Hey folks, I’m still re-entering from my time away, and just had to get this post up before I go back and discuss the Great Old Broads festivities. Plus, early this morning, neighbor Georgia called to remind me that I had agreed to go with her to this morning’s annual fundraiser breakfast for Area 10 Agency on Aging. Oops! So, at 7:30 am, without changing out of my grungy gardening clothes, I went to pick her up and go to the IU Foundation building with a bunch of well-dressed folks who wouldn’t be caught dead at a Great Old Broads event. The cause is good, and the breakfast was filling, and luckily, somebody else could bring Georgia home after the program. And oops! this evening, she and I will attend the monthly CONA meeting (Council of Neighborhood Associations) at 6 p.m. downtown. So my time is taken up locally, shall we say?

Then, just now, Keith of the Permaculture Activist stopped by to catch up, after many moons, his gardening clothes and sweat even more grungy than mine. And, Rob, another neighbor, stopped by, to purchase more starter plants.

Mars in Libra? Relationships? Yep. Full-on, now that it’s turned to go direct.

Here’s the post I put up on the GANA and GANG websites. Plus, of course, will send it to the neighborhood email list, and add to the Green Acres Neighborhood Garden fb page. Whew!

Annual Plant Swap, plus assorted fabulous finds

May 21, 2014

GANA and GANG
After a number of email reminders (including one I sent in haste from my temporary perch at a gathering in the Great Bear National Lakeshore in northern Michigan with the Great Old Broads for Wilderness), and a giant sign Rebecca put out for a few days late last week,

Saturday, May 18, was the occasion for our annual plant swap, an event that usually draws the same dedicated characters — plus a few new neighbors. This time was no exception. Six neighbors showed up between 10 am and 2 pm, most of them, Rebecca tells me, early on, which is good, because then everybody could choose plants they wanted to take home.

This time the surprise was in the variety of plants people brought to share. They included iris, marigolds, lilly of the valley, columbine, wood poppy, assorted veggie starts, black berry and raspberry starts, and asters. Plus, an even bigger surprise, none of the usual staples: hostas and daylilies!

Kathy suggested that we plant the extra plants during one of our planned guerilla gardening adventures, in a public area, probably around midnight . . . I’m checking to see if the city mows the area around the new underpass. And even if it does, perhaps we could put up a sign saying “please don’t mow these plants down.” That would be an interesting experiment, eh?

Unfortunately, since I wasn’t here, no pics of the Plant Swap event itself. But it sounds like a good one, and that afternoon Rebecca tells me four people showed up to work in the GANG garden. YES!

Plus, two days ago, I was out walking with puppy Shadow when I came across the adult son of a neighbor on the corner of 7th and Hillsdale who was mowing an enormous lawn and collecting the clippings. He agreed to give them to the GANG garden, and actually dropped them off, later. YES!

This morning I added a layer of grass mulch to some of Rebecca’s newly planted beds.

But the best I saved for last.

Last night, in the middle of the night, Rebecca woke up and remembered that she had decided to go get the probably 40 pieces of perfectly good long pieces of wood that were stacked by a dumpster on 7th Street, near the Fire Station. So, at 2 am, she roused herself out of bed, started the truck, and went to pick it up. The the best part for her? A fireman came out and asked if she wanted help. Unfortunately, she was already done. This wood will go a long way towards any building projects.