Remember how I told you not to worry about the garden and how you weren’t behind and everthing would get done little by little, 15 minutes here and 15 minutes there?
WHAT WAS I TALKING ABOUT??!
Just before mid-May, the time you should really start the planting your head off here in Colorado, Dave and I spent the better part of a week in Estes Park. But I was calm. I was cool. I thought all the better – now when I garden I can be sure it isn’t too early.
Then I came home and got butt-kicking sick (sinus infection, cough like a sailor, bronchitus – yuck!). Eleven days now of I-don’t-feel-good-I-can’t-breathe-nose-blowing-raspy-voiced yuck.
Now – I am behind in the garden. I know it is my own standard, but if I don’t have absolutely everything done by June 1? I have failed. It makes me crazy!
I will not have everything done by June 1. I am drowning in the swirling pit of my own failure in the garden. Please feel sorry for me.
Gardeners the world over have left me behind…Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: maybe 15 minutes in the morning and 15 minutes in the evening will help me get it all done before I leave for Kentucky…
pictured: Gem Gem the Garden girl-just after we harvested a bouquet-full of Red Belle Radishes
I am losing the battle to tame the garlic chives that insist on not only seeding themselves e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e, but that are growing heartily…very heartily – despite my best attempts to subdue them.
If I can stay steady before the flowers (and the obvious seed heads from those) bloom, maybe I can win.
Farmer Wrex, the King of the Show-Goats, brought me 7 bales of straw. Yaaaaaaaaay!
I can’t grow my tomatoes in their usual place because, well, the word is out to all pests that I have great tomatoes there. This year I have to confuse them. The problem is I don’t have space to create another garden anywhere – what with trees and bushes and green grass for the dog to poop in (that does seem to be its’ main function, sadly) and grandkids swingsets and slides and the pool. But I can tuck in a bale of straw here or there and grow something.
I will basically treat them like I am square-foot-gardening, just doing it in a smaller area. So, I’ll do 2 tomato plants per bale, 2 zucchini or squash plants per bale. I may do 3 or 4 pepper plants in each. I don’t know. I had originally just wanted to do tomatoes, but then I found out you can grow anything and everything. I am so confused! In a good way, though.
I am sure my neighbors have the phone in their hands, ready to report me to the HOA for having straw in the backyard. But oh, they’ll change their tune when I share my bounty late summer! Oh, yes, they will.
It’s green, it’s environmentally friendly, it’s guilt relief (when you end up throwing away a drawer full of rotting produce you forgot to use). It’s rich and warm for the roots. It breaks up the hard mountainous soil making way for air and nutrients. It’s the most important soil amendment possible, at least 1000-times better than peat moss. And, unlike peat moss, it is readily renewable-fast! But the magic word? The word that makes it all seem to make sense? Or-ganic. Organic!
God composts, you know.
God? Yes. In a thick, green forest, when leaves and needles fall to the ground and are undisturbed, they decompose and enrich the soil below. They become their own mulch and then compost and then fertilizer for the trees above (and the roots below). Ashes to ashes, my friends.
In suburbia, we rake leaves up as soon as they fall (or vacuum them now sometimes, geesh). Then we go buy chemical fertilizers trying to make things look healthy, lush and green. We want healthy, lush and green – we just want to control it. Or, in my case, my homeowner’s association wants to control it.
In my last house, I had no association giving me ‘friendly suggestions’ AND I had a giant backyard. I had a compost sytem made of pallet wood. Wondrous!! I found this example recently. (This one is really nice and the blog post totally worth the read! Great tips!)
Paying Hundreds of Dollars to Decompose My Scraps
For the past 6 years, I have had to buy it. Buy it! Compost-rotting stuff! So I have been looking into these composters you can buy now and you have to add so much of their product (worms and starter and generating powder, etc.) it is ridiculous. What a scam aimed at middle-American, white-collar, home-owner-associated, bourgeois suburbanites. (It takes one to know one)
Homemade Compost: Back to Compost Basics
I am thinking of trying the poor man’s version, but keeping it pure. You can, you know! I found this possibility out there on the web: a homemade composter made of an old trash can. Hmmmm……Imagine, a useful and actually very valuable place for old coffee grounds, crunched egg shells, saw dust, dryer lint, untreated grass clippings,shredded newspaper, straw or hay, prunings, leaves, old plants, banana peels, really any fruit or veggie peelings…and etc…
Don’t know though…may have to wait to start until after Heaven Fest – maybe late August…stay tuned.
