The intrigue begins, but I don't know why it's intrigue

Katya, just came to my apartment. She handed me a notebook and asked me if I could read it. It was a list of Ukrainian words next to English words, and a message next to that.

Basically, it said that she wants to apologize for her all the things she did last year. She said she would like to switch plots with me - I would take her full plot and she would take my half plot.

Last year, Katya took a garden plot even though her husband told her not to and said he wouldn't help her. She told me she could get him to do whatever she wants. He didn't help her. There was a bit of martyr play with her husband (a well crafted, pointy tool of hers). Her garden went to crap. As part of the martyr play, she let weeds come in and stopped watering it for a while. She was trying to embarrass him into helping. When he didn't bite, she was left to her own devices, which wasn't much since she doesn't walk well and isn't very strong.She couldn't catch up on the stuff she'd abandoned so she barely got any vegetables from it.

We're supposed to clean out our garden plots in the fall - remove fencing, pull up stakes, and clear out the soil so it can be tilled in the spring. Katya removed the fence, but not much else. There are still stakes there, weeds, and maybe planks or wood she walked on. It looks a mess.

Last year when she was setting up, she said she didn't have all of the things she needed for her plot and some of her things had been stolen. She needed fence. I told her my dad was bringing me some gear. I told her I would share what I didn't need, especially chicken wire. My dad didn't bring any chicken wire, so I bought some mesh fencing for me and gave some to Katya to use, knowing I'd get it back. It was only $20 and I was feeling flush.

I'm the only native English speaker in the garden. I am friendly with the Chinese and I am friendly with the Ukrainian, but there isn't much communication between them. Only the Chinese who learned Russian when they were in Communist schools can speak to the Ukrainians, but it's rare. I know which Chinese speak Russian, but most haven't revealed themselves to the Ukrainians. I'm sure it's a mixture of war memories, Communism, and racism.

Last year, Zhenfang, the woman I was helping to prep for her citzenship, was storming around the garden RAVING. She was yelling in Chinese at Anatoli, my plot neighbor to the north. I found out she thought he'd taken her tomato cages from the garden shed we all share. Anatoli didn't have any cages in his plot, so I tried to calm her down and show her he hadn't done anything.

Shortly after, she blew up again. She found her tomato cages in Katya's plot. When she put them away in the fall, she'd tied strings on them so she knew which were hers. There they were, in Katya's plot. It was crazy. Her ranting and body language conveyed "what do I have to do, mark everything that's mine" and "I guess I can go around taking whatever I want." She was gesturing, consensus building with the other Chinese and started throwing things. I'd never seen her or any of the Chinese folk scream like that.

I went to Katya, she said the cages were hers. With Gao yelling in Chinese behind me (Gao speaks Russian, but wouldn't speak to Katya), I showed Katya the ties that Gao had put on them to show they belonged to her. Katya had dozens of tomato cages. A little martyr play came in. She guessed she would be a good neighbor and give them to Gao, but people were always stealing from her. She wanted me to ask Gao where she got the cage - Gao got them from her daughter who lives near. Katya made a fuss that anyone could have put those ties on there, but she didn't say she'd put them on herself. She gave up the stack of cages. I went back to Gao's plot with her, she used her English words and Chinese gestures and said "Jennifer, Russians BIG. They are BIG." "Bad? Do you mean they are bad?" "Yes! Bad! They are all bad!"

Eventually, Gao believed me, that her cages in Katya's plot was a mistake. Things were HOSTILE in the garden and apartment lobby. I asked them to shake hands and be done with it and forgive.

A couple of days later, Katya wanted to talk about what happened. She told me she did take the cages. She knew they weren't hers. She thought she'd get away with it, but didn't notice the strings. I was blown away. I wouldn't help her anymore.

Since she met me, Katya has told me I need to exercise, that I'm too fat, that I should have a man or I should live with my parents. This was repeated over and over and over. My responses went from polite and gentle to firm to, well, telling her off.

