getting in the garden
the author pulls on her gardening gloves and digs in, this time with a little more of the scientific spirit.
Today I got outside during the middle of the day and finished up the flower bed on the other side of the patio. I also set up my part of the vegetable garden. This year I’m trying square foot gardening, the tidiness of which appeals to me a great deal. After a few erratic years of vegetable gardening, I’m attempting to be more meticulous and scientific.
Last year was just zucchini & tomatoes. Everything else was a mess, although I did get a couple of carrots. The year before, I had lots of lettuce & arugula, and some other random stuff late in the summer, but the garden bed was a jungle of weeds, undertended, rolled in by the cats, etc.
This year I found a seed starting chart (PDF!) and I ordered my seeds well ahead of time. Originally I planned on planting a couple of weeks ago, but then we got that crazy freeze/windstorm. Last weekend was all about the painting, so it wasn’t until today that I got out there. Pulled the junk out of the old bed, smoothed it out, laid out a grid with aspen branches and grape vines…sometimes it’s good to have plants that go nuts.
Today was lettuce, arugula, spinach, radishes, and peas, all the early stuff. I have four empty squares left, which will get carrots and broccoli. Probably not until after SXSW, though. Tomorrow I need to start things indoors: the broccoli, for one thing, but also tomatoes, which I’ve never tried growing from seed before. And something else, I don’t remember what…but that’s what the chart’s for!
I’m glad I did gardening on a cool cloudy day. The last couple of years I’ve gotten over-energetic on a sunny day and done too much too early. Having a calendar helps me pace myself, which will be better for the plants.
Not to mention this spring’s salads.
