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Sunday, February 17, 2008
the garden: details
I have a transcribing job (from hell, so far; it's the kind where one person is almost inaudibly quiet and slow, and the other person is much louder and much faster, which means I'm always having to adjust volume and speed), a history test to study for, and a chapter's worth of nutrition homework, all of which pretty much NEED to be done tonight, which explains why I'm sitting here blogging. Ho-hum. But seriously, Denise asked a question about THE GARDEN, so how could I resist?
Denise (and anyone else who is interested, or, heck, not interested, for that matter): We are growing lots and lots of things. In fact, me being me, I made... a spreadsheet. (It's only because we're ordering the seeds by mail and I'm now officially too lazy to total up 25 rows of low-dollar amounts with paper and a calculator. I swear. Well, maybe that and the fact that I am a pseudo-geek who loves spreadsheets, especially if they involve mathematical functions.)
Hmm. I am just now finding that one can't just copy and paste stuff from Excel into text windows. Who knew? (Everyone, Rachel.)
We actually have really nice soil -- dark brown, just fluffy enough, not rocky, etc. (This is a positive change from our previous house, where we had red clay that was impermeable to everything up to and including water, except during really wet storms when it would become the world's reddest mud-slick.) In our nice soil, we are desperately attempting planning to grow beans, broccoli, carrots, corn, cucumbers (pickling and eating), tiny little cute kiwis with no fuzz that you eat like grapes, melons, onions (red and brown), peas, three kinds of peppers, spinach, three varieties of summer squash and two varieties of winter squash, pumpkins, tomatoes (cherry and standard), two kinds of watermelon, and some herbs -- dill because I want to try pickling, basil, oregano, and cilantro for salsa with the tomatoes, onions, and peppers.
Gosh, just LOOK at all the things I'm going to kill this spring. I am so in over my head.
We aren't growing lettuce, even though I would love to, because it reportedly does not like our long, hot, dry summers, and I am, as has been established, a gardening newbie, aside from the occasional corn-and-tomato patch, so dealing with temperamental plants that are going to freak out in the 110-degree heat that occasionally lasts for five or six weeks here is maybe not such a great start to a thriving career as a vegetable-growing granola earth mother*. I did find a spinach variety that was advertised as more heat-tolerant than most, so I'm giving that a try. (We'll see how tolerant it is of the terrifying Rachel Kills Green Things Curse! Bwa ha ha ha!) We are using all heirloom varieties, because we want to start saving seeds. It's a preparedness thing. It also means that we have to be very careful about putting multiple varieties of some species too close to each other, to avoid cross-pollination which makes the seeds Not So Good. In other words, planning the layout of the garden was like one big logic puzzle, and it was so, so much fun. Now if I can just maintain this level of enthusiasm for six or eight short months, the whole project might turn out to be something other than a complete waste of time, energy, and money. (Don't hold your breath.)
*This sentence just kept growing. I'd add a phrase here and a word there until, by the time I realized that it was getting out of hand, it was almost like a game to see exactly how bad a sentence I could make without technically creating a run-on. In other words, I totally did that on purpose. Yeah.
Comments
that sounds like a nice garden! I am hoping to grow tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers os some sort. I bought bell pepper plants, but actually they turned out to be some kind of hot, red pepper that Toney LOVED.
Posted by: debi at February 17, 2008 07:27 PM
Sounds exciting! I might try to grow a tomato plant or two, this year, but nothing as ambitious as your garden!
Best of luck! Having the kids to help should certainly make it somewhat easier. (At least, you'd think so. . . If C likes keeping the lawn clean, maybe weeding and watering will also appeal to her.)
Posted by: Michael at February 18, 2008 04:39 AM
Sounds really fun (especially the logic puzzle!). Tell me more about the little kiwis! I would like to grow something other than tomatoes and cucumbers and rogue pumpkins (last year). And smut-infested corn (two years ago). Can I tell you how gross corn smut is? Gah.
Basil grows like gangbusters in pots here.
Will you compost too? G wants a compost pile but our yard isn't big enough so we compromised with a little kitchen composter. Pretty snazzy.
Posted by: mary at February 18, 2008 07:19 AM
Rachel, Gary and I found lettuces to be a great autumn crop up here. As well as beets and allthe other gourd stuff. Good luck
Posted by: debbie at February 19, 2008 01:06 AM
Your garden sounds awesome! Treats in the pockets sounds like a great idea. I remember when we first got LeeLoo, she wouldn't let us come anywhere near her for months without hissing and scratching. It can take time.
Posted by: jenn at February 19, 2008 12:52 PM
I still read, Rachel, jsut haven't commented for a long time. I'm so happy for you about your house and garden! We are hoping to buy this year, and I can't wait to play in our own garden! Our summer heat bites many adventurous garden plans, but, once you've got a lot of plants going, they seem to survive a lot, as long as they get water. Our tomatoes have been prolific, especially the ones that don't get any tlc! Hope it all works out for you.
Posted by: Valerie at February 19, 2008 08:30 PM
The nice thing about growing so much stuff is that even if half of it doesn't work out you'll still have an impressive harvest.
Also, if anything seems to be languishing, maybe you can assign homeschool projects for the kids to figure out what might help :-)
Posted by: Dichroic at February 19, 2008 08:58 PM
Sounds awesome. I hope you'll take lots of pics of the whole process. I'm very impressed with your spreadsheet and planning...that is my biggest weakness. Maybe you can post your spreadsheet here!?
I need to get on the ball with my gardening plans...if I wait too long my husband will veto the whole plan.
Posted by: Denise at February 20, 2008 09:01 AM
