Miracle on Booth Street

The previous post looked at some really tough plants. This post focusses on the more tender, biological ones. Recall that in the spring, volunteer gardeners from the neighborhood planted a few curbside openings along Booth Street. *

The plants we used were tough ditch lilies. Native species like these are best for the awful conditions we subjected the plants to. First there is the foot and vehicular traffic along Booth. The pollution. The strange soil, 50% gravel, that we had to plant in. Followed by the driest summer on recent record, with no tap to water these plants. Given the dry weather, we did advise immediate neighbours of the plants, and asked them to water them, but we had no way of knowing if they ever did get watered. ( We made a few visits with 20gallon jugs of tap water, which was akin to pissing on the Sahara). This is what we started out with:

As luck would have it, the city cooperated by staging unused construction signs right on the planted islands. At least it was shade…

So I wandered by a few weeks ago to see how the plants were doing, and here they are, somewhat thriving, in the same planter as shown above:

Now look closely at that picture, and especially the out-of-focus sphere in the foreground. It’s a cantaloupe. Lush and ripe. Where did the seed come from? Why has no one picked it? Or vandalized it? And its right in front of a public housing project on a busy street that otherwise sees nothing but contempt.