Watermelon Sunday
by Josephine Laing
It all started with "Watermelon Sunday." Frank and I used to take cookies or peach pies to our new neighbors, the students, on our block every September to get to know them. But then he and I began exploring the raw vegan life style in an effort to increase our level of health (no sugar or processed grains) and to reduce the amount of suffering in the world that we were directly responsible for. (You know, factory farms et all.) But regarding our student neighbors, as the old saying goes, "If you give respect, you get respect." However, it's actually much more than that.
Cal Poly takes in the cream of the cream. These are all amazingly brilliant young people, each one a gem. And getting to know all of those who live on our block has enriched our lives and has allowed us to delight with them in their late night friskiness and share with them their deep heart difficulties and pains. What else is life about if not sharing the ups and downs with those we love? So we feel very blessed and truly enjoy these colorful and varied neighborly relationships.
But back to watermelon Sunday. So, not wanting to participate in cookies and pies anymore, I needed another option. Well, at the farmer's market, if any of you have not experienced our most delicious, local "Dry Farmed Watermelons," do not let another year go by without indulging yourself. They come in late summer. Frank and I can polish off a whole one in two days kept in halves in the fridge. (If you live alone, share one with a friend, or enjoy a five day feast all on your own.) Anyway, we went to the farmers market and got ourselves a whale of a watermelon and then went around amongst all the neighbors with little slips of paper inviting them to come for a slab of watermelon between 3:00 and 5:00pm. on the next Sunday afternoon. We wrote each name on the separate invites at the door asking them to be given to the roommates so all were invited and everyone could come and meet their new neighbors. We also have a few seniors on the block so the party turns out to be a nice mix of generations. After we've all had our fill, I give a garden tour, dig and hand out a few fresh and dirty potatoes, show off my medicinal herb collection which includes stevia, the sweet leaf, and pennyroyal and tansy, both of which will bring on a late period, (always an ear catcher.) Then if this sparks an interest, we consider consulting with the landlords and then planting a few bare root fruit trees and tomatoes in the students yards.
Urban and orchard fruit tree plantings are in a serious state of decline worldwide and yet fruit trees produce the most food per acre of any plant and begin producing within a year or two after planting. And we all know about tomatoes, the poet Pablo Neruda got it right when he said that in summer their blood runs in rivers down the streets. Sometimes we get really into it and put in salad beds with a variety of greens and several types of lettuces, and most everyone loves to plant chili peppers. We've had artichokes, blackberries, pomegranates, peaches, nectarines, plums, cucumbers, apricots, pears, potatoes, yams, tangerines, limes, oranges and lemons. One household even got a duck and some chickens. So we've had eggs. And then we've had cilantro, boy did we have cilantro and parsley, same thing, and arugula too. The kale and collards are easy to grow and green beans and sugar snap peas are too. And we've had flowers: roses, sunflowers and cosmos, marigolds and black eyed susans. Of course some of these student gardens have their bicycles and beer cans too. And sometimes the weeds get very high and blow in the breeze and we just pull the vegetables out from amongst them, all tucked in their beds together.
So that's how we do it. Of course some of it is hit and miss. That's always the way it is with gardening. But Frank and I check in and help with the young trees at pruning and disease or pest time and sometimes we even get a spare eggplant or too.
And if someone's being rowdy in the street, if I didn't know who they were, it's almost a little bit scary especially if it's late at night. But if it's just Christopher, then it's great and I find myself smiling at the fun and buoyancy of youth.
© 2011 Josephine Laing
It all started with "Watermelon Sunday." Frank and I used to take cookies or peach pies to our new neighbors, the students, on our block every September to get to know them. But then he and I began exploring the raw vegan life style in an effort to increase our level of health (no sugar or processed grains) and to reduce the amount of suffering in the world that we were directly responsible for. (You know, factory farms et all.) But regarding our student neighbors, as the old saying goes, "If you give respect, you get respect." However, it's actually much more than that.
Cal Poly takes in the cream of the cream. These are all amazingly brilliant young people, each one a gem. And getting to know all of those who live on our block has enriched our lives and has allowed us to delight with them in their late night friskiness and share with them their deep heart difficulties and pains. What else is life about if not sharing the ups and downs with those we love? So we feel very blessed and truly enjoy these colorful and varied neighborly relationships.
But back to watermelon Sunday. So, not wanting to participate in cookies and pies anymore, I needed another option. Well, at the farmer's market, if any of you have not experienced our most delicious, local "Dry Farmed Watermelons," do not let another year go by without indulging yourself. They come in late summer. Frank and I can polish off a whole one in two days kept in halves in the fridge. (If you live alone, share one with a friend, or enjoy a five day feast all on your own.) Anyway, we went to the farmers market and got ourselves a whale of a watermelon and then went around amongst all the neighbors with little slips of paper inviting them to come for a slab of watermelon between 3:00 and 5:00pm. on the next Sunday afternoon. We wrote each name on the separate invites at the door asking them to be given to the roommates so all were invited and everyone could come and meet their new neighbors. We also have a few seniors on the block so the party turns out to be a nice mix of generations. After we've all had our fill, I give a garden tour, dig and hand out a few fresh and dirty potatoes, show off my medicinal herb collection which includes stevia, the sweet leaf, and pennyroyal and tansy, both of which will bring on a late period, (always an ear catcher.) Then if this sparks an interest, we consider consulting with the landlords and then planting a few bare root fruit trees and tomatoes in the students yards.
Urban and orchard fruit tree plantings are in a serious state of decline worldwide and yet fruit trees produce the most food per acre of any plant and begin producing within a year or two after planting. And we all know about tomatoes, the poet Pablo Neruda got it right when he said that in summer their blood runs in rivers down the streets. Sometimes we get really into it and put in salad beds with a variety of greens and several types of lettuces, and most everyone loves to plant chili peppers. We've had artichokes, blackberries, pomegranates, peaches, nectarines, plums, cucumbers, apricots, pears, potatoes, yams, tangerines, limes, oranges and lemons. One household even got a duck and some chickens. So we've had eggs. And then we've had cilantro, boy did we have cilantro and parsley, same thing, and arugula too. The kale and collards are easy to grow and green beans and sugar snap peas are too. And we've had flowers: roses, sunflowers and cosmos, marigolds and black eyed susans. Of course some of these student gardens have their bicycles and beer cans too. And sometimes the weeds get very high and blow in the breeze and we just pull the vegetables out from amongst them, all tucked in their beds together.
So that's how we do it. Of course some of it is hit and miss. That's always the way it is with gardening. But Frank and I check in and help with the young trees at pruning and disease or pest time and sometimes we even get a spare eggplant or too.
And if someone's being rowdy in the street, if I didn't know who they were, it's almost a little bit scary especially if it's late at night. But if it's just Christopher, then it's great and I find myself smiling at the fun and buoyancy of youth.
© 2011 Josephine Laing