Garden Party!

Every year we start a garden, and every year it gets slightly better. Don't let that fool you - I am far from being good at gardening. But the garden is progressing. It started out in the little patch of dirt in front of our place, but it's really shady there thanks to the neighbor's beautiful dogwood tree so the garden didn't really do much. Nothing died, but nothing really grew either. Last year we set up a container garden on our deck since we get the most sun there. That worked better, and the zucchini plants grew really well and flowered constantly, but alas, no actual zucchinis grew. I learned a lot about zucchini flowers last summer - there are male flowers and female flowers and you need both to make a zucchini. My plants had only one kind of flower (I think they were male) and so nothing ever grew. They looked good, though, until they got hit by some kind of zucchini fungus and died really quickly. 

The seeds of our future harvest

We do basil every year, and that has always grown well. So we're doing that again, of course. We are also planning on doing the container garden on the deck again, but we're picking different plants that will hopefully actually bear some fruit. It will be an experiment - we're trying five new plants this year. No zucchini. We went with plants that are supposed to be easy to grow, and that we wanted to eat, and would do well in a container garden. So we'll see. This year, we're trying broccoli, kale, jalapenos, peas, green onions, and basil. Whew!

My mom gave me a fantastic gardening book a few years ago called Grow, Cook, Eat by Willi Galloway. It's full of great information about planting and harvesting plants, and then some good suggestions for what to do with your crop once it's ready. The harvesting information is always helpful - I'm never sure how much to prune plants or when to pick them. And that's where I learned about the two types of zucchini flowers. And this year, I'm all read up on our new plants. Did you know that peppers can pollinate themselves, and don't need help from an insect? Now you do! And that a little bit of drought can make peppers hotter? And that peas grow better if you sprout the seeds first by putting them in a damp paper towel in a ziploc bag for a few days? I can feel my thumb getting greener already!

The sad remnants of last year's garden.

I like to start the plants from seeds if I can. It's fun to watch them grow, and feels like cheating if I buy a plant that's already growing. Then you just have to keep it alive, which can be just as hard I guess. So we start the seeds and keep them inside until it's definitely warm enough and the sprouts are big enough to withstand the outdoors. Except the basil - we're keeping that inside this year. There are some pretty nasty squirrels in our neighborhood, as well as a few neighborhood cats (we've named them all!). The main threats to our little plants always come from the critters. Last year something dug up all of our newly planted parsley, and something else dug up the daffodil bulbs I planted too. What jerks.

Planting the seeds.

Anyway, we finally got around to starting our seeds this weekend. We wanted to do it sooner, but the weather hasn't really been cooperating and it's definitely an outdoor activity. I'm a little worried that we're a little behind the growing season, especially since some of our plants seem to prefer cooler temperatures. Broccoli and kale both grow into the late fall, but they're not that fond of heat so I'm not really sure how they'll do in the heat of summer. On the other hand, we get them both in our crop box throughout the summer, so I guess they could do okay. We'll see.

I always get so excited about the first steps in gardening - to me, it's a true sign of spring. And every year I promise myself that I'll be really into gardening and my little plants will get all the tender loving care they'll need. I'm getting better on that front - my gardening confidence has grown since I've been able to keep a plant alive in my office for going on two years now, and since I've gotten pretty consistent results with my basil. But it always seems so tricky - knowing how damp the soil should be, and making sure that they're getting plenty of sun and nutrients, and knowing which plants need stakes or not and when to harvest them. There are so many mistakes to be made! The dream is always that someday, we'll be able to have an entire dinner of things that we grew. If you've got any recipes that call for all five of our new veggies all at once, let me know!

Look! I made a cheesecake.