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Garden in the City: Lettuce Might Not Be Mr. Right, But It's Mr. Right Now

By Patty Wetli | July 1, 2015 3:07pm | Updated on July 6, 2015 10:44am

ALBANY PARK — Turns out Tom Petty is the unlikely author of the perfect refrain for gardeners.

"The waai-ai-ting is the hardest part. Every day you see one more card. You take it on faith, you take it to the heart. The waaaiii-ai-ting is the harrrrrr-dest part."

Preach, brother Petty.

At this point in the gardening season, I've got tiny green tomatoes and microscopic beans. And if the beans are microscopic, well then my peppers are, I don't know, sub-atomic. The potatoes and corn are ... foliage.

Beans. [All photos by DNAinfo/Patty Wetli]

I'm waiting. Waiting for flowers to blossom, waiting for blossoms to bud into fruit, waiting for fruit to ripen. Waiting for some previously unheard of pest or blight to turn everything to crap. Waiting for squirrels. Oh, you'd better believe I'm waiting for squirrels.

This, my friends, is why you plant greens.

Check out this week's episode of Garden in the City podcast: 

Sure, greens lack the "wow factor" of pretty much everything else I've got growing. There's no ostentatious display of pods or tassels, no need to wrangle their sprawling stalks or stems with a trellis or wire. No curiosity as to what might be going on underground.

What you see is what you get with these modest plants that literally prefer to keep a low profile. And what you get is something to eat. Today.

Chard.

None of my other crops is remotely close to producing anything remotely harvestable. But my chard and mixed lettuce, which I started from seed, have already served up a couple of tasty salads.

While I waaaiii-ay-ait for Mr. Right, they're Mr. Right Now.

Don't underestimate the appeal of having something to take home, even if it's just a handful of arugula. Gardening is fraught with uncertainty and an early success, before the verdict is in on higher-stakes crops like tomatoes and corn, provides that tiny jolt of reassurance, that little bit of validation that yes, indeed, I can grow food.

Vegetable Plot

After visiting a couple of community gardens where volunteerism is mandatory (I know, a contradiction in terms), I decided it was time to re-commit to Global Garden, where, my first year as a gardener, I was a dedicated member of the Grow to Give team. Through Grow to Give, Peterson Garden Project sets aside several plots for produce that's grown and donated to charities. What must be four years ago now, I was a key member of the G2G watering brigade during quite possibly the hottest summer ever.

So I showed up during volunteer hours Monday and helped harvest .4 pounds of peas, which is better than .0 pounds of peas.

While I realize that volunteerism is supposed to be its own reward, in this instance I also appear poised to reap some tangible benefits. Turns out, one of the G2G beds is given over to potatoes. And my volunteer leader Kate said that her co-leader David actually knows something about growing spuds. The upshot being that thanks to my sudden burst of conscience, I am this/close to picking the brain of someone who can tell me whether my taters are a debacle or not.

Landscaping

We interrupt our regularly scheduled photo of the "parkway transformation" to bring you a Garden in the City bonus: photos from last weekend's Pullman Garden Walk.

Pullman Garden Walk.

Some of what we saw: Lots and lots of native plants, beekeeping, people growing vegetables in unique containers like bathtubs and boats, unusual garden decorations, bell-shaped flowering plants that were completely new to me, and a community garden using mushrooms to remediate toxic soil (shout out, Cooperation Operation).

Pullman Garden Walk.

When I mentioned I could never find milkweed at the garden center, our guide on the walk offered to dig up one of her plants for me. I declined — it seemed too extravagant a gift to accept — but the gesture affirmed my belief that gardening brings out the best in people.

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