geek + easily amused + annoying neighbors in endless committee hell = Heh, heh, heh.
(Starting at about 1:30 in the morning for fewer witnesses.)
What does that mean? Well, this neighborhood in specific and New York in general has huge quantities of planters, big 'uns three or four feet to a side, that are, at best planted with some ill-cared for single species or in many cases, simply empty, with the occasional empty bottle, a few cigarrette butts, and the like.
For years I've been asking residents and occasionally supers of such buildings what the deal is and do they need help? Uniformly they say that:
1.) the person "in charge" of that isn't around. This is then followed by could I come back on, say, Tuesday afternoons between two and three-thirty and talk to Luis. Invariably if I try that, then "oh, Luis don't live here no more"
or "Yeah, I'm Luis; you gotta talk to Mr. [managing agent]" (fill in more deadended conversations)
or "I'm real busy today, come back again next week" (repeats)
or "we got no money for that" (I offer to pay and do the work myself) "yeah, well, I dunno [strange, contentless, usually non-sequitur answer that is a transparently invented excuse]"
or
2.) "Oh, we're deciding that in our tenants association right now. We're going to do some wonderful things this year." (I ask how long this has been "about to happen" and puzzle out that it's some period greater than ten years, I ask when the tenants association is next considering this and am told July.)
or
3.) "No, we gotta leave it like that. Don't wanna attract nobody to hang out in front of the building, ya know? Having stuff growing in those will just make the [drug] dealers stick around or those homeless guys."(Usually followed by self-aggrandizing racist speech about homeless people.)
or
4.) "No man, can't nothin' grow in those. Nobody gonna water it and people throw their shit in there, and all that. You can't have plants there; they'll just die 'cause nobody gonna care for them." (I point out that New York is full of abandoned lots overflowing with lush plants that nobody cares for) "Naw, those ain't plants, those is weeds!"
and so on.
I've been having these conversations, a building or three a year, for sixteen years. Not once has anybody in a building with barren planters said "Okay, sure, it would be nice to have something growing in there".
Note, by the way, I am talking exclusively about raised planters. Big, deep containers of soil too high for passing dogs to piss into, big enough for real variety, deep enough for perennials to build decent roots and for microorganisms and worms to be viable through the winter.
Ya see, back in the sixties and seventies, when these were put in (and a few added on to existing buildings in the eighties), they did do a good job. When I was younger, many more of them *were* filled with plants. But in buildings like mine, with tenants at war with the landlords, nobody is willing to spend on the common areas. Landlords because they want the building to be as ugly as possible to get out long-term tenants like me, tenants to spite the landlord because "that's his responsibility". In the smaller housing projects because the overpaid, slothful union workers aren't paid to do it beyond the bare minimum. And in some of the other rentals and coops because they're tied up in committee hell and they'd each rather waste DECADES than give in on their petty power games.
I hate these fuckers.
So last night, at a bit before two in the morning I fucking went out and planted thousands of seeds in planters and raised beds from 98th to 87th, from Central Park West to Amsterdam. I'm sick of these pathological fucking sons of bitches and I'll fucking well do what I think best to their planters whether they know or care or not.
Does that make me a presumptuous asshole? Yeah, probably. Too fucking bad. Boo hoo. I hate, hate anybody who chooses to make their world ugly. When people start making intentional decisions to make my world ugly, well, I kinda lose interest in what they want. I'd say that they're scum, but, well, scum has nutrients in it. They're toxic waste. And I'm sick of living with them and being surrounded by the kind of world that they create.
So over the past few months I've been accumulating my materials. Ten carrot seed packets bought at ten cents a packet. Sixteen ounces of organic amaranth and sixteen ounces of sunflower seeds from a high-end health food store, the remains of my seed packets from past years, which means some snow peas, nasturtiums, spinach, pumpkin, cucumber, and assorted oddments.
Added to this is about a tablespoon of various seeds bought as spices before the fire and now stale - poppy seeds, anise, a.k.a. fennel, a little assorted this and that, all poured in a bowl. Increasing the legume stash is about two tablespoons of mung beans.
Then on the way home last night I bought the last supplies: six bags of beans, Goya and Jack Rabbit, bought for a buck a bag. Red beans, black eyed peas (best in hotter climates, but oh, well), and so on. I wasn't too particular. Just grabbed a bag of each variety that was near where I stood and dropped 'em in my basket.
I went upstairs, half-filled my shirt pocket with mixed beans, and headed out.
I had hoped to start with my own building, behind the scraggly bushes, but the soil here is so compacted that I'ld have to come back down with sharp objects and spend at least twenty minutes prepping the soil. So I put some bean seeds in where I could (maybe thirty in a block of soil about a hundred feet by eight feet) and moved on. Next were the three huge planters (about six feet around each) in front of the supermarket across the street. I put little clusters of beans, about four beans to a cluster, about six clusters to a planter, in each of those. And on down for a few blocks. I ran out pretty quickly.
I went back upstairs, filled my shirt pocket again , poured about a ping pong ball worth of amaranth into a baggie and shoved the baggie into my jeans, grabbed some seed packets, and went back out.
This time I was a bit more systematic. I've been thinking about doing this for years and years and I've done spontaneous planting of a few seeds now and again, but round one this night was the first time that I had actually set out to do this, with materials, targets, and goals.
Conclusions:
- Man, amaranth seeds are teeny!
- Soil in a lot of places around here is outrageously impacted. Maybe I'll bring worms around some rainy day.
In fact, I'm thinking of creating a worm-addition starter system, by adding a cup of soil and a cup of chopped up veggies into a large takeout soup container, filling the rest with water, and bringing that somewhere along with some worms in a bit more soil, ideally still on a rainy day. That way I can dump the muddy stuff onto the planter, drop the worms and soil on top, and hopefully thereby give them enough water and food to keep them going while they start the job of aereating the soil.
- Even at two in the morning, you never know what witnesses will turn up.
- Speed is of the essence.
- Pine bushes are a menace.
- Now I hate this area even more.
- Rustin