This winter I moved into an apartment with a couple of small, about 2.5 feet by 5 feet garden spots in front right up against the wall where the sun shines all day, and a patio in back that gets no sunlight most of the day, with a garden spot that gets less than the patio does in which I'm going to plant some shade lovers.

In the beds in front I'd planned to plant a lot of marigolds, and three bean plants at the furthest edge from the wall, and have a half-barrel container next to one of the beds that I plan to plant delicious Purple Dragon carrots and one marigold in. I started the beans inside already and one is about 5 inches tall with the other two shorter and without their permanent leaves yet, but have not planted the carrots in the planter yet.

Well, I know they spray for bugs around the building several times during the summer, so I had plans to cover the beans and my planter full of carrots with plastic when they did so. I don't know exactly what they use, but my manager says is chemicals and since its a government contracted job its safe to just assume its chemical poison done by the cheapest company that won the contract.

My plan to cover the beans and the planter in front was, of course, dependent on the company that does the work giving the manager a heads up so she could give us tenants a heads up to close windows, etc.

Guess what they DIDN'T do.

The first warning I and the manager got was the guy spraying outside our open bedroom windows this morning!

It also turns out the way the guy sprays actually has a much wider swath than I was told by a previous manager...he sprays about 3 feet wide instead of right at the base of the walls, so even covering my beans would be not very effective even at the outer edge of the bed, which is a little over 2 feet from the wall. Since they're already five inches tall in their coffee cups, I don't want to give up on them so I'm switching them to five gallon buckets on the back edge of the back porch, where they'd be far enough away that the overspray might not affect them if I don't get warning again. Unfortunately my second choice for an in-ground garden, which was about 30 feet from the building under trees...I saw him dropping some sort of poison on, too. *sigh*

My question is about the other planter, the wooden half-barrel I'd planned to put carrots in, which is still in front. I filled it all the way to the top with dirt by mistake, but I was planning on removing some of that to the bed so the soil will be about 3-4 inches from the top of the planter's rim. After I plant the seeds (and one marigold), I was planning to staple chicken wire over the top to keep cats and thieves out, figuring the carrot greens and marigold would grow right through it.

My question is, if the overspray hits the greens because the pest controller doesn't give warning again so that I can cover my planter (he said he won't spray the planter itself, and didn't this morning), will it also poison the roots? I *could* move it to the spot about 30 feet away where my second in-ground location was going to be, but that would expose it to loose dogs, thieves, and people who think its a garbage can.

--GW