Our garden's going to be small this year, as we weren't able to even start working on it till May 15th. Our house closed on May 3rd, but we were so busy painting, cleaning and donating all the stuff the old tenant left inside that we just couldn't think about the outside yet. Our new across the street neighbor, Brian was sweet enough to mow the lawn for us until we were moved in properly. You know, once we got the 3,000 lbs of stuff the old tenant left on the lawn to the dump. The old tenant was pretty gross, I don't think he moved more than his cars and his clothes and just left everything else here for us.
May 15th was a big day for us. Josh rented a roto-tiller bright and early at 7am and dug me two veggie plots, flower beds along both sides of the drive way, and two flower beds along the house. The ground is really rocky, but we made lemonade out of those lemons by lining the beds with the rocks, which now (has it only been 5 days?) look very nice with their borders of river stone. The two veggie plots will be henceforth called the North Plot and the South Plot, and the flower beds along the drive way will be called the North Strip and the South Strip. The ones along the house probably won't contain veggies, so I probably won't mention them again.
After roto tilling, I took a big bag of organic compost and started working it in. We were going to let the soil rest for a few days before we did anything else, but wouldn't you know not a few seconds after the compost was added I was in dirt so soft I could make holes for the cucumbers with my fingers. The North Plot got 2 tomato plants (one cherry, the other I don't recall the name of but it's a larger variety, but not so big as to be a beefsteak), a chili pepper plant, 3 yellow squash plants, 4 blue lake bean plants, 4 cucumbers, 3 zucchinis, and two green onions that were left over from last year. Today I was wondering around and two of the yellow squashes don't look so hot; their baby leaves are curling under and turning yellow and their grown up leaves aren't exactly out yet. I'm giving those two another week or so to see if they perk up and if not, culling them and giving my best wishes to the remaining one.
The South plot is more of an herb garden. That bed surrounds a the stump of what I think used to be a Douglas Fir tree. That bed got less compost because I figured the decaying stump would give lots of nutrients. I don't know anything about planting anything around and within old dead tree roots so no one tell me, this is a little experiment. I'd like to use that area in the next few years as host to a plum tree, so I'm hoping the herbs' roots will get into the dead tree roots and break them up to make way for the plum. I put a bay tree there, Lori tells me that they aren't winter hardy here, but the nursery I bought him from said he's cold tolerant to 10 degrees, and it has never been that cold here in my life, so he's staying put. A bunch of cilantro went out there as well, along with a rosemary bush who's just finished flowering, a lemon thyme that just started flowering, a million little chive plants, oregano, and two tomato plants. One of the tomatoes is a cherry variety and the other was a gift from one of my new neighbors. I tell ya, buying a house from a complete slob has its advantages. The previous tenant set the bar so low that by simply not keeping garbage on the front lawn, Josh and I are the neighborhood heroes. Brian came over and tacked up a roof tile, I get a tomato plant, another neighbor Jackie gave me a vine maple. It's just been great. If we'd bought this place from someone who was tidy, then all the neighbors would have noticed is that Josh dresses in all black and they'd be worried that he'd shoot up the block.
But back to this gift tomato. He's a brandywine, and all I knew about brandywines was that they are an heirloom variety. I looked him up and wow he's a monster! It takes him twice as long as the other larger variety I got to give mature tomatoes (I just remembered that was an early girl), he gets enormous and his tomatoes can be a pound and a half each! Jeez I hope he tastes good in salsa because that's where he's going.
On Monday I put nasturtium seeds down on the North and South strips. My great grandmother used to feed them to me out of her garden, and I always thought they were so pretty. Erik had them at the farm and once told me they were the easiest thing to grow. I wanted a nice flower that would go all summer, and I hope they'll fit the bill, plus spice up a salad or two. I sowed some radish and lettuce seeds in old egg cartons as well with the intention of planting them next to the nasturtiums. The seed packets indicate that the radishes will sprout well before the lettuce, but it's the other way around for me. I popped them in the dirt on Saturday and now on Wednesday I have lettuce babies and no radish babies, weird. We'll see what happens. Seattle Tilth is putting on a seedling sale this Saturday, and if I don't see baby radishes by then, I'll just buy them there. I also started dill and parsley in egg cartons, but I don't expect to see them up anytime soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment