby stalker brought her coffee maker to the community room and her gal pals would sit there are have coffee instead of in someone's tiny apartment. Someone brought cookies. The office gave the Lobby Stalkers the key to the kitchen so they could use the BIG coffee maker and donated the first can of coffee. They are off and running.

The Lobby Stalkers sit in the community room now. They can't see the front door, so they don't stare down people like they did. There are still teams/gangs/factions of people amongst the stalkers and they sit together in the community room in bunches, but they surround the coffee pot. There's an unspoken schedule of people as they rotate in and out. In the morning, someone brings a newspaper and it's divided up to be read. People take turns bringing treats. The gangs have planned card games, trips to the mall, a baby shower for the gal in the office. It's great.

Outside the community room is "the sharing table." I don't know how it started, but anything on that table is free to anyone. Something someone got from the food shelf they don't want. Maybe someone is moving and they have stuff to let loose. Anything (except clothes, the office does NOT want clothes around).

Last year, as I'd harvest the garden and have more than I could use, I'd leave it on the sharing table. The lobby stalkers have first dibs since they are 10 feet away, but they also keep cell phones handy to call neighbors to alert them of free stuff. I became very popular with my garden stuff. If I had something unusual (like yellow cherry tomatoes), I'd bring them in to the Lobby Stalkers to try so they could testify that there was nothing wrong with them. I got folks to eat Chinese cucumber and long beans, yellow cherry tomatoes and pear tomatoes, different herbs and squash.

I just made a visit. I asked them what vegetables and herbs they would like. Since I always have so much extra, I could make sure to plant things they like. There were votes for the same things I've grown before. They'd also like potatoes, sweet corn and radishes. I've never grown potatoes and we're in the middle of Minnesota - lots of corn fields around here. I'll do radishes (EASY!)

It helps to guide me about planting since I really haven't had a plan. It gives all of us something to talk about. I imagine some might help me out in the garden. It will give me a reason to set a schedule for myself when it comes to harvesting - I can get pretty lazy if it's veg just for me. success

Now I'm back to read up on starting seeds and companion planting. I'm off to buy some more seeds this week when I buy a grow lamp for the greenhouse. It gives me something to do.

Perfect Weather

Look at that forecast! Ten days of my favorite kind of summer weather!

I've been kind of quiet because, well, there isn't much to say. It rained a lot. We had at least 7 inches of rain in a 10 day period. It was too mucky to be in the garden and it didn't need to be watered.

When I put straw on the garden, it didn't go the way I'd hoped it would, but it's a lesson learned. I took the straw off of everything and I lost a few peppers.

I broke down and bought chicken wire to replace the floppy plastic fencing I was using. I thought I bought a roll 5 feet tall and 150 feet long. I took down all of the fence I had and hung overlapping sections of chicken wire. My plot is 60'x11'. After hanging all of the fence, I can barely tell I've taken any off of the roll. It's still to heavy to lift and carry. At least one neighbor is going to buy some from me. I told her I would sell her 15' for $1. She's got a long, outside plot like I do. I think others might be interested and I can get rid of most of what's left  and make back some of my money.

The brussel sprouts that I broadcast are doing well. Yesterday, I weeded the bed and spaced the plants more evenly.  Today, they are standing straight and it seems like they've grown a bit overnight. I'm really happy with them.

The rhubarb has kicked off. The carrots have begun to show themselves and I have planted two more rows. I have seeds enough to plant again later this sumer. The peas are finally coming up, and now they'll have a sturdy fence to grow on instead of being tugged on by the plastic fence in the wind. The tomatoes I bought are growing from their original awesome condition, and the tomatoes I started from seeds are really, truly growing!! I haven't killed them! And there are lots of them! If they all grow the 7 feet tall as the others have in the last few years, my tomato-house-arbor-thingy will really serve good purpose.

4 O'Clocks from Burpee

Now that I have so much more and sturdier fence space, I decided to take advantage of it. I've planted more peas. I've planted a whole packet of long beans. 4-O'Clocks are the evening version of Morning Glories - the open in the evening and stay open until daylight. They are trumpet-shaped flowers and should draw hummingbirds and  honeybees. Instead of a climbing vine, they are bushy and may grow to 30" tall. I've put them along the fence line on the southeast corner and I plan on adding more sunflowers in that corner. The flowers will do well in the sun, and the brussel sprouts and other cooler-loving veg might be better off because of the shade.

The lettuce I planted from seed survived the rain. I bought some more greens to put in the bed with them. I accidentally bought swiss chard - two kinds. I put all of it in last night. The 3" pots that I bought had 12+ seedlings in them, so I'm going to have a nice carpet of greens. I have more lettuce and greens seeds that I hope to cycle through for the rest of the summer. I don't know if that actually works in the hotter weather, but I'm going to try.

I do have some pretty big spaces that are un-planted and covered with straw. It will keep the straw there for now and keep out the weeds. I want to keep some ground-space aside for the butternut squash I've got going. Having enough room for them has been a big problem for the last 2 years.

I had to move the bird feeder. It hung over the work space I made for myself under the tomato-house-arbor-thingy and earlier this week, I stepped inside to a soft, bouncy carpet of sunflower sprouts. The mass of them was solid and about 6" deep. It's easy enough to kill off the sunflowers there, but the seeds have continued to spread all over my garden and the one next to me. The bird seed I bought this year is the problem, and I bought 35 pounds of it! I've filled the two big feeders with the trouble seeds and hung them on the tree near my plot. I bought some of the same seed that I bought last year and put that in a smaller feeder last night. It was nearly empty today. I will move it into the tomato-house-thingy tomorrow so all of the "good" seeds are in the garden and the big feeders can empty or spill without messing up the garden.

