Learning to Garden

Today and last Saturday we had absolutely PERFECT weather.  Mid-70s and very little humidity.  Seriously, it just can't get any better than that.  And I've managed to take advantage of it: both Saturdays I went running in the morning and then headed straight to the garden for some weeding.

I had no idea how happy those two things could make me.  Being outside in the sun and fresh air, letting the kids and the chickens run around me while I plucked tiny weeds out before they could damage my plants...  It was perfect.  It left me more satisfied than I ever could have imagined!  I'm converted to gardening.  I wish I had started doing this years before!

I did try to plant a garden once a few years ago, but I was woefully under-educated that time around.  My friend Anna had extra seed sprouts, so I took them off her hand and basically just threw them in the ground.  I didn't prepare the ground hardly at all, I didn't know what I was doing, and quite frankly, as soon as I was done, I wasn't really sure which plants were mine and which were just weeds.  And then halfway through the summer I completely forgot about it and stopped watering it.  So I counted myself lucky we got a few squash and zucchini at all!

But this time around, I've done things right and I'm really liking this garden we've got going.  The biggest change is that I put Craig in charge.  We had wanted to plant a square-foot garden, and he read my book very carefully (I skimmed it) and then he set to work: he built the garden box and mixed up the soil.  He put a cage around it to protect the plants.  He did all the heavy work.  I mapped out where we would plant everything.  I probably planted half of the seeds.  And now I'm weeding it.  So I am participating, but I definitely needed a little hand-holding from my capable husband.  Together, it's turning out pretty well.  My only complaint is that I wish we'd done a bigger one.  (That's a tough call-- everyone says to start small or else you'll just be overwhelmed.  And I get easily overwhelmed, so I'm sure this was good advice.  But now that things are sprouting and growing, I wish I had even more of everything!)  But that's the fun thing about this style of gardening-- we're already looking to figure out where we can put more boxes for next year!  And we both enjoy just sitting and looking at our growing plants and watching the chickens eat the ants out from between them.

Last week, I picked some lettuce leaves for our salad.  I wasn't sure what to expect from home grown lettuce-- would it taste different?  Not really.  But the leaves are much more delicate than anything you'd buy from the store, which made it more enjoyable to eat.  So I'm a fan.  We've got more of the same on the menu for tonight, this time carefully selected and snipped by Kendra.  She's very proud of herself, as she should be.

Anyway, here is what the garden is looking like right now:

I know that's a little small and hard to see.  But look anyway, just to make me happy, okay?  You can barely see the chives, because they look like grass.  Hopefully they are in fact chives and NOT grass.  And the potatoes haven't sprouted yet, but I planted them before the eyes had had a chance to grow at all and then squirrels dug them up, so I figure they're probably traumatized and taking their time.  (Traumatized Potatoes might be a good name for a band.)  And, in the interest of full disclosure, we did purchase the pepper plant from Lowe's.  That seed just never sprouted.  But now there's a little plant growing up next to that big one that I suspect might be my late bloomer of a pepper plant.  I'm waiting to see...  But all the other plants you're looking at have been grown from seeds by us.  Who knew we were capable of actually growing something?  I certainly didn't!

There are also a few stalks of corn that Craig just planted in the weeds and grass near the garden box, and a lovely tomato plant Craig's parents gave us, which we have hung upside-down.  That one already has a few flowers and Kendra is very excited to watch as those flowers grow tomatoes.

Seriously, why did it take us so long to finally do this?