Did I mention it's tiny?

Love her or hate her (I'm meh), I admit I went to Martha Stewart's site to get some ideas on what to plant when I joined the gardening club.  (If there are hipper sources for this kind of thing I don't know them.)  I pictured myself surrounded by a cornucopia of heirloom tomatoes, rainbows of peppers, cukes and squash of all sizes, and couldn't decide from the dizzying selection of seeds from Martha's recommended list of purveyors.  Then when the garden was divided up and I saw the location and size of my plot, I was crestfallen.  It's not that I got the worst of the bunch - the plots were divided up pretty much equally.  Mine is in the middle, not getting the most amount of sun (those most east get the last bit before it disappears behind our building after noon), but not getting the least either (some don't get any).  I'd say, on a sunny day, I get about three or four hours, but once  11:00 rolls around my little guys sit in the shade.

So back to Martha.  This is what I wanted.  Instead, my plot is less than 3'x3', next to a chain fence which I fear, doesn't protect my little ones from getting peed on, by human or beast.  Although her vegetable garden guide is really informative, it put me off at first because it was clearly written for people who have more space and resources.  I wasn't going to buy hoes and buckets and test the soil for pH and drainage.  I certainly don't have a tool shed in which I could grow seedlings under lights and there's no room in my apartment for that setup.

Feeling a little dejected, I closed Martha's site and stared out my window at my plot below.  I pictured my neighbors with shiny gardening implements, expertly caring for their plots, knowing how to organically do this and that.  I noticed some people getting started in early March.  Flowers and greens started showing up little by little and I stared at my piece of dirt wondering how the hell I was going to grow anything.

Then my mother called me with a lot of enthusiasm in her voice, telling me how this market by her in Flushing was selling seedlings of the kind of vegs my grandmother used to grow.  I wasn't feeling it, but she came by carefully transporting the little ones on the 7 then dragging me out to get cheapo garden tools, only the bare necessities.  It didn't matter that I didn't have a trowel with a handle carved by an obscure aborigine tribe sold by an uber-upscale boutique in London.  Did my $2 trowel with the plastic handle suck?  Yeah.  But it got the job done.  My grandfather salvaged sticks and string to use in his garden from his walks around the neighborhood.  My grandmother cut her chives from the garden with the same pair of scissors I used to make school projects.  Maybe it's ghetto, but then, I live in one.  Sort of.

As I continued making my visits to the garden, I started meeting other gardeners.  Most confessed they didn't really know what they were doing either.  I saw someone with her kids using an old spoon to dig.  Another watered his plot with a 2-liter Coke bottle.  This made me feel better.  I hope this gardening community keeps its rustic ways.

It's rainy today so no need to make a trip down with the watering can.  I took this picture this morning, but it looks the same now, except not as much traffic on the Williamsburg:

This is my view looking down onto the garden.  the one in the middle is mine, close to the fence:

This is a wider view.  On the right is another section for composting.  I only just got involved in it this past weekend and helped build the second round of compost bins (the first one I missed out on), these being made of discarded pallets and chicken wire.