16 Jul 2011
My good friend Nick laughed and said, “Alex! It sounds like all the things that you care about are slowly going down in ruin!” I had just told him of how I twisted my ankle while running and then really sprained it the day after while hiking. He said this, remembering that a week before my garden had been excommunicated from our apartment building roof and my summer goal of successfully keeping a rooftop garden was ruined. So I can’t run, hike, or dance for some weeks, and I also will not get the chance to enjoy fresh vegetables from my rooftop garden in the fall.
My garden is now divided among four different places: the tomatoes, eggplant and basil went the fire escape of 4E—inhabited by Rachel and Thomas, my two CSA co-shares—my Thai peppers and mint are on my windowsill waiting in anticipation for a strong breeze to tear them away and down to the inaccessible backyard of the apartment, and my broccoli and onions are on the fire escape of Kianna and Megan, my two roommates with access to the fire escape who begrudgingly allowed me to take up some of their fire escape sitting space (apparently paying the same amount for rent but having a smaller room with no fire escape access is tough luck, not something they generously want to help right). I harvested the carrots and the first wave of onions, all mere shadows of what they could have been with another month of sun and water, but beautiful nonetheless. So my garden certainly took a blow, but it’s not over or hopeless. We are simply onto a new stage of development. That is, until the super realizes that we are using the fire escape for potted plants, gets a fine, and tells us we need to remove them again. For now, anyway…
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