The Art Mob

Summer came in. Covid did not go out, but life goes on.

At Art Mob Central, we still meet, virtually, once a week on rehearsal night to have fun, check in and chat. But we don’t sing as a group. And that is tough on us. So, what the heck ARE we doing? In a quarantine food experiment, Dean (bass) and Leslie (goddess) cultivate their garden! Here’s what Dean says:

Leslie and I are not just doing a lot of cooking during quarantine. (Well, to be fair, it’s Leslie who’s doing all the cooking. One hundred percent.) We’re growing herbs and vegetables to eat as well.

We’ve had a garden every summer since we bought the place in 2013. Each of the three raised beds was our building project over a separate winter. We’ve accrued the pots from a variety of sources, including our own NYC apartment, whence we salvaged them when the indoor plants in them died during our total absence of over two months, from mid-March to the end of May. (Luckily, a few plants survived.)

What’s different this year is that, thanks to the coronavirus, we’re here. Every other summer, we’ve been traveling while the plants we had put out were struggling to survive on their own. Now we’re constantly out there weeding and watering, and it turns out to make a huge difference! Who knew?

We’ve already harvested oregano, chives, and four kinds of mint, all of which wintered over from last year. We planted the other things mostly from seedlings that we bought at Northern Dutchess Botanical Gardens, a very nice outdoor plant nursery a few miles from here. Spring comes very late here, and we lack a greenhouse, so we have not had a lot of luck growing from seeds. This is the first time we’ve planted tomatoes, but not the first time we’ve had the plants: A multitude of volunteer tomatoes has sprouted every year from the compost soil that fills the beds.

This spring we’ve gotten volunteer oak tree seedlings. The tree that overhangs the beds dropped an uncountable number of acorns last fall, and this spring they’ve been sprouting up like mad. They especially like the rich soil in the beds, but they’re also growing on the lawn and everywhere else. Every morning we rid the garden of dozens of would-be oaks. 

We’ll be spending more time in the city now that the reopening has begun, but this, at last, is the year we will not abandon our garden to the ravages of nature. Wish us luck with, besides those plants already mentioned, our basil, zucchini, winter squash, tarragon, thyme, marjoram, lavender, arugula, sorrel, parsley, leeks, sage, bell peppers, shishitos, snow peas, pole beans, cilantro, cucumbers, radishes, radicchio, and whatever else comes up out of the ground, is edible, and is not devoured by the deer. Cheers!