Alas poor Yorick, thou hast squashed my appetite

Who says we lack culture? Ray got Shakespearian the other day, right in our garden…

The other day, Ray came by the garden just after Pete and I had harvested the last of the squash.

I asked him if he wanted any to take home, and Ray very emphatically said “NO!”

So, he told me his story:

“When I was a boy living at the foster home, the woman who cooked for us made delicious things – fried chicken, mashed potatoes… BUT she also cooked squash, every night. If you wanted them other good things, you had to eat all your squash. I had enough squash for a lifetime – and I don’t want any more!”

Ray has always been a great storyteller, and he relates things with his whole body. He talked to that squash like a great Shakespearian actor, and then even lifted a squash in his hand to deliver his soliloquy.

Couldn’t help but remind me of Hamlet, when he finds the skull of the court jester he’d known as a child:

“Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow
of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy…Where be your gibes now? your
gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment,
that were wont to set the table on a roar?…”

(from William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, 1603)

And Ray would roar if you tried to make him eat squash. Such is life.

Pen and ink drawing by Nicholas Bentley, (English, 20th Century), from Brush Up Your Gardening, Stanley Whitehead (Dent, London, 1943)

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The homeless garden in October

Here’s how the garden looked last week, at the end of the summer. We’ve already harvested all the remaining squash (as you just learned from “Yorick”). Things will change a lot as we sow cover crops (crimson clover and, when it cools a little more, cereal rye) and try some fall things. We’ve been waiting for rain – none in the forecase, so we just have to hope for the best. It is very warm here in the middle of the city, so we can get away with late plantings of greens, collards, and kale, and we may try some overwintering root crops too this year.

There’s a story here – notice the HHH (Homeless Helping Homeless) volunteer helping to sweep up and clean around the Center, while others sit by and watch.

Later that afternoon, we had some extra okra and squash from the garden. Guess who we shared it with? I know, it has echoes of John Smith and “He who workes not eates not”. Maybe so, but it doesn’t feel that way exactly. The Center does feed all who come, and we do have “free sharing” areas in the garden. But we are also about transformation. If you can get past the negativity and entropy that come with life on the street, there is hope that things can get better. No guarantee, of course. But at least this okra ended up in the hands of someone who deserves it, as a thank you for making a difference for the better. In spite of everything.

This is relatively new, our chalkboard with activities for the day. I’m going to get some green chalk and start posting garden stuff (everyday, it will say “weed” – except that this drought and heat are incredible herbicides, stronger than Roundup!)

Finally, what you’ve all been waiting for – the official garden angel plaques, posted officially on the side of the Station.

Who is this strange homeless fellow, going on about “forgiveness” and “compassion” and “love your neighbor as yourself”? Should we call Social Services, maybe a psychiatric program? I think it may be a generational issue – I’ve heard from reliable sources that his mom and dad weren’t married, and ended up in very non-traditional housing when they couldn’t get into a flophouse hotel. I mean, it was bad, like sleeping with some animals or something.

This is one of Lite Lewis’s art installations that grace our Center.

Here’s another of Lite’s inspirations, a new bike that is now on the garden fence (that makes two).

Here are our planters in action, just the right size for sitting down and resting. Being able to sit down and rest ought to be a human right. Garden designers – think multipurpose.

These sweet potatoes, I’ve got to show them again. Scroll down – look how they are growing! They ought to be ready for making Thanksgiving pies. The only problem is that they and the tomatoes still need space (the okra too), so we between the drought and lack of space we haven’t been able to plant fall stuff. We need a garden 3 times bigger. (Garden tech note – we, like all of us, need to be sure to get these sweet potatoes OUT before the frost, or we’ll have a lot of messy nasty foliage to deal with. With weather so strange, I think we’ll pull at the first suggestion of freezing temps – but it is going to be in the 90s (yep, 90s) today, so who knows when that will be.)

Give us this day…you know, I can’t help but be grateful for the donated food we get. Without it, how could we possibly feed the people we feed, sometimes close to 300 per day. That said, this is also one reason for our garden. Cast aside white bread contributes calories, but few vitamins. The fresh produce from our garden provides some of the best organic veggies in North Carolina, and we are proud of it. All the better that the folks who eat it really need those vitamins (and good taste)! Put a slice of one of our fresh tomatoes on this white bread, and, you know, you have something worthy of a Bill Gates budget or an Alice Waters palate.

Let’s hear it for the Boy Scouts. A scout built this path, and now it is lined with flowers and cool looking plants, and framed by one of our wall murals. The art of transformation, with soil, stone and flowers.

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