If It Grows and I Can Eat It I Will Accept It

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In my garden, the one in the front yard (part of it right in front of the window), my pink rose bush is exploding with pink roses and covering the bush in petals. My red velvet roses are divine, a breath taking sight every time I look at it. I have a few other roses not blooming quite as much, but I suspect they will be soon.

I usually hate any produce flower fragrance, but when it’s natural and soft like this it is so sweet. My pink roses are my post fragrant and near my front porch, so between the pink roses, the basil, the rosemary and jasmine I love walking to my front door.

Speaking of rosemary and basil… these beautiful herb plants are dark green and growing quickly. I will have to trim them again. I only wish the basil was as sturdy as the rosemary. My basil will begin to wilt if it gets too dry (this happens easily) or too hot. Then there is my two year old son who loves to yank the leaves and eat them. He loves the way they smell too and sticks them right up his nose. I wish most plants were as sturdy as the rosemary. My rosemary has survived freezing and hot weather. It is at it most beautiful and green in the fall.

My jasmine is growing wild. I had to trim it. Then I took the clippings and stuck them in dirt in other parts of my yard. I have yet to successful transplant jasmine clippings. I hope it takes this time.

I almost forgot to mention… there is a pepper plant between the basil. I’m not sure what kind of pepper, but it is as tall as the basil. Oh! and my cauliflower from last year (it survived the winter, but barely the caterpillars love it) has not produced yet. So, I’m not sure what it will look like or do. I’m very anxious to find out. Oh, yes and also the struggling broccoli survived. I honestly thought by now it would just wilt and die away, but instead it grow new beautiful leaves and then the caterpillars eat them.

My theory is that when the colder weather begins to move in, as it has for this past week, the caterpillars will go in hiding or die or maybe I will find out it isn’t caterpillars, but something else eating away the leaves. If it is caterpillars, when the cold weather drives them away the broccoli and cauliflower will produce some vegetables.

Just in case they don’t I used last years broccoli seeds to grow some more. I also used last year cilantro and lettuce seeds to grow these as well. Today when I watered my garden I saw many new seedlings. I was so excited I think I jumped a little.

Should I continue to write about my back yard? These details are exciting to a terrible gardener like me. As if asking, “If a lazy gardener like me can grow a garden, why can’t everyone else?”.

My crazy garden bed in the back has a carrot, two lettuce plants and two struggling green bean plants growing in it. I plucked a very healthy green bean from the plant and brought it inside to take a picture, but I think one of my kids got a hold of it, because I couldn’t find it later.

My cucumber, not in the garden bed, hasn’t given me any more cucumbers, but there are yellow flowers popping open all over it. I think I’ll see more cucumbers soon. I hope I will.

The mint in the garden is taking up a lot of space. Good thing, like the cucumber, it isn’t in the garden bed. This week I used some of the mint clippings to make mint tea. It taste better when I boil it with cinnamon tea, but alone it isn’t bad.

In the rest of the back yard garden I planted last years squash seeds near the flower bed. There was a variety and I wasn’t sure what was what. I had an idea and a few were labeled, but at this point I really don’t care what kind of squash. If it grows and I can eat it I’ll accept it.

The Stongest Survived, So Will We

I plunged in. I put on the his gloves, put on my brown shoes, asked him to sleep in living room (to be near the kids just in case) and I walked to the backyard. The gate my neighbor made for us was nice. I had a little trouble going in, but after pushing the post a little inward the chain loosened up and I was able to open it up. I walked in and I looked at the weeds, tall (up to to the top of my thighs and I’m 5’3) and thick as a forest. I took a deep breath, told myself I could do it and I went in grabbing and and pulling weeds.

I expected a fight, but there wasn’t as much as I expected. The weeds looked tougher than they were. They came out easily. Well not that easy. I did have to play tug-of-war with some of them and those weeds that proved too tough I just clipped at the lowest part of the stem with my Felco gardening scissors. The best part about the whole experience was that during the whole process I found several fruit/vegetable plants growing and growing strong. The weeds must have provide shade from the hot hot hot summer and the weeds must have also locked in enough moisture for these plants to flourish.

I was so happy to find the plants that I went inside (exhausted, back aching, and a bit dizzy but happy) and woke my husband up. Poor guy he has to work late nights all week. I told him to follow me. He said he was tired, but I wanted to show him so I asked him again. He was skeptical. He shook his head and said they were very likely weeds. I insisted he follow me. So, he finally did.

