My Part Time Job

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This is the neighborhood of my part time job as a treeage triage technician. We had a little problem with the Inside Plants Science Lab a while ago. A major number of the plants dehydrated and defoliated. The science lab became an ICU. It’s a long story and I’ll spare you the details. Suffice to say there are a lot of coulda, woulda, shoulda’s involved. Since I am not certified by the board of education for access during the school day, I care for the plants from 3 to 5 pm and some Saturdays. I’m now the only one that touches them.

Revival of these plants will be a testimony to the modern sub-irrigation methods used. It has also taken every bit of knowledge I have from over 30 years of experience with sub-tropical plants. Some of the plants are already compost but there are now signs of new growth on most of the desktop Ficus trees. I’m grateful that they didn’t all die. It looked rather grim for a while. Ten years of work almost went down the drain.

When the weather is warmer (probably April), I’m going to rent yet another U-Haul truck, hire Sambou and Jesse and move the plants to my apartment. The racks and fluorescent lights are already here. I will then have a demonstration location for prospective donation recipients. I’ve learned much from this experience and my mistakes.

The photo above shows the Ebbets Field Middle School across the street from the rather ugly apartment complex that replaced the demolished Ebbets Field. In the foreground, we have the well-known fast food emporium for the school kids. How convenient. I guess it’s better than a liquor store, but not by much.

Imagine a vegetable garden here – This area is on school property between the MacDonald’s and the school. Wouldn’t it be neat if there was a vegetable garden here during the spring and summer? No, there’s no need for access to the earth. Have a look at this sub-irrigated container garden at McGill University in Montreal. The 73 slides are truly inspiring. It was a cooperative effort between McGill students and the Rooftop Garden Project. There is absolutely no reason why this concept couldn’t be used in this play area. There is also no reason why this couldn’t be done all over the city. The only obstacle is lack of knowledge. We met the enemy and its name is ignorance.

Tornado ally – I’ve been walking by this row of apartments on my walk to and from the subway not realizing that the repair work going on is a result of the unusual tornado that ripped through Bay Ridge on August 8, 2007. This is just a few blocks from my apartment. I had no idea that a tornado could touch down in this part of the country.

Cobweb vines – Brooklyn Botanic Garden is one of the venerable botanic gardens of the world. Unfortunately, they have not kept up with the modern age. BBG publishes many books, not one of them covers the subject of sub-irrigated container plants for food production or decoration. There isn’t one class that teaches anything about the subject. I audited a class about houseplant care a couple of weeks ago. The information was as current as the Middle Ages and poorly presented. It was flat earth stuff.

The garden is stuck in a prior century. It’s painful when I walk by here so close to the Ebbets Field Middle School to know that the garden administration completely ignored my attempts to reach them about the plant science lab donation. I got a turned back and a deaf ear. The disaster that occurred might have been avoided had they a sensitive ear to a legitimate plea for help.

I was standing on a corner near the school and was startled to see this big sightseeing bus. I grabbed the camera from my coat pocket and shot. One click and this is what I got. It’s one of my favorite street shots. I like the juxtaposition of the tourists, the rockettes and the woman walking by oblivious to what’s going on. She’s got her music and her Nathan’s drink. What more does she need? And what are all those people shooting up there? Have a look at the original size photo.

After standing on my aching knees for a couple of hours doing triage on the plants, there’s the long ride home on the subway. Hey, it’s better than being stuck in car traffic. Besides, I get to do one of my favorite things in New York and that’s people watching.

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