Miss Jo's San Francisco

MISS JO KNEW SHE HAD TO DO SOMETHING. HER FRIEND CHERIE said she could help.

There really wasn’t a moment to waste in the heat that was robbing Fog City of its cool summer.

They met for happy hour at the Grand Cafe on Geary @ Taylor, where august Nob Hill and the sketchy Tenderloin meet.

Miss Jo had a Sierra Nevada ale and Cherie a Napa Cabernet. They talked a bit then got down to business sitting at the nickel-topped bar.

Cherie reached into her black canvas bag and pulled out the goods: worm tea, in a water bottle. “It’s potent,” she warned. “Dilute it 10 to 1, water-to-tea.”

Finally, or at least hopefully, Miss Jo had her hands on the answer to infusing nutrients into the dusty coastal northern California soil in her San Francisco garden.

Her tomato plants had been going gang busters but were starting to wane after sopping up all the mulch and coffee grounds Miss Jo dutifully and sustainably applied. Ditto with the Myer lemon trees that since February had been sending forth citrus with orange-lemon flavor. The sugar pie pumpkin vine also seemed to have stopped growing, and the zucchini plant had stalled with only one squash blossom.

The worm tea would put Miss Jo’s California gardening dream back on track.

Cherie, daughter of a landscaper father, was happy to share some of the black gold being churned out in a large water-cooler like container with a spigot that stays on the back porch of her Berkeley apartment. Temporarily absent a garden of her own, Cherie had joined the worm-tea underground.

Miss Jo was thankful to make the connection. She polished off her beer, slid the tea into her brief case and disappeared into the night fog.

Photo by Miss Jo