Garden Gnome

Deltassist was garden number five.  Of course, I am only a very minor cog in the whole system.  There are a ton of volunteers, all of whom know more about gardening than I do, and some of whom specialize in various areas.  (I have apparently become known among the volunteer crew as "Rob, the watering guy," since, with the hot weather the plants need more watering, and also because you don't need to know a heck of a lot about plants to do the watering.)

Sandra doesn't have any particular title, but she is, without any doubt, the lead volunteer.  We, as volunteers, are lucky to have her, and Deltassist is even more fortunate to have her.  She runs the WhatsApp group that we all use to communicate with each other, she plans the harvests (a non-trivial task, what with having to ensure that harvested food doesn't go to waste), she schedules the gardening days, she plans what to pull out, and what to plant next.  I have already learned an awful lot about gardening from her.  She inventories the food, she is concerned about our hydration and welfare as volunteers, and advocates for equipment and facilities that will make our work easier and more productive.

(For some reason, she gets very embarrassed when I refer to her as The Boss.)

On the WhatsApp group, she posts pictures of various plots of the garden, and of us working in it.  The other day, she wanted to know what was happening with some potato plants that were dying.  So I was deputized to dig them up, and, lo and behold, they had produced some actual potatoes.  So I bagged up two bags of baby/nugget/"new" potatoes, and three bags of potatoes.  But first she took a picture:

and posted it on the WhatsApp group.

As soon as I saw it, my immediate reaction was, "I look like a garden gnome."

So, a couple of days later, Sandra asked me to start digging up/pulling out the garlic.  (She's been concerned about it for a while, and worried it might be getting too late.  It's also got to cure for about three weeks before we start actually distributing it.)  So, I got a good start on the first bed.  (It's interesting: as soon as you pull it up, it smells like dirt.  But, laying it out in the racks to cure, the racks *really* start to smell like garlic!  I also found, in that bed, some potatoes that were obviously left over from a previous year.  Interestingly, none of them had sprouted.  I wonder if there is something antagonistic about garlic that prevents potatoes from sprouting?  And, if so, where do restaurants get garlic mashed potatoes from?)  And she took another picture:

And I *still* look like a garden gnome.

Sandra says it's the camera.  And, yes, I know that the wide-angle lenses on cell phones can give you all kinds of weird effects.  But I suspect it's the little short arms, and the little short legs, and the beard, and the belly as much as anything else.

Farmer Rob, or Rob, the Garden Gnome?  Or Rob, the Garden Watering Gnome?

And you thought I couldn't talk about Gloria, because this is about gardening?  Well, too bad, because I can talk about Gloria because it's about gnomes.  You see, when I was doing the seminars, I never got to do any touristy type stuff because the tourist stuff was only open while I was actually doing the seminars.  So, the only sightseeing I got to do was when I couldn't sleep, and would wander around places at three in the morning.  So I would, sometimes, be in a place where it was appropriate to take a picture of some great public monument.  And I had a camera, at the time, with a self-timer.  So I could set up a shot, and then place myself in the shot, to prove I had actually been there.  Of course, I wouldn't want to get too far into the shot, because that would block whatever I was taking a picture of.  So, I'd usually be just poking my head and shoulders into a bottom corner of the shot.

Gloria figured I looked like a gnome in these shots ...