I did not keep the broccoli well. I may have forgotten to water it. Ever. Half of it is going to flower already – meaning trying to seed itself for posterity. Must brush up on my keeping skills.
But it is raining this perfectly fine Sunday afternoon. So, it will have to wait – the keeping, I mean.
Gavin spent the morning with me the other day and we played in the dirt, or “gardened,” if you prefer. We turned over and amended the soil in one of the 4ft x 4ft raised garden beds. Then to really get the visual, we used string to divide it off into 16 squares.
We had alread planted onion sets at the back a couple of weeks ago and they are sprouting up nicely.
The poles are in place for beans to be planted directly in mid-May.
Meanwhile we planted 16 radishes in one 1ft square. We planted a square of carrots, a square of mixed gourmet lettuces and a square of butter head lettuce, with spicy mesclun mixed in around. It will be harvested so young it won’t affect the butter head.
We tucked in some nasturium seedlings here and there, which we will use in salads – both the leaf and the flower, and voila!
Gavin, who insisted on taking some pictures “so we can remember what we planted,” (how did this boy become such a genius???), kept saying to me, “This is a really good day, isn’t it, Nonna?” It sure was!
More veggie tales to come…Jeanie, aka “Nonna”
pictured: some of Gavin’s shots (you can see we planted the seed in tiny vermiculite indentations, because it acts as a sponge to water, keeping the seed constantly moist), and the ones where I was able to wrangle the camera from him. :]
If you try to plant too many things, you will be defeated. But if you start with one or maybe three things that you simply must grow for they cannot be purchased to perfection like you could grow them, then you will not only survive, you will thrive. And since you are only really counting on those one-to-three things, since they are getting all your love, you’ll end up realizing, Well, I could probably tuck a basil plant here since I am here frequently, and maybe a few radishes under the shade of the zucchini leaves. And soon you’ll be companion planting and actually doing more than you thought.
But if you go to the store and buy 37 packages of seeds, you are doomed. Doomed.
My favorites.
I started out gardening with ZERO experience in 1997. I am a city girl with a farmer’s heart – except that they have to pretty much work the farm 24/7 365 days a year and I am not quite that committed. I decided on tomatoes.
My Aunt Rosie always served us home grown tomatoes fresh from her garden and regardless of whatever else was served, they were like having the best Texas steak you have ever seen on your plate.
So when I decided to do it, I actually went to the library and checked out about 17 veggie garden books and one wholly devoted to tomatoes and read and read and read. The author of the tomato book basically said, “If you’re going to grow tomatoes, you should grow the best ones on the block. Do not go into it half-heartedly. Do everything possible to have the sweetest, biggest, most amazing tomatoes anyone has ever seen.” So, as a tribute to all the books I’d read about them, I actually planted about 17 tomatoes plants and they were the BEST tomatoes I had ever seen in my life! Now-the neighbors and everyone I knew dreaded seeing me coming, but I kept everyone I knew fully tomato’ed!
Other stuff I like to grow
Zucchini and yellow squash are great to grow for grilling. But they take a lot of room. I grow them mainly because I can feel haughty when I am in the store and they are selling for $1.00 each and I have just picked 7 or 8 of them for dinner. ALWAYS pick them young, slice in thick on the diagonal, toss them in extra-virgin olive oil, season and grill. You get great grill marks and they are delectable!
Peas are the gardener’s candy. Sugar snap peas are wonderful because you can eat the whole pod or not, as you wish. Great stir-fry. Very sweet. The grandbabies and I snack while we work!
Radishes. Don’t try these in the heat of summer. They get too hot. But they grow quickly and are very fresh and crisp early. Plant them outside now if you want.
Beans are easy. Every kindergartener starts out this way.
Peppers are great. They are pretty plants, too, so they make a great potted plant and there are just so many varieties you can’t get in the store.
