There are several potato plants and onions ready to come out!!!
I feel so gratified by my garden. It really didn't take THAT much work and now I will have enough fresh food to last for most of the summer. Perhaps if I were smarter or more dedicated or something, I would be able to grow food all year round. I'll do that someday but for now I'm happy to have arugula salad with some onions. And baked potatoes for everyone!
Besides providing food for me and my family, the garden is the place I go when everything else in life seems too much. We get so caught up in our little lives, yet so much LIFE is teeming all around us at any given moment. Lift a rock and you'll see the depth of life occurring beyond your own mind. Just within the confines of my small garden is an entire universe of life; the plants, insects, microbes, everything working together in symbiosis, millions of lives all changing and growing, living and dying. How's that for getting a glimpse outside yourself?
Garden Sanctuary
You who walk
With troubled thoughts
Come, enter here and rest
And may the sweet serenity of growing things
And the heavenly peace
Be mirrored in your soul
-Doxis M. Palmer
Friday, June 19, 2009
Time to Get Serious
June is coming quickly to a close and I have been beyond CLUELESS this growing season. For a woman whose ultimate goal is to home-grow all my own food, I have been relentlessly lazy. Preoccupied is probably a better word, and not only can you tell by the garden, you can tell by my blog. It has been sadly neglected.
On the upside, I harvested some yummy arugula already and I'm thrilled that it seems I'll be up to my eyeballs in it all season long. The carrots I planted seem to have magically disappeard from the garden....I choose to attribute that to the family of rabbits that have moved in nearby. The phlox in my perennial garden has already been munched to near-extinction by Mama Rabbit, so I'm guessing the carrots have been expertly removed from the ground. What amazes me is that they left no evidence behind...hmmm.....
I planted what survived of my corn seedlings, which was about 15 plants. For a small, home garden such as mine, in an uptight neighborhood of Northern Virginia, that is probably just as well. I'm sure if I dug up my front lawn and replanted it with nothing but corn, the neighbors would have something to say, nevermind what the HOA would do to me. Probably death by firing squad. Anyway, of those 15 corn plants, only THREE have survived. This is a huge disappointment to me. There really need to be more than that because in order for corn to grow (this is something I learned this winter so hang on for enlightenment) there needs to be multiple plants and they need to be planted in a grid. Corn is wind-pollenated so if there is only one plant, it cannot pollenate itself. If they are planted in one straight row, the wind will blow the pollen away and it cuts the chance that any corn will develop. But if they are planted in grids, they stand a much better chance of pollenating one another so that corn will grow. Otherwise, you just end up with tall, gangly green stalks and no corn.
In any event, with only three corn plants, it'll just be a gamble as to what happens. I don't have room in the existing garden for much corn and I fear I put the plants in a bad location. Live and learn! That's what clueless gardening is all about!
Something amazing did happen in my perennial garden. Last summer, I planted marigolds in all my gardens, mainly to help with pest control but also because I just like the way they look. In any case, this year the marigolds GREW BACK! From my understanding marigolds are annuals, but clearly I need to look into this more. I was so surprised to see them, almost like old friends. I guess what happened was they reseeded themselves, not "grew back" per se, but still....it amazed me. That's one thing I love about being in the garden....it never fails to provoke my sense of awe and wonder.
On the upside, I harvested some yummy arugula already and I'm thrilled that it seems I'll be up to my eyeballs in it all season long. The carrots I planted seem to have magically disappeard from the garden....I choose to attribute that to the family of rabbits that have moved in nearby. The phlox in my perennial garden has already been munched to near-extinction by Mama Rabbit, so I'm guessing the carrots have been expertly removed from the ground. What amazes me is that they left no evidence behind...hmmm.....
I planted what survived of my corn seedlings, which was about 15 plants. For a small, home garden such as mine, in an uptight neighborhood of Northern Virginia, that is probably just as well. I'm sure if I dug up my front lawn and replanted it with nothing but corn, the neighbors would have something to say, nevermind what the HOA would do to me. Probably death by firing squad. Anyway, of those 15 corn plants, only THREE have survived. This is a huge disappointment to me. There really need to be more than that because in order for corn to grow (this is something I learned this winter so hang on for enlightenment) there needs to be multiple plants and they need to be planted in a grid. Corn is wind-pollenated so if there is only one plant, it cannot pollenate itself. If they are planted in one straight row, the wind will blow the pollen away and it cuts the chance that any corn will develop. But if they are planted in grids, they stand a much better chance of pollenating one another so that corn will grow. Otherwise, you just end up with tall, gangly green stalks and no corn.
In any event, with only three corn plants, it'll just be a gamble as to what happens. I don't have room in the existing garden for much corn and I fear I put the plants in a bad location. Live and learn! That's what clueless gardening is all about!
Something amazing did happen in my perennial garden. Last summer, I planted marigolds in all my gardens, mainly to help with pest control but also because I just like the way they look. In any case, this year the marigolds GREW BACK! From my understanding marigolds are annuals, but clearly I need to look into this more. I was so surprised to see them, almost like old friends. I guess what happened was they reseeded themselves, not "grew back" per se, but still....it amazed me. That's one thing I love about being in the garden....it never fails to provoke my sense of awe and wonder.
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by Kate