Katya's plot is next to a tree and she'd sit in the shade. When I came home from the Farmer's Market on Saturdays, she'd be waiting. She criticized all the plants I bought whether the quality was bad, she didn't think I needed that particular vegetable (not enough cucumbers, that's why I'm fat), I spent too much money or I drove too far to buy them. She would put plants in my soil that she thought I should have. If I brought any tools or gear to my plot - "How much is this? How much you pay?" Then she'd demand that I take it back to the store. Persistently demand it.

All of this was scolding, dominant commands. I lost it one day and told her I'd had enough. She needed to get away from my plot, stop planting things, stop criticizing, and leave me alone. Martyr play came in," I am old woman, I no speak English good" (yes, she does), "I am not American, I do not understand things" (she's been here 20 years), there was a little crying, then more scolding, then apology, and finally, "maybe I am just person of bad character." "Yes. Maybe you are" and it was done. She left, came back with $10 and said that I hated her because of the fence I'd given her to use and the money was not worth me being mean to her.

When Katya came to my apartment tonight, she said she'd give me the fence. I gave her $10. She said, the fence cost her $20, don't I remember? I asked if she wanted more money. "Yes, it costs $20." I gave her another $10 to be done with it.

Finally, Katya told me that swapping plots had to be a secret. I shouldn't tell the garden president because she  could be "aggressive." She said I need to wait until after Passover. Maybe 10 days from now. She would come back and tell me when it would be OK to let anyone know we'd switched. I shouldn't say anything to anyone until she tells me it's OK.

I don't know what's going on with the secrecy. I really don't trust much of what Katya says, but I have my half plot if all of her plans fall apart. Until then, I'm going to make a new garden plan for the bigger plot. I might go start cleaning up Katya's plot since it's full of plant junk and can't be tilled until it's cleared. It will give me something to do.

Peaceful garden my fanny! It wouldn't be a neighborhood if there wasn't some sniping I suppose.

Rainy Soltice

I checked on things this morning before the rain. The small salad greens are matted to the soil - totally flattened. I'm going to start them (again). I'm not sure it's going to be OK for them until all of this rain stops. My carrots haven't sprouted at all and it's been weeks. I've still got soybean gaps.

Today was an ELL tutoring session with Zhenfang. She brought me seeds that are either coriander or a lettucy-green plant she gave me to try yesterday. I'm going to start these seeds indoors. It will help me figure out what they are, and I hope they'll last better than they might in the muck outside.


Happily, the tomato plants are still making babies. Anatoli is happy and has asked/hinted in his very broken English that he wants some because I have so many plants and they are already bearing fruit. I've also gotten requests for green tomatoes from two non-gardeners, I've promised some to Wyman (lives on my floor) and a new guy in the building named Ron.

The thunderstorm last night brought us more than an inch of rain according to my garden gauge.  It was overcast most of the day, and rained again at 2 p.m. Shortly after, we had severe weather and tornado warnings in this county (Hennepin) and the surround.

I fell asleep for a few hours (I sleep a lot), so I missed any excitement that may have happened. It's coming on 8:45p. The clouds are parting and rays of sunshine are beaming down between the gaps.

The parting of the clouds, and the sunbeams are more impressive than this. Cellphone
camera into the sunset does not a pretty picture make. Retail lights are coming on.
Ach, suburbs. I try to not look down at the shops. Sky only for me.

 I've just checked the forecast. We'll get more rain after midnight, showers and thunderstorms tomorrow, and some rain on Thursday. We won't have 80F temps until next week. I stopped by a hardware store today and came home with a shovel. I'm going to re-dig the trenches in the garden a little wider and a little deeper.

My apartment overlooks the garden (from the 12th floor) and though I'm too high to see the garden without a stretch, I can hear the neighbors working (hammering stakes today), wind chimes, and birds.

My view from above.

The Wild Ones: Dill, Mint, Cilantro, Lemon Grass, and ???

Since ours is a community garden next to a park, a lot of things get churned into the soil when it's tilled every fall and spring, and assorted other things blow in all season.

Last year, it took me a while to identify the volunteer plants that we've got growing in the garden. Since they grow in the straight line trenches I made for my seeds, I can't always tell what's to keep. So far, I need them to grow to a certain size before I can tell what they are. I've asked Anatoli, Zhenfang, and Alexi to help me identify weeds, but sometimes we run into a language barrier. Alexi and I get pretty close.  When I ask if a plant is "good" or "bad," Alexi tends to judge the condition of the plant (healthy v. non-healthy). He calls the volunteer plants "wild." I've tried to teach him the word "weed," but it's not working so far. I don't think he can quite hear the difference between "wild" and "weed." "Can you eat it?" is greeted with a shrug because, well, anything can be eaten.

