Rebel gardeners waging veggie war on Buenos Aires

By the ghost of Johnny Appleseed, planting seeds is like planting love.

Grow seedlings under lights ...... I have a polytunnel and started seedlings under lights. The police have a helicopter that looks for dope farms, so I got a visit from four big policemen who came in with a very stroppy attitude. A couple of them left nursing a box of my surplus seedlings for their own gardens - tomatos, beans, peas, courgettes ..... and I took money for them. Hah!

I didn't know that I'm a geurilla gardener. When I thin out clumps of daffodils, I plant the surplus bulbs in the roadside through the village I live in. Have done for years. I have planted half a mile and they look great. They will be in flower in about 3 weeks and I look forward to seeing them. I'd never thought of planting spare runner beans or courgettes in the hedgerows .... hmmmmm.

I wonder if John Chapman would ever have thought of planting Vietnamese Sugar Cane in the Esplanades between the Highways, to harvest and make Ethanol with ???  That particular strain grows like weeds, gets very tall, and grows so thick that if left too long unharvested, it will choke itself out .......  The Slag left after Distillation is fed to Hogs, Cattle, and Horses like it too ... Makes 'em all peppy and Happy ... altho' a Hungover Horse is a lousy Ride ... Wilbur .......

Hazel - That is a great story about the cops investigating your garden! You won that contest with converting them to carry off and pay for produce from the "suspicious" plot!!

I grow tomatoes and peppers in large pots on my upper deck, but don't plant til after April 10 due to the risk of freeze here. We have great yield, and the only trick is to water, water, water those pots.
 
(Nothing in the ground would survive the deer. We have herds of the graceful deer who stop by morning, noon, and night. No hunting allowed. They are already nibbling my daylilies [up about 5 inches] down to the soil!)

Our little village of Waleska, GA has a community garden in which one can rent a plot. It is right on hwy. 140, sunbaked, and looks like lots of work to me, so I have not planted there. Getting water to your crop is the biggest problem there. We have so many farmers around, people selling produce out of the tailgates of their trucks on the weekends, and such good prices, that I will probably continue to buy and use local produce.

What a lovely way to spread the daffodils, Hazel!! We see orange daylilies along the highways like that, as if someone tossed them out years ago and they keep springing up! I bet your villagers appreciate your discarded daffodils in wild places!

Of course, this has been done before- by birds.  I do wonder about community -owned vegetables, though. Who decides when to pick?  Does anyone else remember THE SHOOTING PARTY where the lady says to her gardner "There's only room for one despot in this garden!"?

Ivan- great post! Mr. Ed and his cousin, Francis agree. How did Wilbur get that dish of a wife.
***
NC does a great job with wildflowers in that "green space" around roadways. Kudos! & I love the idea of energy and food crops to be worked and harvested by prisoners and used to pay for the system thus helping state budgets + Being around plants would also mellow them and would be therapeutic and worthy work.

I like the idea of planting in pots.  Our yard is almost entirely shade, and there is no area with sufficient sunlight to successfully grow vegetables.  A large pot on the deck could do the trick.  I am thinking, oddly enough, about beets.  When I grew up in Michigan, they sold the thinnings as greens,  The first were very tiny, all massed and bundled together.  The later ones had small, marble-sized beets on the end.  And all are delicious - my favorite green.  Hazel, I love your "guerilla" daffodils.  What a nice way to make the village beautiful.  And you did tame those police officers with your vegetables.  For all their gruffness, they are human.  And there is really nothing like fresh vegetables.  We have several outdoor farmers markets on Saturday mornings, and eagerly await the first crops.

Does anybody else have DAPHNE blooming now?  It has a great scent.

Jalopkin, do they harvest the Vietnamese cane the same as other canes, i.e. big fires? I would BUY TICKETS to see THAT!!! Giant fires burning down the center of superhighways. There's just something so portentious, ironic, and simply entertaining about that image.

Moose, I recall reading a bit of Maine law regarding deer when we were thinking of moving there. Something about having enough land dedicated to agriculture and thereby requiring NO LICENSE to shoot deer that happen to be munching on one's fields. Now, I happen to truly love deer in their many forms, especially the ones that come in casings, or simmering in a red wine sauce with mushrooms.

