Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Philosophic Gardener

So, I have always been a gardener. My dad and I planted our vegetable garden together every spring when I was a kid. Tomatoes and cucumbers were our specialties.

Then I went to college, and then to grad school, and lived in dorms and apartments and other rentals where I didn't have much of a place to plant anything. I did some potted plants, but it really isn't the same. So, instead I read about gardening. I found books, Gardenweb.com, I followed links on Pinterest, etc. And in this time I developed a gardening philosophy revolving around organic, chemical-free gardening and landscaping with edibles. A philosophy developed completely separately from the practical aspects of actually growing plants. This is probably not a good thing.

This new philosophy may die a quick and relatively painless death if I learn my green thumb turns brown when not artificially enhanced (by MiracleGrow), and that I am not a good enough designer to make a front yard that is simultaneously both pretty and edible. But for now I have my compost pile and my worms and I fully intend to dig up the lawn this spring. Maybe everything will work out fine and I will be in the market for some chickens next, the sure sign that I have gone off the deep end of this organic food business. Then I'd need a rooster so that my chickens would lay eggs...

I think I'll just stick to my worms. I don't care how good the fertilizer that chickens provide is for the garden, having a cockatiel as a kid was more than enough bird owning for me.

Monday, November 12, 2012

Garden Notes

I haven't posted on the blog lately because not much has been happening lately between my husband working on his big project (it's awesome. Take a look at his progress here: http://www.fornobravo.com/forum/f8/36-pompeii-dc-18213.html) and a busy toddler and a hurricane and some seasonal colds. But here and there I've fit in some garden work. One variety of lettuce is doing very well: 
It's the Grand Rapids variety. I've had less luck with the Royal Oakleaf and Buttercrunch. But I'll have lettuce to serve up as a salad for Thanksgiving, which is something I had really hoped for. No peas to serve though. The growth of the peas has been less than stellar. I thought they would be both larger plants and more productive plants. I'll have to plant more of them (on a more petite trellis) next year, since the fruits are delicious.

I also planted some potatoes this weekend. It seems to be a bit debatable whether they should be planted in the fall or spring, so I decided to give it a try in the fall. If successful  they will develop a really good root system over the winter so that when springtime comes around, they will grow like crazy. If not successful, they will rot and I'll add them to my compost pile and start over in the spring. I have this funny bag that I grow potatoes in, and add soil as they grow. 



Other than watching my plants grow, my main garden task has been raking leaves. And raking more leaves. And raking even more leaves. It is amazing how many leaves my trees produce. And even though I have bags and bags of leaves, there are still lots of leaves still hanging on the trees. I like raking, but not to the exclusion of all else, which is what I fear these trees demand. I think I don't mind raking, in part, because I don't think of leaves as trash, but as organic matter. I decided my worms would never keep up, so I set up a compost pile in the back part of my yard where I'm throwing a portion of my leaf supply and excess kitchen scraps. The leaves I don't compost I will shred up and use as mulch. I'll still probably have more leaves than I have use for. 

Here's a picture of my compost heap.  Nothing pretty, for now. I'll give it walls as soon as my husband is finished with the pallets he has construction supplies stacked on. I saw a nice compost bin design using pallets a couple weeks ago. For now the heap works. It's only a week old, but I'll start turning it every couple of weeks to keep it from getting smelly. That seems to be the gist of it, as far as I can tell. I'm very new to this organic gardening thing. But I'll probably write a separate post about that later.