Mojopost Goes Green

It is important for a garden to enjoy a visually appealing watering can. Personally, I recommend yellow because it reflects all kinds of nutritious light. My watering can will support enough water to straighten out your back every morning, when we make three trips to the balcony to fortify precious plant matter.

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For your viewing pleasure I present my garden. First, here is what was going down in May:


After channeling my agrarian ancestors and consulting Dr. Frankenstein, I made some things happen.


Witness the same plants, two months later:





OMIGAHD! Can you believe it? Me neither! Clockwise from the left are Dad's dwarf gladiolus, impatients and what I believe to be a hydrangea, a mix of lettuce and tomato plants.





I ROOOLE!!!!


Here are the marigolds, pansies, miniature roses and impatients. This is why I get up in the morning, to see what they are doing! BIG FUN during coffee. La la la, I'm growing stuff...with my bare hands...la la laa.




Does it get any better than this? You think to yourself, "Prolly not," and yet we have not even discussed the tomato stand and herb garden. Have you ever read Stephen King's book, The Stand? I have recreated this exciting last fight of humanity, as represented by vegetables and herbs. My tomato stand used to look like this:

Once upon a time, this stand was a sparse lot of tomato plants with a small supply of natural light, and the plants were expected to grow upside down. To compensate for minimal light in the back, I handcrafted foil reflectors. They worked great until the plants took off like rockets and grew too close to the foil and started frying. I had to install a white light reflector (a/k/a "matte board"). Let's take a peek:



See how that works? I wonder how I found out about white light... Oh yes, I remember! It was on Goog, after I typed in "reflectors for plants" and came upon a golden cache of growing information supplied by pot farmers. Those people have a point, because I've already eaten the tomatoes growing on reflected light, while the tomato plants in the sun have yet to ripen real fruit. Yay for pot farmers! They knew that white relfects a full spectrum of joy!


Here is a photo to cherish, of the entire tomato stand and delicious herbs:

Look at that lusciousness! There are two tomato plants in conventional pots in the foreground, which are growing like cray-zay, but this stand is something I am proud of. It came with cheap plastic legs that bowed, and so I had to hammer in shower rods for support, to keep this thing from falling to it's death four stories below. More than one hundred pounds from that height means Mojopost would have an extreme insurance liability. Boo! We hate liabilities! But we love growing our 'maters.


If you look closely, you will witness the wonder of green tomatoes on the vine. I love the anticipation. No less than one dozen 'maters are promising delicious salads in a few weeks, to go with my lettuce. As for that herb garden I mentioned, feast your eyes on the wonder of aromatic beauty...





What you cannot see, because of the intense foliage, is that nine cilantro plants are maturing between the lavender and basil. There is salsa in my future! I love this.

Garden Variety Revolution

I spent the weekend protesting the Iranian elections from my balcony jungle night and day, day and night. The symbolically green tomatoes, along with the new Stevia plant, and me are pert near ready to drive to Tehran right now. I’ve got garden trowel and I’m not afraid to put it anywhere it should not be.



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What we need is a shit ton of salt. It is the best thing for slugs and slimy dictators. If US citizen salted Dubya with even a small teaspoon of Tony Chachere’s Creole Seasoning, we wouldn’t be in half the mess we’re in now. Look – it’s not hard. Even margarita salt will do. BBQ-ists, alcoholics, anyone with something salty should fly to Iran and start shaking.

Even my purple pansies are upset about this thing in Iran. All twenty-two blossoms (tall as weeds!) are ready for a fight. Do you know anything about the way pansies fight? They are worse than screaming animals. Vindictive like a woman with the power of a man. And you know the pansy was probably right, every time, which makes them capable doing anything. Only one person walks away from those kinds of altercations, and barely. If cable TV ever staged a fight between pansies and anyone else, I’d buy five subscriptions. Riveting stuff.