I also like lettuces, and sometimes okra and the eggplant is so pretty (but I always forget how to fix them). So many directions a person could go. And don’t forget to tuck in some marigolds and nasturtiums while you’re at it. They’re edible, add some beautiful color and keep the icky bugs away to boot!
My real bottom line.
But there I go again – telling you too many things at once.
So, if I could only plant one thing, it would be tomatoes. Those transparent-barely-pink things on your fast food burgers are NOT tomatoes. Late summer, you can find some great tomatoes at the farmer’s market, but there is nothing, I mean nothing, like growing your own.
They are worth the effort, the babying, the prep, the watching, the watering and weeding! And if you can grow the tomato, which is THE most wondrous thing, you can now grow anything! Good times!
I Corinthians 15.35b The Message: We do have a parallel experience in gardening. You plant a “dead” seed; soon there is a flourishing plant. There is no visual likeness between seed and plant. You could never guess what a tomato would look like by looking at a tomato seed. What we plant in the soil and what grows out of it don’t look anything alike. The dead body that we bury in the ground and the resurrection body that comes from it will be dramatically different.
Tomatoes, of course! And maybe…
About three years ago I was in a meltdown during planting season. It was the middle of June and I hadn’t done anything. There sat my 3 4-foot-by-4-foot boxes: empty. I knew I had no strength to accomplish anything, to plant, but I needed something. I planted a purchased tomato plant in one. One had 3 green bean “volunteers” coming up, so I just put a trellis in it (seeds from the previous year had gone into the soil and were growing with no effort on my part) and I found a zucchini seed or two in my produce drawer in a little baggie and popped those in to the final garden square.
They filled my three boxes. They actually looked beautiful and tended to. They grew though I was barely functioning and every single day they gave me the hope I needed that normalcy would return and I would grow past the place I was in. Every day a new leaf or flowering would appear, I knew I was another day past the sorrow – that life would happen again.
Those were all I could handle. Yet, we had zucchini and beans and tomatoes that summer as if I had worked for them. It was like God tended my garden when I couldn’t. It was God and it was good…
So go easy on yourself and garden!…Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: I am not behind, either.
pictured: scouting out last year’s tomatoes one evening…I spy!
In my part of the Rocky Mountain Region, the “final frost date” is approximately May 10, give or take a few days. That is an important date to know because it is sort of a gardening ground zero – the date around which all your garden grows!
Find your Final Frost Date!
Here is one link to help you find it. Knowing your area’s final frost date pretty much works for anyone anywhere as far as when to plant what. So, I am going to use the abbreviation FFD to indicate that is what I am talking about when I tell you my own personal plan of spring garden-action below.
Now everyone from my sister Tami in Corbin, KY to my sister-in-law in Aberdeen, SD, my mom in Springfield, Mo and even my fam in Butte, MT or Hobart, IN can use these numbers!
Seeds to sow indoors NOW! which can be planted outdoors after the FFD:
After Mother’s Day, weather-permitting, you can start plopping established plants in everywhere. I do have some sweet banana peppers growing on the windowsill, but most of my peppers and all of my tomatoes will come from pre-established seedlings I pick up at the nursery and they will not be planted until mid-May or after if I fear the night temps will drop below 55-degrees or so. I can find a great variety out here in “farmland country” at locally owned farm stands. So, planting seeds for these is not my deal. I will have squash and zuch ready to go at that time.
I only have 3 4 ft. x 4 ft. garden boxes for my veggie garden, although I also tuck stuff in here and there around the rest of the yard and use containers, too. So buying a parsely plant or two makes way more sense than buying a whole package of seeds and feeling compelled to plant every single one and then not having anywhere to place the plants in the garden, anyway.
Make yourself a List!
After the FFD, I will plant both seeds and seedlings.
