Campus Kitchen at UMASS Boston

Garden Signs & Heat Stroke

Yesterday, two of my Leadership Team members, Anna & Genevieve, and I headed to the garden whistling as we went. It was the perfect day to garden: it was sunny, the weather was hot, and we wanted to be outside enjoying it all. Ah, life can’t be beat! I can’t believe I get paid for this!

We arrived at the garden, tools in hand and muck boots on – mine look like this:

What’s wrong with pink floral gardening boots? Yup, nothin’. Thanks for the validation.

Anyway, we walked through the gate to the valley of what we thought would be a lush overflowing Garden of Eden and instead we found abundant vegetables…

WEEDS.

WEEDS.

WEEDS.

The largest and deepest rooted weeds of all time. Epic tree-sized weeds. Weeds that covered the entire area of dirt. Weeds, weeds, weeds! Suddenly, the sun became a threat and the hot weather rose to a temperature close to 100 degrees with no shade in sight. I hadn’t thought this through: inner-city Dorchester in heat & humidity, next to a roaring T, with only weeds in sight. Even my happy boots couldn’t make me smile – my face was literally melting off and I quickly learned why no one gardens in jean cutoffs or shirts they plan to keep and not discard immediately because no amount of detergent will ever make it right again.

We pressed on, weeding and pulling until our fingers were literally swollen. After 6 hours, we’d had enough and packed up. The one bright spot other than the one burning my now pink skin was that I got to set up one my veggie signs. I made them at home and thought they’d be cute in the garden and allow the students to know where the rows are planted. Here’s all of them together post-painting:

Yesterday, we planted a single row of peas and the pleasure this sign gave me was desperately needed after the sticky day we had. We’ll be sending out a team next week to continue gardening… perhaps I’ll just be too busy.