Dead Ponytail Palm

Day 216: Dead Ponytail Palm

Evidence of failure

Is it coincidence that shortly after Connie retired, moved away and (most important) quit her position as bass player for the excellent string band Cluck Ole Hen, this ponytail palm began its decline?

Okay, maybe Cluck Ole Hen can't be accurately described as an excellent string band, but it sure is fun. And having Connie as part of the band meant that we had a professional horticulturalist coming over here every week to remind me to water the plants, most often with the dregs of our beer at the end of rehearsal.

I love plants and gardening, but, except for idiot-proof ornamental grasses, coneflower, milkweed and rudbeckia, I'm pretty much a fail. Especially in the urban farm category. I've got two apple trees, a pear tree, a peach tree, raspberries, asparagus, rhubarb, strawberries, tomato plants and chickens.

My harvest this year: an occasional raspberry, eaten directly from the bush. A few eggs earlier in the summer. One rhubarb, never harvested. One stalk of asparagus, never harvested. I saw quite a few pears and at least one tomato, small and unripe, but they disappeared before ripening. Ditto the strawberries.

The chickens haven't given me a single egg in months. It's probably time to get rid of them, too.

Urban farm, ha.