So after way too much back and forth than there needed to be I am switching to a different plot. I didn't get my first choice - as it turned out to be a highly coveted spot and I was the second to request a switch and not the first as I had thought, it went to someone else. But mine is the one next to it and upon further examination, I think it might actually be better.
The summer weeds are out of control so I have a lot of work ahead of me to clear my new plot:
It's hard to even make out where my plot ends and the next one begins from this picture. It's completely covered with weeds and why no one announced the availability of the new area months ago when I saw it laid with topsoil and marked off I'll never know. Annoyance aside, I'm just not sure how I'm going to get through all this with my wonky hand. Here's the new plot from a different angle although I don't know how much of a better idea it gives of its size and location than the first one:
My tiny plot won't look like this for much longer:
View from the other side, photo a bit overexposed:
Several good things about the new plot:
1. More sun! Not much more, maybe a couple of hours, but it's something! Yay!
2. Tiny bit larger, I think. The measurements were given by a committee member but I should go down there with a tape measure and see for myself.
3. Two points of access to the plot. By that I mean, when the committee divided up the original garden, they didn't mark off where the footpaths were going to be and told people after they planted to make room. Some did, some didn't, then they abandoned the plan altogether. So for my square plot, I have only one point of access. That means it's hard to reach my basil and some eggplants because I put them all the way in the back to get the most sun. This time, the committee blocked off a footpath running down the middle so there are two points of access - from the main concrete path and the new footpath.
4. I've learned from my mistakes. While it's really best to leave the plants alone for the rest of the season instead of digging them up, at least now I know how big they're going to grow next year and space them out better.
5. No more being neighbors with the person who keeps putting rocks on my side of the plot.
Why? I don't see any rocks lining his/her side. Whenever I see them, I just remove them. They reappeared today.
Not really sure when I'm moving. Of course, I'd like to postpone it until the end of summer. The switchers don't have to uproot until their old plot is selected for a newcomer on the waiting list. I haven't received any news about my plot being reassigned so everything stays put until then.
The Old:
Oh dearie dear. Poor communication and confusion have delayed the plot switch. New plots were created in another area of the garden and some of the original members (including me) wanted to switch for a sunnier spot. Getting this done has taken longer than necessary. Now it's midsummer and unbearably hot with all sorts of tiny creatures biting me, and I have to weed my new plot then dig up all my not-so-little ones and replant them? Are you kidding me?
The New:
Enough venting. Today my mother came over and helped me pull out the lettuces and wrangle the out of control cukes that keep wanting to creep into a neighbor's plot.
Here's the last of the lettuce. Not looking so good, but the final salad greens:
We picked two of the three eggplants that were growing. They were sagging too close to the ground so my mom thought they'd be better picked and eaten:
The perilla were really abundant. I hadn't picked any in weeks so there were plenty of large leaves. My mother snipped while I held out the plastic bag for her to throw them in. She counted 70. Here they are after washing:
I took a few leaves and chiffonaded them to add to a nori omelet:
Recipe:
3 large eggs or 2 jumbo for a 10" nonstick pan
few tbsps dashi (homemade or powdered is fine, but it's optional)
dash mirin
dash soy sauce
salt and pepper to taste
few drops sake optional
chopped perilla (or scallions, mushrooms, or whatever veggies you have on hand - it really doesn't matter as long as everything is chopped or sliced fine)
1 sheet nori
oil for the pan
Whisk together eggs, mirin, dashi, sake, soy sauce, salt and pepper.
Heat the oil (I use a blend of vegetable oil and a few drops sesame oil for flavor) and add the vegetables to sautee for a few minutes. If it's just perilla, sautee for a few seconds.
Add the egg mixture and use a spatula to stir as you would an omelet. When the bottom is cooked but the top is a little wet, lay the sheet or nori, rough side down. Pat it down gently and when it looks like it's adhered somewhat, start loosening the bottom on one side of the pan and fold it over. It should be about 2" wide.
Scroll to the bottom for my link to Oxo's pancake turner. I have this and it's infinitely more useful than a normal spatula. That's because it's super wide, and you really need something as wide as you can get to easily roll the omelet. If you don't have it, use the widest spatula you have, or use two to help roll from both ends.
Loosen more of the bottom and keep rolling and loosening, rolling and loosening. You should soon have something that resembles a log (think Buche Noel or jelly roll - mmmm... jelly roll.... num num num). The seam side should be down, and shut off the heat. Let the omelet sit in the pan for about 10 minutes so all the loose egg inside sets. Transfer to a cutting board and let cool for another 5 minutes or so before slicing on a bias.
It takes practice, but even if it comes out ugly it's still delicious. Perilla, when eaten raw, is quite pungent like basil. But when it's cooked, its flavors become muted and lends a more subtle fragrance. It's delicious in eggs.
