A Gardener's Diary

[Monksdream]

Feb. 16-I was on the patio at the apartment complex with Frank, who's 75. He was waiting on the cab to return to the hospital for his bronchitis. While sipping coffee I glanced at the sky. The contrails from the jets leaving and landing at the airport had descended roughly intact from up higher in the atmosphere. The sun caught them just, the prismatic effect and turned them a pale pink. As couple minutes later, when I looked up, they had turned puffy white. Nothing and everything, it seems, last forever at the same moment.

On my walk to the bus stop I heard the sound of honkers, looked up and watched two Canada geese land on the top of a three story building behind Duckworth's Tap House at the corner with 7th. City geese.

I piddled today, bought some potting soil from Dollar General, which, for some reason, carries excellent potting mix. Lots of perlite compared to the overpriced yard trash Miracle Gro foists onto gardeners.

I put more lettuce seed into this quality mixture. I had Snapper saw some lumber. I nailed up box and placed in the row of stacks next to the slope. I wheeled a barrow of soil to a raised bed. I chopped out more clay in what is to be the first watermelon hill. And I took the bus to the Starbucks across from the Bank of America tower for coffee grinds. The clerk took my name and told me they would save them. I'll return tomorrow after lunch.

And I'm beginning to tire of winter, its morning cold, its chill north wind, and being confined by layers of clothing. Up ahead, beginning Friday is period what will probably be some of the warmest February weather Zone 7b has seen in a decade. I will till up the lettuce bed and then transplant.

My attempt at obtaining fish carcasses from the Marriott uptown came to squat. The chef used to run the Asbury at the corner with 6th. It's inside the Dunhill Hotel across from the public library. There was a time when I sold him produce, came back with fish carcasses, kitchen scraps, eggshells, and free coffee. Then he got a job as director of culinary experience with an S&P 500 hotel chain. The assistant chef became the chef. His baker quit. His sous chef quit. His line cooks quit. Then he said no mas to me one morning last Spring.

This thing about high end cuisine, or at least what purports to be high end cuisine, in large American cities, has become something of a cultural phenomenon. Celebrity chefs, an entire TV network devoted to cooking, more pages about food in the daily newspaper than there is for local news. Not to mention slick magazines focused on restaurant trends.

I sat on the patio staring at the beds and coming to terms with the fact I have lost another friend. I placed some empty 10 and 15 gallon containers together on the patio and imagined the day when I plant dwarf Stella cherry trees in them. It was time to move on.