How Does My Garden (Not) Grow

The rolling estate and garden in Molumbia (my own duchy protectorate)

For the 15 years or so, I have had a garden growing out back. Both at my previous house and then my current house. At the current domicile, since 2011. In the Old Testament, land was to lay fallow every 7th year. So, this is year 7. Technically, I have added new dirt every couple of years, so it is not entirely the same soil. But, the principle stands. This year I am contemplating not growing vegetables. Take a year off. Chill.

Ar my previous house, I would plant a multitude of tomatoes, peppers, kale, beans, squash, etc., and lay down some weed block sheets, and then let the strong survive. Good Plants vs. the Weeds. A Darwinian death-match for scarce resources. But, then the groundhogs came and it all ended in a spectacular collapse.  My back-yard fastidious pain-in-the ass neighbor no doubt took glee in watching the fiasco. He'd get all riled about the garden chaos but then hire exterminators to spray deadly pesticide and herbicide all over his grass, much of it affecting the air and groundwater of my garden (somehow that was legit on his end).            

I have to say, there is much in biblical statutes that I don't follow. Like loving my enemy. I fall short as do most of us. However, I think I do a decent job observing the Sabbath (now Sunday, not Saturday, from the Jewish eon). For instance, I just awoke from a sweet two hour nap, after enjoying a lovely and spicy bowl of Vietnamese Soup at my favorite hole-in-the-wall and pool hall in downtown Lancaster. It was the perfect day for it. Cool outside, overcast. It has been an unusually wet Spring. We had a brief foray into August like temps but then the rain came in with a cold front and tamped down on the swelter.

Take a look-see!

Bun Bo Hue at Pho Noodle

Throw in an order of Spring Rolls

I consider supporting local ethnic restaurants to be practically a civic duty. Since Lancaster is the refugee capital of the U.S., in the not too distant future we should be seeing the flowering of ethnic cuisine. This week I had Puerto Rican empanadas (really Google? You don't have empanadas in your spell-check dictionary? It has the red line under it), Nepalese/Indian cuisine, Puerto Rican Rice, Pork, and Beans Friday night at a night market (event needed more food vendors but it was the first time run. We waited an hour for food), and Vietnamese today. A real U.N. of Grub. It is empowering to immigrants to provide for themselves rather than just a hand-out.

 Empanadas at Floras

Nepalese/Indian at the Himalayan

I usually don't eat out so much but I came into some cash for extra work and I wanted to catch up with some good friends. Last night, four us also went to Troegs for some craft beer and gastropub dishes. it was the bomb.

A Rye Saison with Mac and Cheese, Pulled Pork, and Collard Greens at Troegs

My Yelp reviews generate more traffic than this blog. Stay tuned, my buddies and I are cooking up an idea for a documentary involving food and culture, dispelling the notion that Lancaster County and Central Pa. are a culinary desert. I have had a lot of media success in the last year or two with my writing for national publications so it is time to take the next step. Food, Beer, and Coffee, appear to be my literary niches.

Here in Central Pa, we have our share of Nativists who have their heads so far up their ignorant asses that they can't see or eat two inches beyond the familiar gross diners, family restaurants, and especially, those all you can eat carb and sugar factories buffets.  A commentary on their general ignorance. I am losing my patience with uneducated smart asses who don't know what they don't know.  It is one thing to be unknowing, and humble it is another to be proud and ignorant, boasting in your Trumpian-stoked stupidity. I feel like dishing out some reckoning. There's that lack of loving my enemy I was talking about.    

Back to the  Garden: Last Saturday, the rain was so soaking that I was able to go out and root out a ton of the crab grass growing in the garden. Careless mowing on my part of blowing the clippings into the garden created the mess and the drenching permitted me to get into the underground connecting root system of the crabgrass and yank out the network. Unlike regular grass which is an independent root system for each blade of grass, crabgrass all connects through a common root system. It makes crabgrass devilish to deal when the soil is dry and stable. But also, in the case of the soil being soaked, a decent way to knock out a lot of it with a little effort.  Its strength is its weakness. (like ISIS and its caliphate dreams, a miscalculation of such epic proportions that it threatens to collectively move the Mid-East back to the 6th century with no food, electricity, plumbing, water, etc).  

Tearful repentance, not just regret for consequences, likewise allows us to get to the root of sin. The underlying character issues are what has to be yanked. Not behavior modification and externality. Also, a major difference of Islam vs. Christianity, by the way.  I will leave it at that.