How can Christmas lights help improve the city’s air quality and feed some residents of the Student Ghetto during a cold winter?
F. Wellington has figured it out.
“It’s a warming technique (for my vegetable garden),” he said. “And generally you don’t need a whole lot. It’s the same thing I did last year, but this year the very first freeze dropped all the way to 26 degrees, and I didn’t have the makeshift greenhouse completely buttoned up. … I lost about 1/3 of the garden.”
Wellington moved to Albuquerque from Southern California about 15 months ago and lives on the corner of Mesa Street and Gold Street. He said he gives some of the vegetables and fruits from his approximately 200 square foot garden to his neighbors.
Colin Sikora, who lives across the street from Wellington, said he prefers his neighbor’s food to that from a grocery store.
“Wellington always brings over tomatoes, and they’re great and very fresh,” Sikora said. “(They’re) the best tomatoes I’ve ever had. I can tell the difference between his stuff and store-bought food. I only eat the fresh grown tomatoes.”
Wellington also grows broccoli, black eyed peas and black beans. Between all the different types of vegetables, Wellington said he has plenty to share with his friends who live nearby.
“Out of 14 tomato plants, maybe 12 survived, and I gave away probably five full
buckets of tomatoes,” he said. “Just about all the neighbors know me and I love them dearly. … I love Albuquerque because it’s ethnically diverse and very, very friendly. Whereas in Southern California — it’s got the diversity, but it is getting more unfriendly there.”
Wellington said that when he first started gardening in Albuquerque, he faced challenges with the soil quality.
“It took a lot of water because the soil is very lacking,” he said. “Next year, I’ll be putting in a lot of peat moss, which retains water a lot better.”
But he has other sure-fire techniques as well.
“I talk to my plants, absolutely,” he said. “I’m definitely a spiritualist. I can highly recommend the book The Secret Life of Plants. It showed me a new spiritual plateau, and there has been no dissension since I read it.”
Wellington said he has always wanted to grow his own food and this garden has provided him that opportunity.
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“It is very rewarding, and I like the idea of growing my own food because you lose touch with what food is really supposed to taste like if you only go to a fast food joint or a food market,” he said.
Wellington said he also began farming because he had no faith in the political climate and doesn’t want to starve. So he produces some of his own food and hopes to continue to do so for a long time.
“I told the landlord that I want to be here and occupying till the day I disincarnate,” he said.