I always toy with the idea of gardening and dream big dreams of juicy tomatoes and fresh herbs.  And some years I'm even able to talk my husband into indulging me and planting some pots.  So far, so good.  About a week later though, the questioning starts...."dear did you water your plants today?" "did you notice how droopy your plants are starting to look?"  It seems I can't/don't function as a garden caregiver without a lot of direction.  And yes, some times he has even absolutely caved and done the chores for me, but.....really.....really?  That's not good for my growth as a gardener, although it does wonders for the plants!  July and August in these parts can be extremely hot and dry and that's usually when I just finally let nature take its course and give up.   However, I'm hoping that now that I'm home all the time I can try it one last time and be able to do it the right way....early mornings and daily.  My working sched. just wasn't conducive to it.  Or that was my excuse then.  We'll see if I can get something going this year or not.  The hero of all this is definitely my husband who has a vast gardening knowledge, a willing spirit and absolutely no desire to let a tomato ever pass his lips unless it's in a sauce on pasta or pizza!

"YOU'VE CAUGHT US JUST AT THE END OF OUR MURDEROUS... MORNING"
The best delivered line from the best cinematic scene: two giants enjoying an improbable visit.
Forgive the lack of attribution for this:

"While the whole film is beautifully accomplished on all levels, acting, directing, sense of time and place, the scene between James Mason and John Gielgud, which takes place during a shoot, reveals acting that has gone beyond acting. It is one of the most exquisite scenes in the history of the cinema. Mason and Gielgud are perfect."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYq0pHDagaQ

Bless you, Willy, for the reminder.
England comprising more Cardews than Nettlebys, reacted predictably to this film and our host, the manager of a shooting estate, abhorred the movie and the fuss it stirred up.
Any shooter will be quick to recognize that stationary barrels poked skyward and fired will bring down very little in the way of food.

Isles~ What a splendid flight of imagination.
Ivan's idea of usinng all that wasted land in the centre and along the sides of big highways to grow a crop for producing bio mass energy or fuel is ingenious. I always thought it was a waste, but I would not want to eat something grown in such a location. It is good to see wildflowers growing in the roadsides. On a dreary congested section of motorway known as spaghetti junction, there is an embankment that has the most wonderful display of lupins. Sure I'm not the only person who smiles when driving by there.
Wales just (only just) beat Italy in the 6 Nations Rugby.
 

Ah, the first smell of spring earth, the warmth of the sun on ones back the seeding, the watering, the weeding, the waiting, the harvesting and the eating all brought to you from time immemorial, by the hunter who, in fair weather or foul and all four seasons, provided meat to eat, fur to wear and bone... for gardening tools.

I wish we had an alternate way to regulate the cultivation & distribution of cannibis sativa (marijuana). The traffickers, often imports funded by the Mexican Mafia, use state and national parks to grow the stuff. Then you have to contend with the real possibility that your dog, trying to be helpful, discovers them, and barks to share the discovery with you. Spring guns can blow your legs apart at the ankles, and the growers themselves are armed, dangerous, and not motivated to risk detection/prosecution/departation..... The potential tax revenues could single-handedly erase the deficit in a few years, and create a surplus, properly funding research, the arts, and treatment of diseases & hunger....

d-e-p-O-r-t-a-t-i-o-n .... need more dark roast...lol

My understanding (which is often considerably erroneous) is that sugar cane is often burned before harvesting in part to get rid of poisonous pests that reside there, making it safer for the harvesters.

Mooseloop, I'm also not familiar with Maine's letter of the law on hunting statutes but in my area at least, deer hunting is only allowed within specified seasons and those who are caught tresspassing on private property uninvited are pretty roundly trounced. Responsible hunters are as likely to do the trouncing as justifiably irate landowners. There is such an overabundance of deer that even the most ardent deer-lovers are often at wit's end to find any deterrent to having both vegetable and ornamental plants razed to the ground. Every year there's a new go-round on the merits of wire netting, human hair, pepper concoctions, supposedly "repelling" or immune plant species, etc to try to stop the deer's smorgasbord. Haven't heard of any succesful ones yet.

Hazel I love your idea, what an amazing gift you give to so many! It reminds me of Lady Bird Johnson's work on hundreds of miles of highway borders. Do your medians get mown later in the season? We have large patches of lupines here that have me pulling out my camera every spring. I'm uploading a snap momentarily

Stoney, while watching the clip it "sounded" like your voice giving James Mason's replies. Brilliant.

Oh my, once I started looking at Spring photos I got very carried away. :-P I'm blaming it on the 10+ inches of snow we received last night (which I see by the footprints this morning the skunk managed to plow through to my front door again).

