Panthy's Garden

Big doings up in Panthy’s. For one, Panthy’s face has nearly completely blown off. If I had money on it, I’d say it’s probably the first sign of the impending apocalypse. Or maybe the second after my DVR freezing constantly during America’s Funniest Home Videos. PS, the medication seems to be working.

Things are growing like crazy, to the point my wife asked me to dismantle my “fortress of tomato plants” to make room for some dinner guests. You hear that folks?! I have a motherlovin’ Fortress of Tomato Plants! 

I took a deep breath and went away for the weekend, hoping the Great Wall of Chinese Water Torture would hold up and keep all my fellas watered. I got back and gladly nothing was dead. It was just severely over-watered. 

I looked at the controls and somehow managed to set the frequency to 8 times a day at 20 minute intervals. Which is like 2 hours of continuous watering a day. For some plants it was great. Like a bunch of cats who can’t stop eating Bonkers, some plants just kept on shoveling it in. A few hit miraculous weekend growth spurts, drinking their goddamn asses off, sprouting off flowers and sending up chutes that they could barely support.

Things in the planter generally did the best; might be because those ten million drainage holes I drilled way back in the spring. But my main squeeze plants, the all-important food-producing jammies were my primary concern.

They did okay for the most part, though some of my heirloom tomatoes got the dreaded curled leaves. It was a little too much like that tomato plant I cut down and threw in the garbage, er, I mean that got abducted. I have him in intensive care, carefully poking his soil to check moisture, generally fawning over it and moving it around the deck for optimal sunshine.

I’m sure this is one of those things I’ll recall when the tomatoes are ready to be picked. I’ll look at how disfigured and strange they look and say in a cranky old man voice “Oh yeah… that was that big Chinese flood of 2010 that caused this.” All in all, I think they’ll be okay. Super Snow Whites, small white(ish) cherry tomatoes are coming through and a few marvel stripes are in progress.

I did discover a gigantic beast of a cuke that seemed to appear out of thin air. It’s fucking massive.

To illustrate my point, if it were a Snickers bar, it’d be a fucking huge Snickers bar.

There were also other cukes, four to be exact, that seemed to arrive overnight. Call the folks over at Miracle Grow, tell em their potting mix is working cucumber miracles over at Panthy’s.

Here’s the number, I’ll wait while you do: 1-888-270-3714.

My pepper plants, one jalapeno and two Purple Beauty Bells, have also come around. The Purple Beauties are hatching upside down! And they’re not purple, yet. Life is full of surprises. Zzzzzz.

As expected I found the remnants of a tomato that a bird had pecked off. Looks like it was only one cherry tomato, a mere chink in the armor of my Tomato Fortress. And… it seems that the same bird took a crap on my neighbors annoying satellite dish, so we’re gonna call that one even. That said, St. Francis and Panthy better pull it together and start scaring these birds away.

With the weekend water orgy now a distant memory, I’m scheming on some new unnecessary garden projects for this weekend. I’m sure they’ll involve some cutting of things, some hanging of stuff and the movement of dirt and PBN. I’ve hooked up some speakers, mostly for people, but also, to serenade my plants with some Eric B and Rakim. Oddly shaped or not, on a diet of that kind of music, these are gonna be some goddamn flavorful veggies.

You may have noticed, I’ve taken an interest in gardening as of late, particularly in the growing of things you can eat. I headed upstate last weekend for some fresh air and uh.. corn, which as it turns out, is grown and eaten. Right up my alley! If you’ve never been, all of upstate New York is basically one gigantic farm. And if you’ve never seen a farm, it’s kinda like Panthy’s Garden, except that each one is the size of Manhattan, and they grow food directly in the ground. Amazing. They also sometimes smell like poop. But my oh my are they the most beautiful thing to lay eyes on. Just don’t lay your nose on one, if that’s even possible.

Everywhere you look are miles and miles of gorgeous green crops punctuated by a dilapidated barn or grain silo. The sheer scale of the fields are only rivaled by huge cloud formations that make you feel extremely small. All that large scenery kinda makes my lil project seem puny in comparison. Well, it is puny in comparison.

I was sent out to get some corn for a home-cooked feast, an errand I gladly accepted. Upstate corn is ridiculously sweet and delicious. It makes the shrink-wrapped garbage I get at the supermarket in Brooklyn look like ghost corn; plain-tasting and soulless. Hell, it’s not even spooky! Gimme something crappy ghost corn! 

In one of those rare moments when you can literally feel god’s face shining right down onto your head, I realized that the only car I could use for this errand was an old Mustang convertible. Aww yeah, it was really was turning out to be a great day. With the sun shining, I hopped in with the keys and some loose directions of how to find the farmer’s market.

I took the scenic route you could say, occasionally seeing what would happen if I put the gas pedal onto the floor. Turns out, the car moves really fast. Ahh the low rumble of some all-American stallions under the hood, nothing quite like it. I just wish I had brought a damn mixtape for the ride. 

