You can't really lose with zinnias.  I mean, you definitely get bang for your buck.  And my globe thistles on their second round (as always, you can see more here, or if you're in the neighborhood, drop by and say "hi".)

Admittedly, I've let things go a little wild over the last couple of weeks, as I cozy up my mancave.  But I do want to make a good showing for the Iowan, when he comes, so I spent a couple of hours this afternoon deadheading the zinnias, tidying up poignantly fading hydrangeas, clearing out dried-up purple cone flowers, and weeding. 

My neighbor dropped in to tend her plot after work as well, and we chatted over the hedge about the state of things, as you do.  Aside from her modesty, she is really the quintessential gardener, but for some odd reason she tends to get targeted by all the scoundrels and the perves that bedevil our little seven acres of paradise. 

I feel for her.  She's not only, apparently, a target of the elderly flasher who prowls the gardens in a speedo most weekday mornings (weather permitting), but of unscrupulous characters of various stripes in the garden society itself.  There are a few gardeners who seem to prey on the single ladies, offering various services — for a fee, of course — taking their money, and then taking their sweet time fulfilling their end of the bargain.

I remember dealing with this, long-distance, when my mother was newly widowed.  You can't believe the scumbags out there preying on vulnerable women.  My mother had to have her roof done twice in two years because she trusted some local scammer who took her money, did a shoddy job, and then avoided her when she called him on it.  I mean, this is someone who lives down the street.   

There's a special place in hell, is all I can say.

In the garden, these are the same characters who go about gathering stones from derelict lots — and then go around offering to sell them at a buck a pop to their fellow gardeners. I know it sounds like some sort of Isaac Bashevis Singer story.  And in some ways the Victory Gardens are surprisingly like a medieval village somewhere beyond the Urals.  We have our share of  nudzhes and nudniks, shlemiels and shlimazels, no question.

You feel sorry for them on the one hand.  That's how they rope you in.  I mean, how desperate do you have to be to go around selling rocks out of your garden?  So you see someone like that and you need something done — a gate repaired, a fence mended — and you try to do a good deed, helping them out by paying them a little something for helping you out — and forever after it's like you've got the word "sucker" scrawled across your forehead. 

Lately there's been a rash of thefts that look like "inside jobs".  It's not something you even want to spend time sleuthing out.  And you know whoever it is, it's someone (or two) with too much time on their hands.  The gardens span seven acres, as I've said, so, if you want to go around digging up other people's perennials — well, let's just say, once they're gone they're harder to recover than a stolen bike in the city.

It's always disappointing when someone abuses a situation based almost entirely on mutual trust.  It's like they don't get it:  we could all just raid each other's gardens at will — we could form tribes — the Boylston Tribe could invade the Park Drive Tribe, dig up whatever we wanted , steal the women and babies, burn down the garden shanties, the whole nine yards — but we don't.  And it's not because we can't, bitches (trust me, Boylston rules), it's because we value our community, our drama-free zone, and we have better things to do with our time. 

I had someone bust into my garden a couple of weeks ago, and was very touched to hear from half a dozen people via phone, text and facebook, who wanted to alert me to the fact that my gate was sitting open.  I fully expected to find the place a shambles like last time, but the damage was minimal, so much so that it actually took me a day to figure out what the intruder had broken in for. 

Way back in a secluded corner I finally noticed a fresh hole where a globe thistle had been.  I have globe thistle out the wazoo, and will gladly offer them to  anyone who asks.  The thief had been very neat and tidy, to the point where it was precious, almost poignant.  But why not just ask?

This is, of course, the time of year that gardeners are splitting their perennials and offering their neighbors and friends first dibs.  It is part of the pleasure of gardening to split your prized plants and share them amongst friends.  But the odd stranger gushing with compliments will usually walk away with a freebie as well. 

When you approach gardening — especially in a community garden — in this spirit, as most people I know do, it makes the kind of behavior we've been seeing all the more puzzling.  These thefts are gratuitous.  If you see something you want, strike up a conversation, hurl a compliment, and chances are you'll walk away with it. 

My friend Michael had split several perennials, and lined them up just inside his garden, off to the left of his gate, and went off to fetch a friend whom he'd offered them to.  He came back — after ten, fifteen minutes tops — to find all of them gone.

In broad daylight. 

It's not the end of the world.  You can't let it get to you.  We have all had it happen, and what can you do but scratch your head and shrug?

Well, as Friends of the Blog know by now, I have been thinking a lot about how to raise the bar a little at the Victory Gardens, and my approach — an admittedly long-term one — would be to start to raise the profile of the Gardens, through increased programming and events that bring in the community at large and along with them people who really want to be a part of a community garden.  And then it's our duty to demonstrate from the beginning what that entails. 

To do that you have to provide opportunities for community to root and flourish.  Little by little, as you bring in people who want to be a part of a community, provide them with mentoring, nurture relationships and networks, you'll weed out the baddies.  The community needs cultivating, is what I'm trying to say here. 

In speaking to several gardeners I respect, I feel even more strongly that a "teaching garden" should be a part of a long-term plan for the Victory Gardens.  I think newbies should all start out in a centrally-located "teaching garden", where they are working in a community space, mentored by experienced gardeners.  It's our mission.  And it would strengthen our membership immeasurably.

I would also find a way to reduce the number of gardens, frankly.  Derelict or underutilized plots have been a chronic problem.  Raising the profile of the gardens and more actively bringing people in with programming and events would address this to some extent, but it may be worth thinking about whether it wouldn't be wise to shrink our total area down, over time.

One way to achieve this is by widening all the paths by a foot or two (again, over, say, a decade's time).  The paths are all overgrown this time of the year, which gives cover for all manner of untoward and illicit activity, and more importantly, keeps folks who might like to explore the beauty of the gardens from feeling safe to do so, even in the middle of the day.  Widen the rows and get a grant to build interior fencing to the same standards and specs as our new perimeter fence. 

Another way of doing this is to contract the total area occupied by gardens.  We either learn to be better stewards of the gardens and find a way to recruit more active and community-oriented gardeners (partly by offering them more in the way of community than we currently do), or reduce the area to a more manageable size. 

I don't think it has to come to that (althoughI don't think it would be the worse thing to happen — it could make for a better, more easily policed park if it did).  I think we could do a better job as a community garden, fill our derelict and underutilized plots with active and enthusiastic gardeners, with some vision and longer-term planning.  And, as importantly, with new, outside-the-box partnerships with the city, foundations, and local businesses. 

We have an extraordinary resource that we're treating like a burden.  There's a lot of energy there, and a lot of it's going to waste. You saw it at this year's Fensfest, in fact.  It was as lively a crowd as I've seen in my six seasons there.  That proves that when there's something doing, people want to be a part of it.  (Free grub helps, of course.) 

Anyway, we're inching in the right direction, but we could be moving faster and getting further along in fulfilling our mission as a space for community, knowledge-sharing, and lifelong learning.  Our membership includes some people who are doing amazing things in the community.  With the right application of our energies, we could make a real difference, both in the community and as a community.