Salt City Sinner

posted on 8/30/2015 by the Salt City Sinner  The last two times that I wrote about gardening, the tone was uncharacteristically less “playful whimsy” than “agonized demon howl.” This is with good reason. The cockroach-hearted fauxhemian Whole Foods crowd at Wasatch Community Gardens, you see, did a terrible thing to me and many other people – they decided that agreements are for suckers and that what the world really needs is another blighted patch of asphalt rather than a large and vibrant community garden, and so they killed my garden (and the gardens of many others) dead, dead, dead. Forgive my bitterness: there is something about loving a patch of actual soil, about nurturing life from tiny green shoots to a luxurious canopy of flowers and vegetables that brings out a protective streak in a human being, and also a ferocious loyalty. The destruction of Sugar House Community Garden did not, however, end my gardening career – heavens, no! Instead, I and a handfu...

posted on 4/23/2015 by the Salt City Sinner I suppose that you can look at the history of Sugar House Community Garden (or “Lettuce Bee Community Garden” – but I'll get to that in a moment) as a three-part story, structured in a manner familiar to anyone who has studied your average ancient empire; birth and rise, followed by a period of flourishing, followed by decline and/or death. Unlike your average ancient empire, SHCG left little behind in its aftermath. Instead of a gargantuan toppled statue in the desert ironically inviting travelers to “look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair,” our garden left behind the same pathetic fenced-in patch of nothing that we briefly brought to glorious life. Before Wasatch Community Gardens After Wasatch Community Gardens This was not our design or our preference, mind you, but the design and preference of Wasatch Community Gardens . Wasatch Community Gardens is a not-for-profit organization based in Salt Lake City tha...

Posted on 6/13/2012 by the Salt City Sinner Here in Salt City, temperatures are on the rise, and the sun is aggressively radiant - so much so that driving East in the morning or West in the evening is an exercise in driving blind. Things are popping up everywhere (both in terms of greenery and continued political discontent )! Not long ago, I posted about my plot in Sugar House Community Gardens. When I planted and added my first soil amendment (coconut husks, which absorb and re-release water in an almost magical way), my plot looked like this: Well, brothers and sisters, feast your eyes: Thai basil, radishes, beets, onions, bok choi, mystery beans, peppers, Swiss chard, amaranth - you name it, I'm growing it. My bok choi, which I have had to pinch five or six generations of flowers off of to encourage leafy growth, is going NUTS (as are my onions): I even have one winter squash plant that I might have to trellis eventually. I also have the mystery bean...

posted on 4/15/2012 by the Salt City Sinner Spring! Spring is here, and it's time to plant cold weather crops . I garden for a living (more on that some other time), and this time of year I eat, sleep, breathe and dream gardening. In addition to refugee gardens at eight community garden sites throughout the Salt Lake City area - with our most far-flung garden located in the misty, legendary Kingdom of Magna - I have my own plot at the newly minted Sugar House Community Gardens , near my parents' place, located on what used to be a decrepit tennis court near Fairmont Park. Yes sir, I am Loyal to my Soil: That's after a light watering and a turning of the first six inches of topsoil. Despite what some garden guides say, and what some gardeners believe, I have heard frequently enough from enough Master Gardeners (yes, that's a technical title you have to earn) that only the top six inches of soil needs serious cultivation / tampering. That soil right ...

If... I won the Mega Millions lottery what would I do with it?  I would buy a large chunk of property out in the country.  My children would spend their mornings and evenings surrounded by dirt, and animals- and one MASSIVE garden. Do you spend time dreaming of a perfect life?  Do you wonder how much more beautiful moments would be, and how much more simple things could be without the everyday issues of going to work and making ends meet with meager paychecks- going from week to week hoping there will be enough left over to feed your family.                                                                                                                            ...