Dream on, Bert ~ if the government got control of the revenue from dope growing, they would not ring fence it for the worthy causes you suggest.

I have to admit, I have a wicked streak and I laugh my head off when I see pictures on TV or in the papers of some dope farm that has recently been bust. The ones in suburban houses are really funny - from the outside, it  looks like an ordinary house in a middle class english suburban street. Inside, troughs of nutrient-rich water trickling through ceramic pebbles, each trough full of cannabis plants, huge overhead lights, extractor fans, timers, thermostats & the most hooligan cobweb of electrical cables. Of course, the electric is free as some well-insulated soul will have taken the supply off the "wrong" side of the meter. It's a miracle they don't electrocute themselves. The gung-ho police  who did the "bust" always put a daft valuation on the crop. The stalks and leaves are of little or no value, it's the BUD of the female plants that is the desired crop. I can't see how dope growing can be legalised, taxed & so on. Imagine all those old hippies who have a few backyard plants and maybe deal a bit to their friends, running down to the tax office to pay their dues. Bwwwwaaaahhhaahhha! as Bebe would say. I think the stuff should be decriminalised.

Yo! JaxZ~ I always seem to miss you. How exciting to have a skunk - seems very exotic to me!

Hazel we have them in such abundance (I believe in all contiguous states....anybody?) that they seem commonplace like "armed squirrels. You call them polecats don't you? My German relatives were always fascinated by them, as well as "Wash Bears" (raccoons).

There is no way to describe the smell up close. You catch the diluted scent often when driving around and while it's very rank, many say it doesn't bother them. At close range it is entirely different. It's purpose is to make the predator that has grabbed the skunk vomit, thereby releasing it.

My incredibly sweet but not too bright chow Belle grabbed the same (I think) skunk in the exact same spot (behind a shrub that I later limbed up three feet from the ground) 3 times over a 2 year period. After tossing tacos the first time (excuse me but I was two feet away when she caught the blast full in the face), and working around a sweatshirt tied over my face and still gagging the second, the third episode I called my daughter who was out on a date and said "I'm sorry, you're going to have to deal with this one" and she and her boyfriend did.

JaxZ ~
James Mason's voice and my own... I get that a lot.

I get this even more:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8fykuW4IHk

O pooooooh! polecats and ferrets are smelly, but I'm told skunks are like that X 10!!!! One of the dogs in my life loved to roll in smelly stuff - fox poo, dead sheep carcasses, then she'd expect to sleep on our bed. She obviously thought the aroma of dog shampoo disgusting, as first thing after being bathed, she'd be off in search of a perfume more pleasing to herself.
Willie Trask~ I have tried and failed several times to grow Daphne. I do have a nice Viburnum Bodnantase in flower, which has a lovely scent.

JaxZ---oh my goodness, yes, skunks pretty much are everywhere!!!  They emit the foulest smelling spray ever!!  And for some reason they enjoy getting under porches---we were forced for a week to use only the back door until our "friend" got fed up and left.  Meanwhile we were fervently praying that it was not a mamma finding a cozy place to have a birthing.  I have been told that copious amounts of tomato juice poured over sprayed animals neutralizes the odor.  All I know for sure is that the faintest whiff as we're driving along gives me an instantaneous headache that lasts for hours.   My sister in law once kept a de-scented one as a pet, but I still couldn't get over the fear that "thar she blows!" might happen any second.  And, I don't think wild animals (or exotic ones) should be kept for pets!

Stoney, no wonder the MBWITW is irretrievably smitten. A man of many talents.

Haze, I heard an old wives tale that carnivores roll in that stuff to mask their scent from prey. I'm sure that eau de pet salon shampoo is a humiliating give-away for a dog or cat stalking pretty-much any creature capable of disdain.

Carol, amazingly enough they're supposed to be meticulously clean pets, but I would have been worried too.

My daughter had a ferret that kept us all in stitches (laughter, not first aid), including our cats who thpought it the best toy/friend ever invented, but it smelled very rank and had to be bathed weekly. fortunately the aimiable little critter didn't mind in the least.

Did you know that the only breed of ferret sold as pets hasn't been wild since the days of the pharohs? They are more domesticated in their lineage than many farm animals. California had an asinine law saying they were wild and people were letting them loose like crazy. The poor things died very quickly until common sense prevailed. Reminds me of the activists who rescued a large lobster from someone's dinnerplate and kept it in the bathtub until they could release it. Can't think of why it expired..........

