plants in planters

I planted two boxes with the companion planting attributed to the Iroquois, who used to be one-time inhabitants of this area of Ontario. Beans grew up the corn stalks in the centre of a mound, and on the periphery squash was planted, which would shade the soil and keep the moisture in, as well as the big squash leaves discouraging weeds. Beans add nitrogen to the soil that the corn needs to grow. A natural fertilizer.

In the other two boxes I planted a spiral of wheat with corn in the centre and then the other box with rows of wheat as it is typically grown in monoculture farming of the sort we so-called Westerners have developed.

I planted the escapelot blog address as well– see what grows in this virtual garden.

For more on escapelot, go to categories on the right hand index and click on escapelot. Click on anything in the right hand index for links all over the place.

escapelot plots

mini-monoculture

escapelot planting

above and below are photos of the box planters granted to me by the university. I finally planted them today after waiting for the sub contractor to replenish the soil, and for Ottawa U. Physical Resources to move them in front of the Faculty of Education. Someone in a landscaping truck slowed and stopped next to the curb where I was planting the corn, beans and squash, and it turns out he’s someone I needed to meet- the subcontractor who did the soil and does the groundskeeping- he seems a nice guy (Tom Waits look alike). I was transplanting my embarassingly etiolated seedlings.
I told him I was going to collect whatever garbage gets tossed into the boxes as well as grow seeds, when he complained to me about how students didn’t seem to understand that if they didn’t pick up after themselves, another human being was going to have to.
The garbage might be all that grows. But I am naively hoping students and passers-by will treat it with some kind of respect. I called it “children’s garden”, in an effort to encourage nurturing behaviour towards my baby plants, and the idea of children’s gardens and gardening.
The Psychology building is being demolished simultaneously as I plant new seeds, and since it is rainy, cold and spring/summer term, there are only a few stragglers about, some of whom watched as the building gets pulled down layer by layer. Hoses were on today as well as rain off and on, to keep the dust down.
When I got home, after cooking dinner, I read Frederick Kaufman’s article (Harper’s) about the World Food Program (and P4P) and Bill Gates, “Let Then Eat Cash“. It discusses how the world starves during times of plenty, anywhere and (possibly) everywhere. Amartya Sen is someone to read when it comes to economics, starvation, and the poverty of most of the world’s farmers.

Kids aren’t even told it’s possible to farm as an occupation, perhpas due to a reluctance to talk about factory farming practices and the conditions most animals are expected to live in before they are killed. The meatrix is a pretty good cartoon about it though.

planting plots