My yellow celosia is armed, the marigold is spouting ten back-ups and the impatients are in a hurry to help out. The hydrangea is leaning left now, too, even though it was leaning right last week. The gladiolus plants are turning red with anger. The lettuce? That lettuce was packed the day after the Iranian election. Ahmadinejad doesn’t have the dressing it would take to hold down this salad.

I’ve got chicken wire and pliers and I'm mad as hell. Iran - me and the garden are behind you all the way. Get 'er done!

Helter Skelter – The Beatles

The Haunted Bulbs

I’m waiting to find out if I have built a floral Auschwitz, a place where plants come to suffer and die. Contrast this horror against my inner optimist, the one who wants to be able to give tomatoes away because – oh look – I’ve accidentally grown too many! This balcony garden of mine is full of pathos and internal dialogue. Hieronymus Bosch should be so lucky.

I planted the impatients (hurry up!) in a box on the railing. The tomatoes plants are staked and ready for replanting into this thing (if it ever arrives in the mail), and the cucumber seeds are nestled into starter trays. If the cukes find it in their heart to grow just a little, I’m going to put them in my Topsy Turvy collection.

Of course I planted snapdragons! I love smushing the flowers in my fingers and making a “rwaaaarrr” noise. Those are in a box with something yellow and bushy at the top. No idea what it is but it looked like a fighter I want to know. The geranium is potted alone, as are the pansies, marigolds, miniature roses and cilantro. I might also have cat grass at some point in the next few weeks, but I still have no idea where to put the bastard-child lavender. I'm working on making it feel more at home.

Yes, I did plant lettuce – thanks for asking. It’s called “Gourmet Mix”. There is a special bottle of salad dressing from back home set aside for this lettuce if it chooses to apply itself. I can only encourage it. If I berate the lettuce it’s only going to act out.

Last but not least, I planted eight dwarf gladiolus bulbs in two green pots. This could be a real disaster and I can’t wait! These are some of the bulbs that were sent to my father. They arrived by mail two weeks after Dad died. He placed a $40 order for bulbs last October, because he did not have pneumonia then. The gladiolas could be red when they grow up, so I have read. It could be months before we know more.


If you happen to walk by my condo, you can see me on the fourth floor. I’m wearing cotton gloves printed with a tomato design, blown-out sweatpants and dirt. It’s probably not a good idea to come up. I smell like ass and Miracle-Grow.

When I was small and not as good at complaining as I am now, I told my father that normal people do not grow things, they buy things. He made me work on the garden anyway, and that was my fate until I became an adult with a debit card and big ideas about the produce section of a grocery store. My how things have changed.

The Back Forty Of My Youth

When I was a child growing up in Darfur, my parents forced me to labor in their fields. Every morning Mom packed me a can of tears for lunch before I left to plow the back forty. When she forgot my can opener, I was forced to eat my right leg for nourishment. If I returned for dinner late, or if the oxen had eaten the sacks of weevils I collected for our meal, I was made to sleep on a pile of bones that belonged to the children who came before me. I learned at a young age that gardens were the playgrounds of sadists.

“Why can’t I just spend the summer watching Luke and Laura like NORMAL kids?” I cried. “Has God forsaken me?” While YOU spent the summer by the pool or sailing with your family (I said I’m not bitter), I was not allowed to join you until the overlords were satisfied with my work on their flower beds and infinite rows of vegetables. I’m sorry if I was too tired to play Duck Duck Goose, my friends. My tiny back was broken by 3:00 every summer day, but they never broke my will. That’s how I stayed alive.

I still see the weeds in my dreams. For every two I pull out of the ground, a forest replaces them.

Yesterday I bought flower boxes, seeds and a watering can. I can’t quite explain why I did this. Stockholm Syndrome maybe? Am I identifying with my captors, so that I might BE ONE OF THEM? I can’t be sure. All I know is that I put my father in the ground and now I want something to come up. It is going to work.

Ween – Push Th’ Little Daisies