Pre-established seedlings: started by me or purchased
Tomatoes (I’ll buy)
Peppers (I am already growing some, others I will buy)
Cucumbers (I may seed indoors-or just directly outdoors…don’t know yet)
Zucchini (I have some started, will sow more outdoors)
Squash (same as zucchini)
Cool stuff I find at the nursery like herbs or lemon cukes, etc
PLUS-fill those pots with flowers! (annuals will provide the most continous color-punch for the immediate buck, but perennials are an investment that will serve you year after year)
Seeds: Straight into the soil
Beans (grown them vertically for space-saving)
More lettuce, More spinach, More radish (these are all cool-weather, so it would be the last planting of them, though currently, you could plant a few more weekly for varied-date harvesting)
More zucchini and squash for subsequent harvests
Giant sunflowers for the grandkids, pumpkins and gourds (I plant the stuff that thrills the grandkids – big things, colorful things – for fun!)
It is important to note that where my radishes and lettuce and other cool-weather plants are right now, by July will have been replaced by warm-weather plants like tomatoes and peppers and zucchini. The same garden will be totally different – filled with flowers and herbs and other heat-lovers. I don’t have much space, so I use succession planting and timing to get the most out of it!
Bonus tip:
If you want to garden, but are afraid, start with a “salsa garden.” Go ahead and plant your oinion sets now (they are sold in bags or bunches in the garden section and look like mini dried onions. Then, plant your peppers and tomatoes after the FFD. Add some cilantro seedlings then, too and you’ll be off to the races for some late August salsa you’ll actually dream about!
OK-so this post was all over the map. There are many other things you could be planting, but these are my must-haves. I am also going to try to do potatoes this year for the first time. They should already be out there! Yikes! The thing is-I can look at that list and know, OK-this week I can do this. Next week I can do that. And it isn’t all one, big, heavy to-do list. Here a little, there a little…
Go sit in the Garden…
Mission: (Are you sitting in the garden? No? Then go there before you even attempt this!) So, today – make a list of veggies you want and decide which you’ll do from seed and which you’ll do from seedlings. If you just go stand in front of the seed display, I promise you, you will buy tooooooooo many seeds and either waste them or never plant them. Go eeeeeeeeasy on yourself! Then [1] go ahead and plant seedlings and seeds that can go out now [2] plant some seeds in cups indoors if you are going to – a thrill for the kiddos and [3] let the rest slip from your mind until it is time.
Going to the garden…Jeanie
pictured: one evening last summer ~ the last of the lettuce and spinach and radishes (which were mostly gone) and where the large pepper plants were about to get sunk.
An old, Italian man lived alone in the country. He wanted
to dig his tomato garden, but it was very hard work as the
ground was hard. His only son, Vincent, who usually helped him,
was in prison. The old man wrote a letter to his son and
described his predicament.
Dear Vincent,
I am feeling pretty low because it looks like
I won’t be able to plant my tomato garden this year. I’m just
getting too old to be digging up a garden plot. I know if you
were here my troubles would be over. I know you would be happy
to dig the plot for me.
Love, Dad
A few days later he received a letter from his
son.
Dear Dad,
Don’t dig up that garden. That’s where I buried
the bodies.
Love, Vinnie
At 4 a.m. the next morning, FBI agents and local police
arrived and dug up the entire area without finding any bodies.
They apologized to the old man and left. That same day the old man received another letter from his son.
Dear Dad,
Go ahead and plant the tomatoes now. That’s the
best I could do under the circumstances.
Love you, Vinnie
People just send me this stuff. No kidding. :)…Jeanie
pictured: Some shots I snapped this morning of my future. And it is good!
I came across a package of Asparagus Bean seeds I’d forgotten about and had no room for. I popped a few seeds into a potted jasmine container and forgot about them. On a drive-by watering a week or so ago, I thought I saw some green yarn tangled in the plant, but found instead that these bright green, very long, skinny beans were growing through the jasmine.
In rereading the package, I learned that they will grow to 3 feet long if you want to harvest the bean from the pod, but to eat like a regular snap bean, you harvest them at 12-15 inches long, braid them and steam them for an unusual presentation. Once they pop out, they seems to grow about 4″ a day.
They are funny looking, but fun. The flavor, so says the package, is like a mix between asparagus, mushrooms and beans. I stir-fried some and it was good, but I didn’t really detect 3 flavors. I am still amused that it is like eating a shoestring-licorice style vegetable.
