The Local P-Patch

by A.J. Coltrane

I wrote this about the local P-Patch on May 31:

As an aside:  We went to the local P-patch today to look around — Lots of peas, lettuces, carrots, and various types of alliums. Some tomatoes and tomatillos. One tiny little bit of corn, and one of beans. A little bit of squash. Not a cucumber in sight. The groupthink seemed almost monolithic in its decision making.

That doesn’t make any sense to me. Our cucumbers out-produce everything expect maybe the tomatoes. Maybe they’ll all plant cucumbers after the peas are done?

My guess is no. The food bank boxes are densely planted and well maintained. The other boxes, not so much. It might be because they’ve got so much space to play with, but to my mind they’re “wasting” a lot of it. There are “big” areas with nothing going on… Today is basically June 1st, shouldn’t there be something growing? (Or maybe it’s just me, and that having to deal with super finite space all the time has made me feel like wasted space = wasted opportunity. It’s really my problem, not theirs…. Nah.)

I went by again yesterday. There are still tons and tons of peas and lettuces. Much of the “wasted” space is now occupied by baby cucumbers and zucchini, as well as some smallish tomato plants. Beds like this are the exception:

There are some small squash or cucumber at the far end of the box. I think those are tiny broccoli(?) or some type of brassica in the front right. In the background you can see a tomato bed (#4) and a beet bed (#5). The beets look good..

I’m going to hazard a guess that in a couple of weeks all of the peas and lettuce will become short season tomato plants(?)

I clearly don’t get it.