Vegetable Garden Upgrades

Last season's vegetable fared especially poorly.  My tomatoes stayed leafy with little fruit.  Staking them upright, both with plastic stakes and later with metal cages, did not keep them upright.  Fruits gave way mostly to pests and to blights.  Peppers grown from nursery plants went nowhere.  Seeds planted into the ground mostly disappointed.  I generated a cucumber vine but only one cucumber. Pretty much a dud all around.  My pots did not fare a lot better.  I wonder whether lawn care extended their herbicides to my vegetables and herbs.  Or maybe my seeds had passed their expiration dates.  Perhaps my soil needs selective enrichment.  Even weeds did not grow making me a little suspicious of my lawn care service.  Some plants grew green.  The beans did not generate beans but stalks rose.

The agricultural division of my state university offers a soil analysis for a nominal fee.  They have kits, but will also accept samples placed in a one-quart freezer bag, like the TSA does for screening liquids.  I've been reading their collection requirements.  Cumbersome, but within my level of skill.  I will need to wash, maybe sterilize, the garden trowel that collects the sample.  I'll follow the collection procedure that they require.  Fill the sample bag, label it with my identification and the intent of a vegetable garden, and enclose a check for $22.50.  Mail in a secure envelope that I can get from the post office.  Enrich the soil in the way the agricultural chemists advise.

I would like to harvest some vegetables this season.

To make space more efficient, I've used a Square Foot Gardening approach.  Mine never produces nearly as bountifully as Mel's who wrote the book, nor as well as the many online sites that guide amateurs through that method.  Considering the magnitude of last year's gardening failure, maybe it's time to return to row planting.  And new seeds would likely enhance yield.  A couple of layers of organic compost from a gardening center or hardware store could also contribute to success.  I don't have a good defense from pests, though.

I will need to reconsider what to plant.  Every amateur looks forward to tomatoes.  Either exotic heirlooms or beefy globe tomatoes.  Cucumbers have been successful.  To minimize weeds, I have a layer of cloth weed block.  While successful, it also makes root vegetables unrealistic.  I've not done well with leaf lettuce, nor do I particularly like eating a lot of it.  Bell peppers never produced.  I would consider chili peppers.

But first, collect soil and do what the chemists report.

Pick One

The more preferable of two goods.  In an electoral world of objectionable choices, this one seemed welcome.  Two invitations arrived by email, one directly with ample notice, the other in a more backhanded way on much shorter notice.  Neither anticipated.

First, a program on addressing anti-Semitism to be held at the Museum of American Jewish History on a Wednesday evening.  The topic interests me, though as an American, my Jewish identity has been mostly secure.  A few snide comments by fellow university classmates along the way, but no personal threats, or even limitations.  Yet, the past several years have added to my exposure.  The physician gunned down at the Tree of Life massacre I knew well in college.  On a trip to Pittsburgh to visit family, I reserved a Saturday morning to worship at the repackaged Tree of Life Congregation.  Four years later, it was no longer the multiplex of several simultaneous services in a single building.  The survivors assembled as a single worshiping community in a rather opulent space, part of a more cathedral-formatted Reform synagogue.  The President introduced himself to me as a visitor.  No one else did.  They still spoke of that fateful day, after four years, during their Dvar Torah discussion.  

The Monsey Hanukkah attack enabled me to generate an essay for our local Jewish magazine.  I knew the geography well.  I kept up with its transition from secular Jewish of my childhood to the Haredi dominance today.  Animosities are understandable.  They seem more generated by the experience of proximity and negative consequences for a secular minority than to scripted anti-Semitism.

I've had minor interactions with Islamic anti-Zionism repackaged as a form of negative transference reaction to American Jews like me committed to a vibrant, secure Israeli nation-state.  There seems little role for education where people are pre-scripted, yet that has remained the focus of our own legacy advocacy agencies.  Protective, enforceable laws and an unequivocal national policy with minimal wiggle room seem a better option for keeping everyone safe.  Some, however, rationalize the compromise of physical safety in the guise of free expression.