He was amazed at the progress I made. Honestly so was I. I wish I had taken a picture of the weeds before I pulled them all out. Then he looked at the plants. We disputed over 4 of them. He said they were weeds. I disagreed. Finally I did pull one up when I realized it was a weed. The other 3 we are leaving in the ground to see how they develop, then we will decide. As for the rest of them we are sure they are fruiting plants. If we can manage to keep them alive this time we may have some cantelop and watermelons after all. It’s a nice thought any way.

As he stood across from me and looked at the garden he then looked up at me and he asked me why I was being so nice to him. We have a lot of history. Maybe he thinks he doesn’t deserve it. I should have told him that I just wanted to bring him a little hope. I should have said I feel bad that you hate your job and your working it to put food and a roof over our head, so I wanted to do something nice for you.  Instead I acted like I didn’t understand what he meant. I’ve never been really good with the mushy stuff. I’m working on it. Sometimes it comes out. Sometimes it doesn’t. Today I made a joke, ” I was hoping to get more massages”. He smiled. Then he said something like, “Maybe we can work something out”.  I’m not holding my breath though.

Of course, there is still progress to be made in the garden, more weeds to pull out and more watering, but this time it wont be all or none. I hope it wont be. We  wont have many days like today to get out there, but I did tell him this, “Gardening needs to be fun right now. Let’s just plants stuff and if it grow it grows and if it doesn’t, it doesn’t. ” We’ll have time to garden the way we want when we are older. Right now we have kids and work and school….

It’s hard for my husband to understand time sometimes. He is the type of person that really likes to get deep into a project, so deep that sometimes he becomes obsessed with it and it become overwhelming so it becomes an all or none sort of thing.  He has to find out on his own that between work and family he doesn’t have the extra time he would like for his projects.

So today he finally understood what I meant when I said what I said. He smiled and he agreed. Then he said something about liking my positive thinking.

After I cleaned out all the pulled weeds and put them in a another compost pile he walked over to the main compost bin and turned the pile in there. He hadn’t done that in a while. When he saw the black soil turn up from the bottom a smile grew on his face and I was happy. I smiled too.

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2nd Tuesday CSA Veggie Pickup

I was able to pick up the veggies today without the kids. I was even able to combine errands and went grocery shopping right after so I didn’t just drive 30 minutes to and from just for a bag full of veggies.

Today’s pick up consisted of 1 leafy green I can’t identify, 1 bunch of beautiful red beets, 1 bunch of turnips, 1 bunch of radishes, 1 bunch of cilantro, and 1 bunch of rosemary.

It isn’t much this time either but I still have hope. The veggies are also very bright in color. It inspired me to really get that garden started my neighbor and I were talking about yesterday. I would love to see these veggies growing in my yard. It would save my family a lot of money doing it and we would eat well. My husband and I attempted a garden a few years back. We managed to grow tomoatoes one time, then the watermelon took over. We eventually learned how to pick the watermelons, but it took some trial and error and of course research online. I will say though that what did survive from the the tomatoes and the watermelon were delicious.

We pulled the one carrot that grew too soon and the corn didn’t grow at all. Maybe this time it will be different. We will research more online first and during our gardening. I’ll ask the farmer from the CSA for some tips too and maybe just maybe we can put a complete organic salad on the table this year or next year from our very own organic garden. Wouldn’t that be nice?

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CSA Cancelation

There is a possibility the CSA vegetable program may be canceled for my drop site. It turns out not enough members have signed up this year and the farmers are worried that they will loose money if they deliver to that drop site for only a few members. A part of me is saddened and the other part not so much. The part of me that is sad really wants to do my part for my community and really enjoys being part of a CSA and feeding my family organically grown veggies. The other parts is still shocked about the cost and how far I have to drive each week just to get my organically grown fresh vegetables. It isn’t the farmers fault nor is it ours. It just unfortunate that where I live there are not a lot of near by farms, at least not that grow organically and do the CSA thing. Our options are slim around here, yet surprisingly the city is so big. My father-in-law would be disgusted by this comment, but I wish we were more like California. I don’t know much about California, except what I’ve heard and seen on TV. I’m sure that isn’t an accurate picture of it though. Still, if I wasn’t so attached to my roots here I think I would fit in just fine over there. That’s my perception anyway. I would still probably say “fixen” and “ya’ll” just because I like the sound of it.

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