June 1, 2010

My Tiny Little Garden

The weather has finally been nice a few days in a row. For a while it was steaming hot one day and we were wearing sweaters the next. I finally put some seeds in the garden. I know--it's very late. I don't grow things seriously, I just love growing things. I can't explain it. When Andy and I met, I had cucumbers in the garden that looked like a bunch of polliwiggles. (I guess it was a good conversation starter on our first date.) I am not a good gardener and I suffer from "Charlie-Brown-Tree Syndrome," which I inherited from my mother.

For those of you who do not know what that is, it is when you feel bad for a scrawny little half dead plant and feel that you need to tenderly nurse it back to health and restore its great potential. The syndrome kicks in when you are in the plant section of home improvement stores and you feel bad for that stick of a plant--you know, the one that was knocked on the ground, rendered dirtless, stepped on and denied water? Yes--we are the people who buy that plant (actually most stores are more than likely willing to give it to you.)

I still love to grow things regardless if they turn out pretty or at all. During the winter, I just get an itch to watch things grow. When summer comes along I just can't help but planting. I find it astounding the potential that exists in a tiny seed. A huge oak tree is  grown from a tiny acorn, it is amazing!

I decided to try square foot gardening this year. I have three matching 2'x4' boxes. The wood was originally going to be two 4'x4' boxes but then I had to move where I was going to put them. They still look nice even though I lost planting space. At some point I plan on getting more lumber and making a fourth box. (My parents asked me why I made squares in the garden. I told them it was so my mother would "farm" the plants when I was away. Is anyone else's mother addicted to that facebook farmville game?)

This is the first year in my lifetime that we have had wild bunnies come to our neighborhood. We also have two big groundhogs. I sometimes see the bunnies sitting next to the boxes even though there isn't plants in them yet-- they must have learned through experience that a wooden box means a bunch of good veggies. I don't mind I plan on only fencing two of the boxes and leaving the far one for the animals. If they get the rest of the plants, I won't mind too much.

I hope to be a more serious gardener in the future, possibly even growing all of my own produce, but that is years and years away. I admire people who get some kind of "crop" from their gardens. My only goal for this year is to grow enough Roma tomatoes to make some spaghetti sauce (gravy if you live in my house.)


*Note: The drawings are taken from the 1911 version of The Secret Garden, one of my favorite stories when I was little. 

7 comments:

  1. neat.....did you get my comment??

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  2. I did, you are welcome to e-mail to my g-mail account, but like I said, I do not check it that often.

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  3. It is a gift from God to see potential in something that most would consider worthless. I pray your garden will overflow in more ways then one. <3

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  4. Nice post. Speaking of "tiny" and gardens, maybe you have heard of the Path to Freedom Urban Homestead of Jules Dervaes. Jules some years or more ago--due to his opposition to genetically modified food--decided to turn his small home in Los Angeles into a focused food growing effort. He and his two daughters are working this project and now grow something more than 6000 pounds of found on a tenth of an acre of land, as I recall. Their house I think sits on a fifth of an acre total. In a recent interview, Jules I recall said that they were going to try for 10,000 pounds.

    They grow enough for themselves plus enough to sell to various buyers.

    You can find scads of interviews and more about them on the web, including at least three web sites they run. During a recent interview of Jules, I found out that he appeared in the Food Network show "Private Chefs of Beverly Hills." Normally, I would not watch anything about Beverly Hills, but I actually enjoyed the episode with him and I thought that he and his family’s efforts came off quite well. You can find the YouTube videos of this episode on one of his web sites here. This looks like a media-oriented web site for him.

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  5. For some reason, the videos of that "Private Chefs" show do not always work from that site link I provided. Here is a link to the first part of the show on YouTube itself. You could find the rest of the parts--this particular show is in four parts on YouTube--on the same YouTube channel. The show provides a nice view of Jules' backyard, which takes gardening in a small space to an amazing level.

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  6. WudizThePoint, I have never heard of that before. That is really, really neat! I have never watched any of those shows either but that project is amazing.

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  7. You're word picture with the bunnies makes me crack up every time I read it!

    Good luck with the tomatoes, homegrown are the best!

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