A lot of the wild plants could be herbs at their early stages. Zhenfang doesn't care for most herbs. She has chives and cilantro in her own garden, so I've given her different herbs to smell (maybe she'll recognize them?) but after grossing her out with basil, she won't go near them. Last year, she was helping me in my garden, and she started pulling out my lemon grass. I wanted her to smell it and look at the color so she could tell what it was and not pull it, but she refused. If I ask her if a seedling is "good" or "bad," she answers based on her own tastes. The herbs are almost always counted as bad, but she also calls onions, sweet peppers and potatoes bad. She knows they are edible but she wouldn't eat them, and she doesn't think I should eat them either. When she sees me come home with groceries, sometimes she'll poke around the bag to see what I've got that will meet her approval.  Too many boxes. She's not happy I bring home boxes and Coca-Cola.

This kind of secondary leaf means it's a kind of
squash or cucumber. In this case, it's zucchini.

This year, the "wild" seedlings are over an inch tall and have gotten to their secondary leaves, so I can tell what they are. Garden plant sprouts emerge with two leaves (primary leaves) on a stem.  They all look the same to me. I have to wait for the second set of leaves to show up to identify the plant.

The "wild ones" in this year's garden are dill, mint, and coriander/cilantro. All three are very popular in our little community, so really the only nuisance is that it grows wherever it wants.

The dill is sprouting up everywhere, gets more than 3 feet tall, goes to seed, and cycles back. There are constant crops of dill all summer. I found out that my Russian and Ukrainian neighbors save the seeds and scatter them by the hand full every spring. Valentina kept a huge a tin of seeds and offered to share. I passed on it. Even still, I've got wisps of dill growing. Sofia says that "Russian" dill tastes better than "American" dill. Alexi has said it's really good in soup. There is a "summer borsch" that was referred to last year. It seems to be heavy in herbs - mint, dill, and a lemony leaf that grows on a bush 4 feet tall. I've got to get that recipe.

I haven't planted my mint in containers (cat mint and spearmint). It can spread pretty far on it's own, but since the garden freezes hard and gets tilled every spring, I thought it would be destroyed and not bother the neighbors. Volunteer mint is all over my garden this year. It doesn't look like the mint I've planted, which is kind of bushy. This is a leggy, creeper mint with darker, shinier leaves. Last year, Valentina gave me some cuttings, she told me it was "Russian" mint. Tasty stuff. When Zhenfang saw it in my garden last year, she went nuts - she wanted some! I gave her several cuttings and she was over the moon. It's back.

Cilantro (corriander) popped up in my garden this year. Last year, my planning was really off and by late summer my garden was pretty bare. The waste of space lead Zhenfang to bring me seeds and seedlings to put in the empty spots. In one section of the garden, she scratched the soil and scattered coriander. It seems that some of it survived to live again this year. It's not growing in places I want it, but I'll let it get big and go to seed and replant the seeds where I want them. I should get several harvests this year.

Last year, the lemon grass I planted was just a curiosity - an expensive exotic I wasn't very sure about. I let it do what it would and it spread quickly. It grew nice and tall, and whenever I brushed past it, the air smelled of lemon grass. I got a recipe for a kind of Thai iced tea made from lemon grass and a little ginger - very nice. In the fall, I wanted to pull it up and dry some for winter, but I didn't realize that it's a rhizome. When it was spreading across the surface of the soil, it was spreading underneath and got some really deep, woody roots. I discovered that rhizomes like lemon grass and Mexican bamboo can do really well in Minnesota. This year, I buried a plastic, tight weave basket, filled it with soil and put the lemongrass seedlings in there. I was a bit worried that I'd stunted them, but I noticed tonight that they are growing gangbusters. Since I planted them near the walking path, I'll still get the lovely scent and this fall all I'll need to do is dig up the basket. No wild lemon grass this year and I hope to have some rhizomes to give to Felicia H in BE.

