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MYSTERY SOLVED

September 24, 2014

Well it didn’t take long to solve the mystery of what happened to the community garden plots (see the story here). At least one plot-holder complained to the local police (I’m not sure if she filed an official report but she at least made them aware of what had happened) and several irate gardeners complained to the higher-ups at the YMCA, so it’s not surprising that someone got to the bottom of it without much delay.

And answer is sort of sad, a little unsatisfying and not something that can really be fixed.

One of our plots following the unauthorized clean up. (Each of these long beds holds three plots.) You can see that plots with flowers don’t appear to have been touched.

Apparently it was a fellow gardener who was responsible for cleaning out everyone’s plots, including all of their produce. But this gardener is new to the community garden and has adaptive needs, according to the executive director of the Y. Basically, she doesn’t understand that what she did was wrong. She said she has been tending and harvesting plots all summer and no one said anything about it. I did notice some produce had been harvested (for instance, I’d see an almost ripe tomato on a vine and leave it there but it would be gone when I would come back a couple days later), but I’ve learned that a little bit of loss is to be expected. It’s not nice but I always hope that it’s being done by someone who needs the food.

She did take some of the food from people’s plots, but she also dug up the kale growing in our garden and my sister-in-law’s plot and attempted to replant it in her own plots. She threw much of the rest of people’s produce in the compost pile. It seems she did most of her gardening on other people’s plots outside of the operating hours of the Y because no one ever saw her doing any of this. (To my knowledge, there are no rules about when you can garden on these plots.)

The now very sad Redbor kale my sister-in-law was growing was dug up and transplanted to the perpetrator’s plot.

According to the Y director, this person really believed that all of the plots were her responsibility. Now of course, this doesn’t really add up, but I don’t know what sort of adaptive needs this woman has and it’s not my place to know.

There are issues with this, of course. For instance, all plot holders must sign a contract laying out a few basic rules that include things about when plots must be planted and cleaned up by, very rough maintenance guidelines, rules about chemical use and an understanding that the only plots you have access to are those you rent and the two plots shared by the community. Obviously this woman did not understand the contract, and it sounds like she probably didn’t have the capacity to understand it, so I’m not sure how the Y could have allowed her to sign it.

But all of that is hindsight. It’s not really anyone’s fault and I assume the Y and the community garden program will learn and adapt from this experience. I do feel better that it wasn’t a malicious act by someone.

Perhaps it’s best to chalk it up to just one more bummer in summer of gardening bummers. And with that, I promise to stop complaining about the lousy summer!

community garden
by Erin @ The Impatient Gardener 
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Comments

  1. Ms. Wis./Each Little World says: September 24, 2014 at 10:41 pm

    Satisfying to have an answer except that the answer isn't satisfying at all. The real issue will be if she shows up next summer and how it will be handled. Obviously, there are some developmental issues but that doesn't help the rest of you to not be disheartened at what happened

    Reply
  2. beezkneesss says: September 25, 2014 at 10:41 am

    “To err is human; to forgive, divine.” i know this doesn't help… let the ymca handle it and hopefully next summer, that person will not allow to be involved… i'm still trying to figure out why you think it's been a lousy summer… i'm in the same zone as you and i think summer was perfect… i'm outside detroit… hugs2u

    Reply
  3. Tracy says: September 27, 2014 at 4:34 am

    What a terrible experience! I agree this has been a rotten summer. We are below average gardeners but we try hard and we have had maybe 5 tomatoes, no cherry tomatoes and a few green peppers. My flowers have been eaten or killed by something.
    I hope Mother Nature figures out her seasons and we get a freeze so it will put my plants out of their misery!
    Here is to next year and a bountiful harvest!

    Reply
  4. Elizabeth says: September 29, 2014 at 1:21 am

    I agree that is a sad and somewhat puzzling answer…at least you know now and hopefully next year will be better! That's the continual gardeners' hope, right? : )
    It has been an interesting summer here. I dislike heat/humidity so for my own personal comfort it has been a wonderful summer, but we have had the same problems with tomatoes that you have mentioned. They seemed to rot before they were even ripe, and we got terrible blight too as well as less flavor. Oh well!

    Reply

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The Impatient Gardener

Do you love gardening? Me too! I'm Erin and I garden in Southeastern Wisconsin, zone 5. The Impatient Gardener is all about real-life gardening: the good parts, the bad bits and even the funny stuff. It's part information, part inspiration and a little bit commiseration. Thanks for visiting.

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Erin Schanen 🌿 The Impatient Gardener
These sister dahlias are big, beautiful girls. Pen These sister dahlias are big, beautiful girls. Penhill Watermelon (first picture) and Penhill Dark Monarch are the best two HUGE dahlias that I grow. They share slightly twisty petals (Watermelon more so) and, when you look closely, subtle striations that add a beautiful depth of color. Watermelon grows taller than Dark Monarch (7 feet tall or more sometimes) and they both need serious staking, but it’s worth it because they produce a lot of flowers for a large-flowering dahlia. 

I like them both but if I was forced to choose (and who would make me do that?) I’d give the edge to Dark Monarch because it’s a little easier to manage size-wise, produces more flowers and has a bigger variation in flower color so it’s always interesting. 

Which do you like better?
I don’t love tools that only do one thing. But w I don’t love tools that only do one thing. But when there’s only one tool that does that one thing really well, I’m here for it. This pottery/container knife from Sneeboer makes it possible to actually get plants out of pots without breaking or damaging the pot. It’s also really expensive. 😀
A little snippet of a bouquet from the weekend. Zi A little snippet of a bouquet from the weekend. Zinnias, pycnanthemum muticum and bronze fennel shown here.
My love for Nicotiana is not a secret. I love tryi My love for Nicotiana is not a secret. I love trying out new varieties and I feel like they just work so well in my garden from both a design standpoint and a cultural standpoint (they are happy here). Because I grow so many, the ones that self sow can be surprises. 

All of these self-sown Nicotiana are probably at least partly the children of the F1 hybrid Perfume series, which grow to be about 24” tall or so. Last year I grew purple, pink, white and lime versions and these are likely new variations on those. 

Picture 3 is, in my opinion, a good example of how these self sown second-year hybrids can go wrong. I’ll probably rip that one out. 😀

And the last photo is of my favorite colorway, lime, popping up amongst the Zinnias. I find these self-sown Nicotiana popping up all summer, so there’s always a fresh-blooming supply. 

Are you as enamored with Nicotinana as I am?
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