it's been interesting to compare my PLANT! site and my garden at home. i definitely have spent more time on my garden at home and it's sad because my site is only a few blocks away but it still shows how lazy or how much of a procrastinator i am. anyways. it's been interesting for a few reasons.

my home garden has a form of security for the plants and my PLANT! site does not. i would visit the SECA site periodically, plants have been trampled upon and have died and the spot that i had cleared is slowing disappearing it's being overrun by weeds. it was interesting, because i still visited but didn't do anything to stop the destruction, it was almost like i wanted to see how far it would go on it's own, if my site would be swallowed up again by the nature of the place it was forcefully born into. i'm not saying that it couldn't have survived, but watching it change naturally like this has become just as interesting as watching it grow in the first place. it's become harder and harder to spot the plants that i put there and the part that nellie did is drastically different now for similar reasons. my garden at home has suffered something similar this past week.

i was visiting my sister in New York City and when i returned, i saw that our humongous pumpkin plants had been trampled upon as well. i'm not reacting to it in the same way as my PLANT! site though. i'm really distraught and don't understand how it could have happened. i have suspects:

1) Bill, our next door neighbor who shares the same concrete slab behind our houses, which is where the garden is located. it's not very likely though, considering his is like 93 years old. i don't think he could have driven over them either because of where and how they are situated. he would have taken out a lot more of the garden if his car was to blame.

2) Random kids?...i don't think so. it's in the back, they wouldn't venture there. plus they would have destroyed more than the pumpkins, we have four or five huge sunflowers growing there too, like 7 feet tall and i'm sure they would have enjoyed destroying those.

3) finally, the most likely. my landlords. they are really nice people though, so it's hard to think that they would do it. i know that we never really discussed having a garden with them before we went ahead and planted stuff. this is the second year we've had one, so i don't really think it's a problem. the only other think i can think of is that they were back there and saw these gigantic plants going everywhere and thought it was a weed instead of a precious pumpkin plant...

dude! these pumpkin seeds were from our neighbor, lou, who had a 70 lb-er later year! yeah...well, i'm sad but life goes on. i know one of the two is already dead, the bigger of the two is still fighting, but i don't think it's going to make it. pray for it.

-Brad