BEAR in mind that this is above all a WIP - for the dinosaurs amongst you, of which I am one - that is a Work In Progress, not a character on one of the two remaining CBS Soaps. I will not promise a post-a day, but I do promise to begin this WIP with Notes from the Bollmans' Garden. Mary and Otto were my parents' landlords for many years. Although city dwellers, they managed to create a lush, thriving, productive thing of beauty out of city dirt. When/If I get a scanner I will upload the few surviving photos.These are funky 70's photos - that means the colors don't look so good - but you can still appreciate the labor of love that was the Bollmans' Garden. The Bollmans passed away leaving no heirs and their estate was administered by a bank executive who was kind enough to pass a few of their personal items on to my parents. Among their possessions was a handwritten spiral-bound notebook that doubled as a diary/gardening journal covering the period March 4, 1974 through March 5, 1979.
Regrettably, this is the only notebook I have, but I suspect that there were many such journals kept throughout their lifetimes. Some of the entries, some entire pages, were written in red or green ink, and all the pages are 2-sided. The handwriting is small-ish and fills up every line.These were frugal people, nothing wasted, not even a half-line of a notebook. I originally intended to photocopy the whole thing or have it scanned but decided it would be time and money wasted due to all of the above. Or perhaps frugality is running rampant around here.
I will give you a break and exclude (most) mundane things such as"Bernice called this evening and we talked awhile". And yet...the farther I got into this notebook, the more relevant, interesting, even charming the mundane became. For example, while typing the notes immediately following The Big Storm of April 3, 1974, most of which were about repairmen and insurance, I found myself reading ahead and muttering "well, what about that 3rd floor dormer window?" and "did that roofer ever show up or what?" So you are getting a bit of Way Off Topic stuff here. No reason, other than I like it, so humor me.
I have kept the notes in the chronological order in which they were written . It may be have been easier for you to follow had I sorted them into a format that would include all the years for each month. Nevertheless, I decided to keep it as written and preserve the integrity of the journal. That's Antiques Roadshow talk for "it's easier to leave it alone". Anyway, I figure that if on January 8, 1976, when the temperature ranged from 7 below to 7 above zero, Mary could manage to "set out quite a few begonias & some purple leafy plants" you guys can figure out how to follow this blog.
Mr. and Mrs. Bollman were elderly at the time of this journal and it may have been their final one, but in any event it is the only one I have. When it turned up after 14 years of having been - not lost but misplaced in a desk drawer – stupid place to put it, I was elated.
I hope my readers will find some of this useful, particularly those who live and garden in and around St. Louis, Missouri. As a gardening WIP myself, I plan to follow the Bollmans' planting and harvesting timeline because I know it was created by people who knew what they were doing. Mrs. Bollman recorded every day's high and low temperatures and weather conditions. In St. Louis there are no guarantees that similar weather conditions will ever prevail on the same date, or the same month, of any given year. Nevertheless, it cannot hurt to learn what a couple of seasoned, and did I mention frugal, city gardeners did with their city dirt.
As for Bears and Bags, I am getting to that. Stay tuned. Meanwhile, you can see my Murray Bear and a few of my sock bags at Dyeabolical Yarns
I like it.
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