Pre-Requisite for Gardening 101

I have grown my share of tomato plants, green peppers and herbs over the years. In our little alley backyard, I tucked in a “salsa garden” with the rest of the bushes and annuals. It was pretty and quaint, and really boosted my green thumb ego. We moved last year to a house with a bigger backyard, this meant more garden potential! I wanted some space to grow an actual vegetable garden. I wanted to try a zucchini vine without it infringing on our kiddie pool.

I knew 2014 would be my summer of splendid garden success. I started planning late last summer. The compost pile was fenced and tilled. I collected kitchen scraps, added leaves, composted our Halloween pumpkins and even collected worms with the kids to add to the fertilizer jackpot. This evening ritual of dumping the day’s kitchen scraps, and then churning with a pitchfork became 10 minutes of sweet escape for me. I talked (and still continue to talk) about my compost pile with giddiness. (I guess it’s the little things in life…right?)

This spring I got busy. I made 2 simple wood forms for raised beds. I dug out the beds. And then came the exciting part, layering in the compost from my glorious pile of goodness. Then added a little topsoil, and planted seeds and seedlings!

And the big wait began. Maxie (5 yrs.) got involved with the planting and she shared a bit of my excitement when each new little tuft of green began to appear out of the dirt. I have these adorable tin markers I wanted to use to label each plant. I didn’t place them right away, with full thought I would of course remember where I planted everything…well, the markers never made an appearance. I forgot which were beans and which were peas. I forgot the empty spot I saved to plant rosemary. I forgot how far the basil seed was planted, did it bump up too closely to the cilantro?

I let it slide. Time will tell right? When it grows broccoli I will know it’s a broccoli plant. Another week went by, my 2 black rectangles were quickly becoming more and more green. The interesting part is that my rows weren’t quite rows anymore. I had 3 onion plants sprouting (and I didn’t plant onion).   “Bean sprouts” were everywhere. I thought maybe I had spilled the pack of seeds, then I blamed it on the squirrels, then after they grew larger I realized they were some variety of vine plant. I planted zucchini and cucumber in another part of the yard, yet this didn’t exactly match either of those.

So, here I am, well into the summer season when I realize I’m not only growing my garden, I’m also growing my compost! Ok, total rookie mistake. My compost hasn’t fully decomposed. All those green pepper cores (filled with hundreds of seeds) really wanted to see the light of day again. I have tomato seedlings popping up everywhere. I’ve pulled 3 sprouted avocado pits and 2 sweet potato vines. Unfortunately, they are so far behind schedule they won’t be large enough to produce any crops before the frost. I’m picking most of the mystery sprouts except for this unknown vine. I’m very curious about this little friend. I’ve transplanted them to another area of the garden and I’m now just waiting. I have a hankering it may have something to do with all of our old jack-o-lanterns from last fall.

All this to say; I’m far from an expert on this subject. This is not a “Gardening 101” blog post; this is just an encouragement to try something new. I have already encountered a number of snafus in this gardening shindig and we are still early in the season. However, I have 3 broccoli florets that are the size of my fist, a zillion, green, little, growing tomatoes, a very healthy onion plant, fresh herbs everyday and a giddiness every time I water and weed my little hobby. I ventured into this unknown a little intimidated, I made a few mistakes, but hopefully those mistakes will equal enough pumpkins, come October, to share with the whole neighborhood!