While this forum took some planning, and I am grateful for the invitation I received, I never received a formal agenda.  The session had been assembled by an educational institution of Jewish auspices, but I did not know whose presentations I would hear.

On much shorter notice, a brief mention in the weekly OLLI newsletter that arrives by email every Monday morning disclosed that Robert Putnam would be speaking at the University's main campus at a time that largely coincided with the Jewish event.  Like many others, I have held this Harvard professor in high esteem for a long time.  In addition to becoming thoroughly engaged as I read through his landmark book Bowling Alone, I've had occasion to hear him speak.  He came to my town about five years ago.  I paid $30 for seats in the auditorium, along with a minor parking imposition.  He did not speak about Bowling Alone, which I had read maybe three years earlier, but about his latest work focusing on childhood poverty and economic inequality's harmful effects that pass down through generations.  As compelling as his presentation was, the benefit to me came afterward.  The Delaware Community Foundation, which sponsored Prof Putnam's appearance, set up tables in the foyer outside the auditorium.  They had representatives recruit those in attendance for the many ongoing projects that the Foundation oversees.  I expressed interest in reviewing scholarship applications.  Once signed on, I remain active with this project.  Each spring for five years, I review some twenty-five applications.  Some come from high school students seeking assistance with college.  Others originate with people already attending medical and law school, needing some relief from tuition and loans.  Along the way, I've made a couple of friends and offered suggestions that get implemented for subsequent years.

This time Bob, which is what the Professor likes to be called, has a new book and a Netflix movie called Join or Die.  I got to this in a very indirect way.  After supper, I often retreat to My Space, where I watch YouTube videos.  I particularly learn from Rev. Dr. Russell Moore, who produces a new podcast on modern evangelical Christianity each week.  His podcast usually interviews authors of new books with a social message.  While the host is an Evangelical, though one who has kept his distance from the political alliances of the Christian Right, the people he interviews originate in many backgrounds, including Jewish.  He recently interviewed Bob Putnam, a show I had to watch.  When Bob told Russell his brief bio, he noted that as an undergrad he took a liking to a sweet Jewish girl of the opposite political party who sat behind him.  They went on an outing to the Kennedy Inauguration.  After graduation, they married, he converted to Judaism, and more than sixty years together brought them an expanded three generational family and shared professional accomplishments.

After the interview, I watched the Netflix movie, taking three sessions to match my limited attention span.  Only after seeing the movie, did I notice the OLLI announcement of his visit.  I contacted the University sponsor, which offered seats in the rather limited auditorium for my wife and me.

Which to attend?  From a content perspective, I think my prior fondness for Bob Putnam's insight and my appreciation to the Delaware Community Foundation for welcoming me as a participant gave them an advantage.  So did my wife's interest in accompanying me to that event.  Logistics cannot be discounted either.  I've been to both the National Museum of American Jewish History and the University's Trabant Center in the past.  The University placed its parking garage adjacent to this student union where Bob would speak.  Some traffic anticipated, minor annoyance registering my car and paying the fee at the garage kiosks, but just a minor stroll from my car to the event.

Philadelphia requires more planning.  I have an unlimited transit pass and the event planners made provisions for use of a garage a block or two from the museum.  To get there and back by public transit, I would have to take light rail from a station near my home, sit on the local train for multiple stops comprising a little under an hour, then transfer to either the city subway or bus to the Museum.  The driving option would require me to deal with some city traffic and with a significant diversion from the interstate to city streets before accessing the garage, then walking as darkness approaches going and fully established on the return.  The light rail schedule would leave me with either slack time with an earlier train or a rush with a later one, then return well into the evening.

Both content and logistics favored Prof. Putnam.  That's where I went.  He gave a suitable presentation.  At the end, I got to ask him a question.  I also got to greet the CEO of the Delaware Community Foundation to remind him that Bob's previous presentation connected me to his agency.  Some light snacks at the end with small talk with a contemporary who I had not met previously.  Then uneventful drive home.

I made the right choice.