Alexx's Journal

One of the things I value the most is Truth. In service to that principle, one of the personal qualities I value most is the ability to admit error. As a male raised in a Western patriarchal society, it is a constant struggle for me to do so, but I’m working on it.

There is something that I have claimed on many many occasions to many different people. And it was so utterly incorrect. It’s past due for a public acknowledgment.

Often, in years past, when I would feed people fresh strawberries from the Melville Keep garden, they would ask me “How hard is it to grow strawberries?” I would invariably answer with some variant of “Not hard at all!” As it turns out, I was speaking from a position of unconscious privilege and was wrong in every important respect.

Now, I KNEW we paid a gardener to come in and do some amount of work. But I figured that the bulk of her work must’ve involved the decorative flowerbeds on the borders of the garden. I knew she did things with the goal of encouraging the strawberries to grow, but that seemed almost redundant, given how much I observed them growing enthusiastically on their own. And, yes, she weeded; but I weeded too, in the midst of my harvesting.

All that was years ago, when the household budget was less strained. Times have gradually gotten tougher, and it’s been several years since we had a gardener. Over this time span, I have spent more of my time and effort on gardening tasks, only to watch entropy gain steadily and inexorably upon my efforts. You may have noticed that it’s been a long time since anyone here said “Please come and pick our strawberries; there are too many for us to eat.” Indeed, the crop has been steadily shrinking in both number and duration, and is now well below the level which I would like to eat all by myself.

Growing strawberries is HARD. Gardening is HARD. I apologize for ever being so foolish as to believe and say otherwise.

Spring having finally put in an appearance, I’ve been allocating much of my “productivity” spoons to the garden. For the last two years, the weeds have been seriously crowding out the strawberries. So I have been attacking them.

Now, it’s important to note that THOROUGH weeding is actually counterproductive. When the strawberry plants have no nearby competitors, they spread out rather than up. This leaves the strawberry fruit lying on the ground, and much less likely to reach ripeness intact. With competition, the stems stiffen, lifting even heavy fruit.

That said, I am doing my damnedest to genocide the spiderwort.

When it first showed up, several years ago, I was like “Those purple flowers are really pretty. I wonder what they are?” Some Internet research revealed a plant that went by several names, the most evocative of which was spiderwort. It also seemed to be widely regarded as a pestiferous weed. Knowing that “weed” is a subjective and problematic term, I left the spiderwort alone, due to the beauty of its flowers. This was an error.

Spiderwort starts out looking like a patch of unusually wide grass or reeds. By the time it flowers, it can reach a height of 2 to 3 feet. In late summer, after the flowers have had time to pollinate, the strong stems holding them up… relax. THWUMP! Suddenly, a 2 foot radius of the garden is completely covered in limp spiderwort, stealing all the sunlight. And it puts down new seedlings at the perimeter. If you leave it alone, you will soon have a LOT of spiderwort.

The enemy is well dug in, in multiple senses. But, day by day, the front moves back. I shall not rest until they have been driven back to the sea! Well, okay, not quite that far. But I am gonna get them the hell away from my strawberries.

Thursday evening I did a harvest run before dark, knowing that big rain was coming. Then this morning, when the sun returned, I did a standard harvest. One quart each time. More than we can eat, buthopefully some will keep well enough to bring to jducouer's wedding party tomorrow :-)

Sunday morning: 16. teenybuffalo came over, and I was able to ply her with some :-)
This morning: 16 again. Would have been more, but the rain slowed them down some, and also made me do a quick-and-dirty job of harvesting. devoken and londo are expected over tonight, and hopefully there will be some left to ply them with :-)

[kestrell always gets the first and best, naturally.]

Still finding myself a lot more... alert while traveling than I want to be. This will pass.

My shoulder's been acting up increasingly for the last month. Saw the Ortho doc yesterday. He shot me up with steroids, which should theoretically improve things over the next five days. Still quite painful at the moment, but I'm hopeful.

Was cheered up considerably this morning by the discovery of a few ripe strawberries. The garden is under serious siege by weeds, but the strawberries are fighting back valiantly :-)

Unexpected sunshine this morning, so put in a good long (if still incomplete) run at the garden. Got a bit more than a pint of good ones, and cleaned out over 3 pints worth of bad.

No harvest Saturday, due to inclement weather.

Paid for that today, with a much worsened rot/ripe ratio. Still got most of a quart of good ones, but with a lot more effort than usual.

Keeping up with the garden is a lot of work. If I'm diligent and thorough, about half the fruit actually reaches ripeness. No amount of care can save more than that from fatal imperfections due to circumstances beyond my control. Fruit that looked perfect at first glance may reveal nasty chunks of rot when looked at more closely in a second pass. It's frustrating, but something you just have to live with.

Feels a lot like building game systems. Or probably any creative endeavor. People enjoy the sweetness, but they don't usually realize how much ended up in the compost heap.

About 90% of a quart today. Plenty of sun, so even more expected tomorrow.

My office has many more people than it did last year. I feel compelled to pick more than I used to. The smiles of joy people give me in return are addictive.

Of course, there's still about half the people at work who see me offer and say "I'm good." No, no you are not. If you are turning down fresh strawberries, you are at best, broken, if not actually evil! Yes, I have strong feelings about this :)

About 85% of a quart.

Overcast today, so tomorrow may not be as bountiful.