So finally after months of planning, building and planting our garden is finally up. It was a lot of work and we couldn't have done it without the help and support of our friends, family and certain members of Rowan's faculty.
It was like a punch in the face to get the phone call from Sean. The day after I finished replanting all the plants in our tomato beds after some jackasses ripped them out I would be running to the beds to see yet another act of vandalism. Our new sign that was just revealed a week before was gone. Tears welled up in my eyes as I heard Lew yell out a string of profanity that rarely leave his lips. It wasn't that the sign was gone it was that Frank's sign was gone. Frank, the head of the green house was our garden's superman. If it weren't for him there wouldn't even be a garden. He had taught us everything we knew about the garden and was the first faculty member who actually offered to help us with the garden. Other faculty promptly told us that although it was great that we had written a proposal and done so much research, but the garden would be impossible and it just wouldn't work out. (so nice to hear such encouraging words coming out of the presidents office) The club decided that when it came to revealing the name of the garden we must dedicate the beds and all that grew in the to Frank. It only seemed right.
Feeling utterly defeated (first the tomatoes now this) I was quickly reminded that we can always get another sign. Discussion among our friends quickly changed to how to best protect the plants when students came back in the fall. My option was digging a mote and filling it with sharks adorning lasers upon their heads. Other winners were barbed wire, electric fence, and my mote idea only replacing the sharks with piranhas. After a good laugh imagining drunk students falling into the mote we agreed that all these ideas were effective but somehow couldn't see Rowan approving any of them.
In the end we can only hope that come this fall students will understand that this garden wasn't built for shits and giggles. That this garden was for people who couldn't just walk in to the marketplace swipe their card and instantaneously be surrounded by endless amounts of food. We can only hope that students be them sober or drunk, see that this garden is a small step to being apart of something bigger than ourselves. Hopefully these beds can be a constant reminder of what we have and why we should be grateful for it.
And if none of that crosses the minds of our fellow students... there is always Plan B.
Plan B:
During the first weeks of school as our fellow students stagger back to their prospective dorms, I will be laying down between the beds armed with a supersoaker. And when those little turds come to rip up those plants which we have worked so hard on over the summer, I will fly up out of the beds ninja style. The drunkards peeing themselves thinking the dead have risen and quickly stumbling over themselves to get away. Now you may ask What is the water gun for? Ill tell you. That magnificent water gun will be filled with concentrated blue die. This way they will be dyed blue for the next week. And just as the scarlet A upon Hester's chest was to show her infidelity this blue dye will show their true douchebagginess.
Even though I believe this to be a great back up plan we are always accepting new ideas for the protection of our garden.