I blasted past farm after farm, imagining how many Chinese Water Torture devices it’d take to keep them watered. Must be thousands… I won’t even attempt to figure out how much PBN these places must use. I knew it was a terrible idea, but I tried to snap some pictures of the passing beauty anyway.

I finally rolled into the farmer’s market, only about 6 vendors total, including two meat guys. I had to talk myself out of buying some yummy steaks like a heroin addict might talk himself out of more smack.

“If I don’t look, it’s not there. Those juicy, delicious steaks, are not even there.”
I stuck to getting the necessary goods for the BBQ, somehow. 

“How many ears can I get ya boss?”
“I need 10.”
“They’re 5 bucks a dozen”
“I’ll take 12 then.”
“Good, cause I was gonna charge you 5 for 10 anyway.”
“Hehehe.”

We shared a good, upstate laugh, which is really just a low chuckle paired with some solid eye contact and maybe an approving nod. He bagged em up and I was on my way. I took another 10 mile detour before going back.

Nobody even raised an eyebrow when I rolled in, even with my hair all blown out and looking suspiciously red-faced. The only question I got was, “How’d it go? Did you get the goods?” I most certainly did, twelve ears of that sweet, sweet upstate corn.

Way back in the early dawn of Panthy’s Garden when I was building planters (while it SNOWED)… my pops hipped me to a pretty cheap watering system which I dubbed the Chinese Water Torture Device. Through tiny hoses and tiny emitters, it lets off droplets of water at timed intervals, which.drives.the.plants.CRAZY. CRAZY WITH GROWTH! It’s super efficient and it’s basically the bomb. Unless you’re away when the battery runs out, and it leaves the faucet on for days, effectively drowning your plants. But that’s neither here nor there.

I pretty much destroyed the few plants I had last summer (Panthy was NOT on duty), by leaving for a long weekend and letting the sun and wind torch everything. It was the garden equivalent of leaving your dog in the car on a hot day. Not a good look bro. 

So this system appealed to me immediately; I could head upstate for a few days, tip back a Labatt’s Blue, eat some Dinosaur BBQ and bing bang boom, the garden would be watering itself a hundred miles downstate. Nice. Real nice.

As you might remember I hooked it up but just for the planters. In the growing frenzy of the early summer, I added a whole bunch more plants that actually need more loving care than the super tough flowers and shrubs I stuck in the planters. These babies were grown from my very own SEED. Well, you know what I mean. I got seeds and uh.. started them, then planted them.

Earlier this week, my veggie plants were just chilling, hoping silently, that their caretaker would realize there’d be nobody to water them over the upcoming scorchingly hot weekend. I came up to the deck the other day and spelled out in PBN (Pine Bark Nuggets), was the word “WATER”. It was kind of alarming. Panthy said he didn’t see anything; but that’s not a big surprise given the condition of his face at the moment. I bellowed “Whatever! I get the point guys! I’ll get you some damn water this weekend. Calm down.”

I felt like Tom Hanks in Castaway, making my tomato plants my closest friends, dressing them in ill-fitting straw sweaters and having tea parties with them.

I quickly ordered more Chinese Water Torture Devices and got them just in time. I popped open a cold beer and got to work. I lined all my tomato plants up in a row and cut the tiny tubes and jammed the pipe joints together, extending the watering system with 50 more feet of hose. Two hours later with a fresh case of IKEA hands, I was done. All I had to do now was crank it up and see if it worked. 

Water on… waiting. I heard the trickle of water and followed it all the way to it’s end. I tracked it like that kooky old Rube Goldburg probably followed his automatic shoe-putter-on-er as it worked for the first time. Super Snow Whites… water on.  Marvel Stripes, water confirmed, over. Cukes? Yes. Barely.

The Great Wall of Chinese Water Torture was a success! Nevermind that there was basically no pressure by the time it reached the end of the line. It would have to do, and on the whole, got the water to the plants, which is kinda the whole point.

After consulting my crappy weather widget which is about 30% accurate, my fears were confirmed: it was going to be in the 90s all weekend. I stowed the Swiss chard under the lounge chair (god help them) and busted out some PMPBN (Pre-moistened Pine Bark Nuggets) to cover the roots of my grape vine too.

They were only pre-moistened cause I left the open bag out in the rain. I will also pre-moisten all the plants before I go, hoping that the Great Wall will do the rest.

Done and done. Now, time for me to get the hell out of here and have me some BBQ.

Panthy’s unique skin condition drew some funny looks at our last BBQ. It prompted questions like, “why does that rat have two faces?” and “why is that not in the garbage?” It was only appropriate that Born in the USA was pumping over the speakers as I tried to explain.

“Panthy is… how do I put this… not even close to being dead, he’s really only just begun to fight.”

Panthy’s Garden is facing the triple threat of pests, disease and mangy garbage birds. A mysterious fungus has already claimed one of my tomato plants. (I mean, it was abducted ‘cause it was so awesome.) I caught a tiny grasshopper mid-chew, eating a hole in my basil and I promptly crushed him between my index finger and thumb.