There is still one kind of plant growing in my garden that I can't identify. The leaves look like they might be salad greens, but last year, I let it grow it sprouted golf-ball-sized yellow flowers. When it gets a little bigger, I'll take some pictures and send them to the University of Minnesota horticulture folks for an identity check.

What kind of wild stuff grows in your yard/garden? Any surprises?

No still. No quiet.

The wind that started yesterday and turned into tornadoes last night raged on all day today. Everything that could bend, including people, were being whipped around by a heavy wind from the south and the sound was constant.

I had to do some gardening today. I didn't get to plant anything yesterday, it had to go in today to take advantage of the warmer weather and the lack of rain today.

When I got there, no one was in the garden. Apparently 2pm is the time to go to be alone.
The trellis/arbor thing I put up yesterday was still standing. I added a few zip ties here and there to tighten things that I couldn't get to last night.
I hoed up weeds from between plants and loosened the hard packed soil.
I planted soybeans, sweet peas, carrots, and muscaline salad mix.
I moved around some of the seedlings to better spots.
I planted climbing flower seeds next to the arbor uprights.
I had to cover plants that I had uncovered a few days ago, the wind had them laying almost flat. Only one small tomato plant was broken on the main stem, but I'm still hopeful it may still grow. Some of the very small plants were covered with upside down 20oz soda bottles with the tops cut off.  I can't leave those on if the weather gets too warm, so I've got to check them in the morning.
I was able to water everything really well before the rest of the gang turned up to use the hose.

As soon as I came inside, I fell asleep.  I'd been fighting the wind for 4 hours and I guess it just wore me out.

The temperature has dropped pretty fast and the wind is calm. It's in the 50F's tonight, but it's supposed to be warm and humid tomorrow. I'm really glad I was able to garden today. Grow, baby, grow.

I'm thinking of tornadoes tonight. I'm watching a documentary on the tornado clusters that have happened so far in 2011. I was just in the middle of a tornado-struck neighborhood last week, but the idea of it didn't reach me until tonight. Last year, some tornadoes went through the rural area where I grew up. Farms were flattened, and rescue teams had to go from farm to farm to check on people's welfare because telephone lines were down. Livestock were pulled up into the tornado and then were dropped in fields and on roads. I guess the idea of a tornado in the countryside scares me more than a tornado in the city.

P.S. I tutor Zhenfang in English on Mondays and Tuesdays. We're working on verbs, but took a little break to learn some more idioms today. Two idioms were covered today - "Shut up!" and "You're pissing me off." She's not a shy gal, but I was surprised at how quickly she picked up "Shut up!" and "You are making me very angry!" She really liked it. I guess learning how to tell people off would be more fun than conjugating regular and irregular verbs.

My cup runneth over

It was so foggy and rainy this morning, I didn't think I'd get any garden time. There was a peak of blue sky this afternoon, but before sunset, the clouds had rolled in and more rain is coming.

I decided to check on things before dark. Everything that was still in the soda bottle seed starters were completely soaked and many overflowed with water. According to the rain gauge, we got nearly 2 inches of rain last night - too much for my containers.

I planted everything from containers - tomatoes, brussel sprouts, peppers, and squash. In the ground, it looks like a lot of plants. Zhenfang brought me some sweet peas to fill in a gap where the seeds haven't sprouted. She's got a 20' fence with sprouted peas so far. *envy*

Everything already in the ground looks good. The carpet of weeds that are coming in are actually dill. They've grown just enough now to let the feather leaves loose. It grows wild here. Once it gets about 3 feet tall, it goes to seed. The seeds drop, and repeat several times per summer. Like last year, I'm sure we'll have continuous harvests of dill, so if you'd like some, just let me know.

The gals from Ukraine have collected what they call Russian dill seeds and they've offered to share them with me. They've told me that American dill doesn't smell the same. I've kept some seeds from last year, but I don't know what kind they are. I'll clarify the kind I've got when it comes up.

Leaving the garden tonight, I really don't have room for anything else in the garden. I have maybe 2' to keep my gardening tools and stuff. All is well.

Grow baby, grow!

Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant. ~Robert Louis Stevenson