The air in my garden is full of the smell of rotting strawberries at the moment, and here’s a picture from the garden next to mine where the smell is coming from. Even the birds don’t seem to want to eat these berries.
While the guy that has this garden is a friendly guy, and someone I like making small talk with, he is really disliked in the gardening complex. In particular, he is well known for his strawberries, which take up nearly half of his plot. His strawberries are as modern as it gets, he has connections at the local agricultural university and gets the latest varieties they are working on in the plant labs.
He does almost no weeding in his garden. What’s his secret that he doesn’t need to pull weeds? Well first he just lets his garden grow wild. When he needs to plant something, he clears a rectangle with Round Up, rakes it clean a week or so later then puts his plants in.
He also doesn’t need to protect his plants from the birds. What’s his secret here? He doesn’t care if the birds eat them, because he doesn’t want the berries. He’s just growing the plants for the experience and for the sake of experimentation. He’s quite happy to just let the berries rot on the ground. He’s told me I’m welcome to help myself any time I want!
He’s on the management committee (board of directors if you like) of the garden complex. This is an important position for him, because it exempts him from volunteer hours the rest of us have to put into the upkeep of the garden complex. Other members of the garden management complain he doesn’t do anything. The excuse he has for not doing anything, is that he has another garden in a nearby city, and has to do work there.
I can understand that everyone has different reasons for wanting to have a garden and grow vegetables, but I really don’t understand this guy.