Rain again this morning. Yay!
It's so hot and muggy out that once I get home and turn on the AC I don't want to go back out again. So on my way home from hand therapy, I stopped by the garden to see if I had enough motion to open that devil lock and check on my eggplants. Maybe it was the therapy, maybe it's the humidity that lubricated the lock but it opened surprisingly easily and I was in!
Like I said before, there are some among my fellow gardeners who may not be as respectful of others' plots as the rest of us are so I was 50/50 on expecting to see my eggplants still there. To my surprise, all three were, and absolutely adorable! I don't love the quality of these pics because my iPhone tends to take hazy pictures on overcast days but it'll do for now.
This is the first one to have come out. It's sagging the whole plant down from its weight and barely off the ground.
The baby!
There's another one that's banana shaped and a lot paler in color but it's really hard to snap because it's under a tangle of cuke vines. Speaking of cukes, they're out of control, even encroaching on my neighbor's plot. (I sent him an email letting him I know about it but can't get it it now because of my hand.) Unfortunately, I can't find the little cuke I saw over weekend that my mother pointed out. Wonder if someone snapped it off.
And here's a nice little surprise. A strawberry that was allowed to grow! Maybe it's because it's hidden under leaves. I found it by accident then quickly covered it back up after I took my picture.
A mess of neglected coriander seeds intermingling with chives and basil all under the shade of perilla leaves.
So I'm doing hand therapy now to get back full motion in my hand. I'm not there yet but the dorsal side is looking pretty good:
My hand is still a little weak and there are things I can't do, such as open the devil lock on the garden fence. Friday night I showed a couple of friends my tiny plot and I needed help opening and closing it. Over the weekend my mom came over and she helped me water. I'd been duped repeatedly by incorrect weather forecasts, getting my hopes up and then being disappointed by the promise of rain. So my poor little ones were really parched when my mother came to the rescue. My basil has flowered, which I really need to snip but can't manoeuver a scissor terribly precisely.
I keep forgetting to snap pics so take my word for it when I tell you that my little baby eggplant now has two friends growing alongside it! And finally, FINALLY, there is a teeny cucumber growing between a vine and bright yellow flower! The perilla just looked saggy, needing water to perk up.
And speaking of perilla, I babysat for Christine Sunday and her perilla were looking a bit on the small side, but that's because she's got them all bunched up in a terracotta pot. Still, they are tough fighters and I expect hers will be about my size in a couple of weeks. Wish I'd taken a pic so I could show you a side-by-side comparison. She's also got a great tomato plant she'd been ignoring, so although there were quite a few brown leaves, we were able to pick a skirt full of bright red berries that were tart and super juicy fresh. Wish I could grow tomatoes.
By 5pm last Monday I'd seen four different doctors in the space of about six hours. I was sitting in a chair of someone's cubicle discussing the (frightening) costs of a surgical procedure I was to undergo at 7am the next day. I remember being in something like a daze, trying to take in all the information and doing my best to stay in the moment so I could ask all pertinent questions then and there, but struggling to do so because it was all such a shock. I'd started the day with an appointment to get my right hand checked out. At its worst, I thought, it would be arthritis, but very likely a sprain, if that at all. The last doctor of the day was a hand specialist and he diagnosed the pain as a rare infection, and his partner concurred. It was pretty serious although its origins a mystery, they said, and surgery would need to be immediate.
The pain had started Sunday. I woke up to find I couldn't make a fist or bend my right ring finger so I called my mother thinking it might be arthritis and she'd know if it was from the kind of pain I described. She didn't. What was also weird was that my hands looked perfectly normal. There weren't any swelling, cuts, or scratches. I'd never hit it on something or fallen on it. There were no bites. My nails and cuticles were clean and healthy. Around 3pm I took a nap and woke a little later from excruciating pain. The swelling had begun. It was so slight that it was strange so much pain could come from it. The swelling had moved up to the lower part of the finger by that evening and when I woke around 1am again unable to sleep because of the pain, I considered going to an emergency room. Instead, I took some Motrin and gritted my teeth. As soon as 9am rolled around on that Monday, I started calling some doctors to see who I can see the quickest. I was fortunate to have gotten the appointments I did for all four doctors so quickly. Then Tuesday I was at Surgicare at 6am worried out of my mind that I'd come of out of this as an amputee of some form or another, or, if not that then lose the use of my fingers or my entire hand. The lesser worries were that the incisions would leave hideous scars and that I'd have nerve damage rendering some parts of my hand permanently numb.