I can say I am really satisfied and pleased with the garden right now. It looks like it's going to be very successful, and I think it's going to be pretty too. It still hasn't been worth it to take pictures - everything is still small and they don't show well in pictures, but with this week's weather, things should be aces by next Sunday.

My hands and feet are covered with little cuts and scratches from the chicken wire, I have my first bug bite on my face, the mani/pedi I got last week is doing wonders for keeping my nails from looking gnarly and stained from all of the digging, and my hands have been swollen and sore for the last few nights because they haven't done any real hard work in years.

2011 Recap

Last summer I decided to plant Russian Mammoth Sunflowers. I'd read up on them and was excited to see if I could get close to the 10 foot goal. When the stalks were about 5 feet tall, they started to bloom (very early) and accelerated seed production. When trees do this, it means they are under stress and they're going to try to drop seeds before they die. These sunflowers were on the back border of my garden plot. When I checked them, I saw that all of the leaves on one side of the stalk had been cut off. Long story short, my garden neighbor, Alexi, cut them off without telling me. When I discovered it, Valentina (Alexi's wife) was in the garden and I was really mad and asked her what happened. When I saw Alexi, we went through several stages: he was mad that I upset his wife and got up in my face about it, he would never apologize (Jesus died to forgive all of his sins), and he mocked me. The idea that I was upset with him because of what he did versus the value of the damaged plants didn't seem to sink in.

When my sunflowers continued to die off because and there was so much anamosity going on with Alexi, the garden wasn't a pleasure. The blog was put together so my sister's kids could watch the plants grow since they didn't have a garden at home. The special focus was to be the line of sunflowers at the back of the garden, and when they withered and died, I lost heart.

My peppers never grew taller than about 14 inches, but by the end of the summer, I had full sized peppers that touched the ground. Most of my neighbors didn't get any fruit from their peppers.

My tomatoes got to be six to seven feet tall/long. Cherry, grape, and pear tomatoes did great. I was giving them away. Full size tomatoes in our part of the country were really bad. They took a long time to grow and were full size by September, but never turned red. In our community garden with just shy of 1000 tomato plants, folks were pretty devastated.
My sweet peas barely produced. The Asian long beans only produced 4 beans. Brussels sprouts were strange. One plant developed a stalk that was 6 inches across and didn't get very tall. The other got about 3 feet tall, but since the season had such a slow start, it didn't have a chance to produce like it could have. Edamame was very successful. I'd never grown them before and planted them too close to each other. Then ended up flattening out the plants on the sides so all could get sun. My butternut squash did great again. My herbs (lavender, mint, cat mint, sage, rosemary, chives) did really well. Flowers were a bust until late in the season.
It was such a strange year weather-wise that overall, I think the garden was successful, but not all at the same time.

Lovely, lovely weather

FINALLY the weather has turned to summer in Minnesota! No tornado warnings every three days. No 50F nights. It's been in the 80F's several days in a row and the garden is loving it. I always watered every night, but it's crucial these days. Crucial, but with good results.

The sunflowers are nearly 6 feet tall. One tomato plant is over 4 feet tall and the rest are catching up, even the tomato ball.  There is fruit on almost every tomato plant, but nothing to harvest yet. Peas are more than knee high. My Asian long bean plant is up to about 6 feet. Squashes are blooming nicely and starting to crawl. The peppers are still really short, but one pepper plant - less than 1 foot tall has 1 pepper on it that is 5 inches long and of good size. They maybe short, but willful. I'll focus on giving them plant food the next week or so.

All well and good. Alexi/Valentina asked me to take down the wild bird feeder. It's hard to get exact meaning but either it happened or they worried it would happen - the wild birds would/might/did eat Valentina's strawberries and may destroy all of our tomatoes. I think this is  a worry more than a fact.

I didn't see any fruit-eaters at the feeder and strawberries in unestablished gardens have not done well here at all. The birds are everywhere and can't be helped, they just don't want me to encourage them to come to the garden.

I've kept the thistle sock feeder though. Goldfinch and other thistle-eaters do not eat tomatoes. It's "fallen down" once, but I suspect Valentina knocked it down. She's lovely, but when Alexi asked me to take down the feeder, Valentina was literally at his elbow whispering in Ukrainian as though she was telling him what to say. When I left the sock feeder, she whispered to him again, he asked if it was a feeder and I said yes. She tsk'd me. It's back up in such a way it can't be blown or knocked down without effort. I have no ill will towards Valentina, I just think she's nervous for no reason.

I've been quiet and not in the garden much lately - nothing beyond the requisite. I hurt myself and I've been laying low.

More soon.  Happy Summer!

Perfect Timing [updated]

There isn't much to do in the garden until the volunteer plants are big enough to identify. I got squirrly and went to the Mpls. Farmer's Market and stopped by Pflam's booth. They had pickling cucumbers I was looking for. I also picked up two more pepper plants - these are early bearing. Pflaum's only had yellow beans so I searched elsewhere. I bought an "asparagus bean" seedling (aka Asian longbean).

When I got home, I planted the stuff just as it was beginning to rain. The thunder rolled in and I finished just in time. Now we've had a nice downfall. Rain for another day or two so I don't have to water anything.

I'm on the couch with my favorite blanket. Chilly but not cold - just right. Cozy.

[Update:]
The storm passed quickly and blue sky followed. I took a sun nap. The sun is setting with wispy high clouds showing gaudy orange, pink, purple and blue. I could go outside to work on my latest construction project, but I'm not gonna. xoxo