The tram car, a Wildwood, New Jersey icon, has been traveling the boards for over seventy years. Believe it or not (Sounds like Ripley’s) this is the first year I can remember riding it. If I rode it as a child I don’t remember, but the voice of the tram is something imprinted within my brain, and also a well-known local phrase I can perfectly mimic. In a strange way the canned voice, cautioning unwary walkers out of the way is oddly soothing.
Here is a super-short video, filmed in July, a timeless portrayal of the boardwalk in summer. We were in the first car, and you can briefly see me reflected in the rearview mirror as I film. You can see another tram car passing on the right side as the car driver stops to pick up new passengers. For $4.00 one way, $8.00 round trip, you can ride the entire boardwalk.
Early Spring Planting in the Square Foot Container Garden
Square Foot Gardens are a terrific choice for gardening in small spaces. After planting Square Foot plots for several years I gave them up to grow a beautiful rose garden. With food shortages looming, and prices skyrocketing this Spring, I decided the time was right to grow a few vegetables again. I didn’t want to dig another garden into the yard, and wanted to try something temporary. I’ve combined Square Foot with container gardening and it is growing well in the first days of June.
The Square Foot Container Garden at Present
The garden needed a border; the largest expense was the fencing. This keeps the area neat and also helped in laying out the proper measurements. Dollar store buckets, two and a half gallons, were an inexpensive choice for the containers. I created drainage holes by thrusting my spading fork once into the buckets as they sat on the grass. The holes were perfectly spaced, and my lawn aerated a bit too. Garden fabric cut large enough to cover the area keeps the grass from growing up between the pots. Filling the buckets with a mixture of organic container soil and vermiculite was easy using the wheelbarrow to mix it.
Twelve Tomato Plants Along Back/Trellis supportedSwiss Chard
Swiss Chard, Kale, and Bok Choy have been very plentiful. Steamed with carrots, mixed with a little butter, and ladled over Jasmine Rice, oh my, so delicious.
Kale
The tomatoes already need watering every day, their stems appear more like small tree trunks than normal sized garden plants. I have them in the back of the gardens, braced against trellises for support. Small palettes between the plots keep the grass down also. I’m growing a large variety of vegetables to take note of how each plant performs. Too early to know what will succeed as of now, but the green beans, four plants to a bucket, are getting small beans after flowering. I’ll update as the summer progresses.
White Squash
So far, the only antagonist to my garden joy is the yellow squash. There have been many flowers, and several small squash, but all developed blossom rot. I’ll read up on this problem and apply what might help. If I find a solution that works I will post the results. Here’s a photo of another squash, white squash, I am hoping it will perform better.
PS Between the time of writing the first draft of this post, and now, the small green beans grew large enough for a first tasting. Delicious! Food grown in a dollar store bucket: an achievement that might come in handy if the world keeps spinning toward higher inflation and food shortages in the future.
