Green Things

In the endless attempt to grow a decent garden, this year's planting is now underway. On time, no less! As our northern neighbors head toward their last harvests, we are just now poking the earth to life down here in the sunny south. Our compost pile this year finally produced some nice-looking soil, and a fat herd of wriggly earthworms, courtesy of the summer rains. Two of the four garden boxes have been topped up and amended with some organic inputs—bone and blood, basically, with fish emulsion to come.  Yes, I know, "Ew."  Our garden may be organic; it's certainly not vegan.  But, I can't deny the power of stinking fish emulsion to produce some happy, healthy plants, so in it will go at a very awkward arm's-length from me.

The other two boxes still need de-rooting from last year, which is a backbreaking task that I will put off as long as possible because I'm just that way about backbreaking tasks. Unfortunately, that means putting it off until the very late date of . . . tomorrow.  After running.  And blueberry pancakes.  And anything else I can think of.

So far, I've put down four types of tomatoes (two of each, how Noahidistic), along with broccoli, an eggplant, the first of the lettuces and some sugar snap peas that seem a little disinclined to participate in the whole "growing" thing.  A quarter of one box and two more total boxes await later rotations of lettuces, more broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, kale and possibly another attempt at Brussels sprouts.  Strawberries will go in the oldest box elsewhere in the yard. And, this year, I'd also like us to build a deep box for carrots.  I figure that if you're going to continue your long history of gardening failures, you might as well go all-in and try everything.  The worst thing that happens is the same thing that happens to most of my gardening every year, but the best thing that happens is tasty.  It's worth a shot.

Clicking on the title of this post will take you to a previous entry that has a rough planting guide, if you're interested in what grows when around here.