Planted!

The garden plots are all planted and ready to go!

It has been so much work to get it all going!

This past Thursday had me 3+ hours at the park; the city dropped leaf humus for us and we distributed to all the plots (56! [ok; almost all of them]); it was back-breaking work; filling those wheel barrows and then dumping or shoveling out: over and over - plus I had done a little planting in my one prepared plot. Look how pretty after the humus:



and look how dirty my socks got! I was wearing shoes the whole time folks!



Yesterday I went to this great garden center: Canterbury Creek Gardens - I love the owner; he knows everything there is to know about gardening and plants (did I mention he's all organic?) and he's so helpful!

Looking at his starter plants I realized that my little plants would never make it (and I learned why...that lesson is for another day [see me next year when I try and start from seed again!]) so needless to say I just crumbled up what I had and added it to my plots today.

So in one plot I planted three zucchini, three cucumbers, one area about 4x4 of corn and a 4x4 plot of green beans:



In the other I have the spinach (from before; I thinned it out and will be eating that in my salad here in a little bit! hooray: so pretty!), about a 2x2 area of onions (planted Thursday), 9 tomato plants (3 varieties), 9 pepper plants (3 varieties), basil, thyme and cilantro (2 cilantro plants!):



I don't know that I'm satisfied with what I did. I kind of wish I had done fewer of this or that and maybe tried another one or two of something else...we'll see. I'm still pretty much a novice and learning all the time so I think mostly I need to be patient; see how these plants do and move on with that knowledge next year. I really: really, really hope the corn grows! I love fresh corn - I don't even cook it (ok sometimes I microwave it for a few minutes so my vegan Earth Balance "buttery spread" will melt on it! But I have many, many times just eaten it raw right off the cobb! Love it!

I certainly need to learn how to can tomatoes. I don't even like tomatoes! I like them all smooshed up in salsa and soup and that's it! I make a ton of soup so that was my big thought: grow tomatoes like crazy so I have them to can so I can skip buying them (at least sometimes) this winter at $3/can for the organic Whole Foods brand tomatoes; here's to hoping I learn!

Needless to say: the hardest part is over. Thank god for the kneeling pad-thing my friend Marla bought me last year: it has been a godsend already!

And it has been so nice meeting folks and hearing tips and just being out in the dirt and mud and goodness of it all! I hope to put up a little fencing soon...just couldn't find what I wanted yesterday or today...