Everyone at Surgicare was surprisingly super nice, which maybe says something about private surgical centers versus the complete ambivalence I've experienced from city hospitals. Every single person involved in the surgery stopped by my curtained off pre-op lazyboy-type chair to introduce themselves and explain their role. Finally, the hand surgeon came once I was gowned and showercapped and I had to ask about the chances of me ending up with a few less fingers. He told me I'd come to see him just in time and had I waited two more days, it might have been a good possibility.
With that assurance, I was taken to the operating room, anaesthesia drip plugged into my left hand, and soon thereafter my entire left arm got ice cold. Suddenly, I felt stinging in my nose and as I cried loudly, "It's up my nose! It's up my nose!" that old cliche in every medical tv show and film of fluorescent lights going blurry descended on me and I was out. Now I'd been under general anaesthesia a total of three times my whole life.
I might have yelled some profanity as I was coming to, or it might have been contained in my head, but I remember waking up to the pain of one of the pulse monitors they tape on you being ripped off my skin. My mother was there and I tried to look at my hand but all I could see was a big plaster cast resting on a gray block of foam. On second attempt, to my great relief, I counted all five digits, and they weren't in some weird order or anything like that (wish I could insert here the scene from Arrested Development when the doctor played by the guy who does Homer's voice switches Gob's fingers around when he reattaches them - but I can't find the clip). Once I could stand I was moved to another room into another lazyboy-type chair while a nurse tried to feed me goldfish crackers while I choked because I had no saliva.
Anaesthesia is a funny thing. I've been under before but I never experienced anything like this. Trying to wrap my still-fuzzy head around the paradox of having to pee like crazy but having no saliva in my mouth was a challenge. It wasn't until the nurse pointed out that I was still hooked to an IV drip with an almost empty bag of fluid that I understood why my bladder felt like it was going to explode. Having managed to swallow three goldfish, a Lorna Doone cookie and a few gulps of apple juice, I promptly vomited it all up. When, on the previous day, I was told I'd need to have someone pick me up after surgery, I didn't take it all that seriously, thinking it was just a precaution for legal reasons. Sitting there half conscious with my mother wiping regurgitated apple juice off my chin, I could see why it was necessary.
And the whole time, before and after surgery, but mostly after surgery, I thought of Stephen Fry and his admirably polite and stiff-upper-lip demeanor just after he'd broken his arm in the Amazon.
Skipping past the embarrassing details of having to pee while two nurses helped, and the time I punched myself in the face with the plastered hand because I had no control of my right arm from the shoulder down, a week later, things look good. The stitches came out today and I can finally take a shower without having to wrap my hand in cling film, and actually wash my hand with soap and water (it got a little funky having to only clean with hydrogen peroxide).
But what does all this mean for my tiny plot? Well, gardening is going to have to wait a little while. I'll only be able to go in and out to water, and only accompanied by someone because my hand isn't strong enough to do and undo that big stupid crazyass lock. I was in there Saturday to water the poor parched creatures when I noticed.... THERE IS A BABY EGGPLANT GROWING! I didn't have my phone to take pictures but it was adorable! It was about 3" long and beautifully dark purple.
There is, however, a slight problem. Someone posted a note in our google group but I'd already noticed this a while back: someone is not playing nice in the garden. The note mentioned that some plots were trampled on, but the havoc that's been wreaked on my plot started weeks ago and was more subtle. I've noticed rocks having been thrown, such that one of my lettuce was bent sideways, a rock pinning down some of its leaves. Other various rocks too large to be moved about by squirrels were strewn. Also, cucumber and eggplant flowers, as well as baby perilla leaves growing at the top of the plants have been snipped off. I hate to think this of my neighbors but it doesn't look like it was done by critters. I can't believe that an adult would go around doing something so vicious. Instead, I think it's people bringing in their kids and not watching them. When I started planting months ago I'd already seen one guy letting his toddler loose while he tended to his own space and I saw the kid go stamping on other people's plots.
As for my little purple baby, I hope to be down there soon to take pictures to post here. And as for the lettuce, they fed me well but my mother thinks it's time to pull them up. The leaves aren't getting bigger and they're getting too tall to be supported. The one that was damaged by the rock is not looking so good. So it will soon be one last salad and then, farewell my leafy friends.
I've taken some gruesome post-op pics but for those of you with delicate constitutions I will spare you. Instead, enjoy these.
No broken bones:
Can you spot the swelling?
Post-op. I named him Foamy but it's really called Carter block. It's so comfortable my mother's going to take it home and wear it around the house to use as a portable arm rest.
A French tourist who wouldn't stop staring at Foamy. Yes it's summer and I have enormous hot foam wrapped around my arm. Quel est votre probleme?
Bubbling away in hydrogen peroxide. You can still see some of the purple ink the doctor marked my hand with, like the way plastic surgeons do before cutting up someone's face.
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