JAXZ:
I used to let my boys keep our lobsters in the bathtub till it was time to cook them.
Then into the pot, no matter the size.
Butter and lemon on the side the were delicious.

korthal I'm picturing Annie Hall: small dishes of melted butter on the floor and Allen with a tennis racket flailing about in the bathroom.

After 10 years in THE best lobster country in the world I still haven't ever had too much.

Jax- I am a watermelon lover and at the beach, I try to get a house with an outdoor shower and after playing in the surf and sand which elevates your temp, your thirst and your hunger. I love taking a cold shohill fresco while having a giant slice of ice cold watermelon and not having to worry about the juice dripping down my chin and spitting seats in the great outdoors is A-OK. Fun is about a bathtub full of lobsters or my shenanigans and I laugh when I am getting a big contract signed thinking "if they only knew the real me"

Cold shower al fresco- IPhone fever

Tommy, I wonder if it's the human condition to think "If they only knew the real me". I was just chatting with a friend about that last night.

I think the best place to eat a ripe papaya or mango is seated in the warm, shallow water of a turquoise lagoon. *sigh*

Sun just went down, temps are dropping, think I'll go look at the Spring flower photos I uploaded again.

JAXZ:
You can never have too much of some things and one of those things is lobster.

For those with extraneous deer populations....If you spray faithfully (about every 3 days, and always after a rain) a product called "Hinder," or "Liquid Fence " (about $35 half gal.-made of rotten eggs, ammonia -There is even a homemade recipe to create our own if you have a castiron stomach) around the perimeter of your flowers or yard, starting early in the growing season, the deer will not cross it and will leave your plants alone.  I buy it, mix it with water in a 5 gal. pressure spray jug, and spray religiously the entire perimeter of the front yard before my daylilies bloom. ( Deer don't eat the mature greens of the daylily, but the blooms and buds are like dessert to them! I found out the first year I lived here in the woods, and thereafter have sprayed to see my daylilies bloom. It is just too labor intensive to spray an entire vegetable garden as much as it would have to be sprayed, but this smelly stuff works.  I spray to see the lilies bloom, then back off and let them have everything else. They eat the new growth on azaleas, roses, acuba, and liriope. My only plants they won't eat are cone flowers, iris, lilac, rhododendron, mountain laurel, mahonia, and camellias.

I have a lilac eating variety of deer.  And when they're done with those bushes, it's just about time to hit on the roses.  From what I can see, the pink roses are the best to eat, thorns and all.  But that's okay with me.  The deer are too dear for words, and I can plant more roses and lilacs...which we'll be doing as soon as - IF - it ever stops snowing.

Combining two topics from a couple of posts...just this week a skunk was run over on a main street here, just blocks from my house. It wasn't cleaned up, but left to be run over and over, each time sending the terribly pungent odor wafting through the air. On the other topic, some of the best weed (marijuana) is called skunk weed because of it's very pungent aroma....very strong. One can often smell it in the air driving through any neighborhood in town, alerting you to the fact that someone nearby is growing it.

Janey I'll bet they're doing more than growing it..... ;)

I wonder if I can loan my skunk out for deer control. Do they mind the smell? My dog sure didn't, it just made her drool happily. I could just carry the skunk to the desired area, tuck its head under my arm and play it like a bagpipe.........

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x20hw0_pepe-le-pew-scent-imental-romeo_news

I smelled some of dat guerilla crop while listening to Jeff "Skunk" Baxter at a Steely Dan concert. He was a prolific Geetar picker with them not to mention The Doobie Brothers.

John, I've never seen that one! Wonderful!

Big drug busts around the suburbs of Atlanta often occur in a home in a "nice" neighborhood. I guess, as Hazel says, the ones growing inside under lights think that the police will not suspect anything in an upscale subdivision.  It is just funny if it is pot and there are empty rooms full of nothing but rows of plants and lights hydroponically grown, but quite a different thing if it is meth and the house blows up, burns out, and kills innocent children, as happened here this past week. The  3 kids  who died were under 5 yrs. old. Is there punishment enough for those parents and their buddy?

Moose- One must continue to tell the true story of the world in interior dialog said Kerouac and Tommy thinks those words are often accompanied by disbelief.

Jax, hi, hi, hi...oh I'm sure they are, but it smells very different when it's lit up...either way, one can smell it half a block away. I'm so glad to see you here. big hugs