I’m hoping to have seven (uh scratch that), six tomato plants worth of uh… tomatoes. My first, wrinkly and strange Marvel Stripes are showing up, my first rack of little Super Snow Whites are asserting themselves into the Brooklyn sun. I plucked off my first two cukes, one of which was hiding in back of the pot (no doubt to keep a low bird profile).

Sad truth is I just can’t always be there to protect the garden. Other growers might employ a scarecrow. My pops would likely use lots and lots of chemicals and smelly white powders, that would make things taste funny but look incredible. I don’t have any of those things. At the very least, I’m gonna need that mean Panthy stare to keep things safe.

Good thing is, Panthy is really in a weight class all his own. He. Has. Blue. Plastic. Bones. His face, without the skin, is even more bold and courageous than the day I bought him. When I found a huge chunk of his skin blowing around the deck, I thought maybe he was on his last legs, but take a good look into those eyes, and you tell me, do you think he’s really done yet?

My best pal Jason had a dog growing up named Sparky. He was a feisty lil bastard, a Siberian husky that basically stayed outdoors year round through the fantastically cruel Massachusetts winters. He hung out inside a nest of prickly holly bushes near the front of the house and had a coat of super thick white fur that sometimes harbored entire pine cones. 

I’d roll up to his Jay’s house in the middle of February and Sparky would ambush me from some gnarled bushes. RAARAARAAAW!!! “GODDAMN SPARKY! Just me Sparky, remember me?” After the insanity subsided, he was cool. Not a bad guy, just protective that’s all.

In his later years he liked to wander a bit and went on a mission to explore town and was “stolen”. He was such an awesome dog, there was no other logical explanation for his disappearance. He’s likely still out there, lamping in a gnarled pricker bush or maybe keeping cool under the Great Oak Tree of Eternity, nobody can say for sure.

Hey, let’s face it, sometimes stuff gets abducted. It’s with a heavy heart that I report the “abduction” of one of my tomato plants. I live in a city, there are lots of places for a disease-ridden tomato plant to wander. I checked the usual spots, Port Authority, O’Connor’s, the Gowanus Canal… nothing. I’m sure that whomever stole him will benefit from some disease-ridden and cat-faced tomatoes later in the season. Best of luck fella, hope to see you again someday…

The moment you’ve all been waiting for is finally here. Hold onto your motherlovin’ hats folks. Behold! Something recognizable that I grew!

No surprise, the BOUNDLESS Burpless Tendergreen cukes were the first to produce. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the seedlings were so precocious, I found one using my laptop when I got home back in April.

Way back in the early days of Panthy’s Garden I remember being really skeptical that my handful of seeds would do anything other than embarrass me in their unwillingness to bring forth food. I thought this would be a blog about a loser with pots full of dirt and some malformed seedlings that died sometime in mid-June. And then, slowly but surely, it’d become a blog about how great 90s hip hop and bikes are, and little by little you’d all forget I even attempted to grow food.

I’m happy to report that I’m now part of the masses that thinks food is easy to grow. I’m not sure if you Googled it, you’d get that answer, but here it is: food is really easy to grow. 

I bought these Swiss chard seeds from an enthusiastic old bearded fella at a New Hampshire hardware store. They came up almost instantly. And here they are, looking damn fine in their various, sexually ambiguous, “rainbow” colors.

I bet that old kook up in New Hampshire got an ache in his bones the moment they punched through the dirt and thought “I bet that young city fella has him some Swiss!”  Well goddamn, I guess eating some would make sense right? Here’s to you old beardy face.

But before I did, I thought, WWTRD? (What Would the Rivals Do? not What Would TURD?)  I bet they would take this good honest food and do something very pretentious to it. And they’d feel all righteous about it and maybe start a blog about it to brag to their friends. Hell, they’d probably submit a recipe (involving capers) to Edible Brooklyn and make some homemade shirts ironically commemorating the event. It might say something like, “The Swiss Do it Better in Brooklyn” in an ironic 70s font. It might not even make sense to you or me, but rest assured their fancy friends would find it hilarious. Totes would be made available on Etsy.

So, that’s about what I did. I put on some emotional Indy crap, put on unreasonably short shorts and boat shoes and ate the first of what I hope will be many meals with goods from my garden. It consisted of a whopping four pieces of tiny, not-yet-mature, Swiss chard.

God it felt great sitting before that plate. The atmosphere, the fancy Trader Joe’s balsamic, the very real feeling that I was a true urban gardener, feeling so fucking righteous and special. And then I was really starting to feel like I had become my annoying loser neighbors. So I added this:

Comprised mainly of, as my Uncle Bob would say, “lips and assholes” and nitrates, whatever those are, I felt the snooty balance had been restored. I heard the collective “boooooo” of farmer’s market patrons in my head and I gobbled down the mystery parts and DNA of literally 1,000 pigs. Satisfied and cleansed with factory pork, I felt that I may have just bested my neighbors. Ah… besting… is really great.