Lessons in Gardening

As the weather turns more and more pleasant outside, my thoughts once again turn to all things green and rooted. I decided today that I want to document my meager weekend progress through photos and notations and what better place to do it than here on my defunct but well-intentioned blog. That way I can pass this off as simultaneously keeping in touch with family and friends and convince myself I'm killing two birds with one stone. (That's just a saying, I'd never really kill any birds with any stone. Killing a chicken with a kitchen knife was just too much as it were.) I imagine I'll also occaisonally add an anedcote or two about my experiences substitute teaching here in the local school district. I'm starting to learn that there are many things in common between students and vegetative matter. See.... I know you already agree with me.

Let's start with odd names I run across as I call roll in different classrooms across the city each new day. The first name that comes to mind is one that made my ears perk up when I first heard it. I was "helping out" (at least I wasn't sleeping, like the *other* sub sent there to help) in OCS- that is "on campus suspension" when the attending teacher started the roll call after lunch to make sure no one got uhm... accidentally left behind (or jumped ship is more like it). She got to the name and my ears perked up. "Velvet Flowers". Wow. What a pretty name, I thought. My mind immediately imagined a teenage version of my daughter- white or tan skin, long curly frizzy hair, bead necklace, embroidered hip hugger jeans. But lo and behold, the reply of "here" came from someone of a totally different gender, race and definitely NOT of the hippie persuasion. I wonder now on a daily basis what people are thinking when they name their kids. I spied the name "Questian" on a roll sheet at a junior high school about a month ago. Please tell me there is another possible pronunciation of that word. And I swear to God, I had a child in class yesterday named Dorcus.

So let's leave it at that and get on to my garden. I'm not very good at this blog type thing and couldn't really place the photos exactly where I wanted them but we'll make do. The first photo up at the top is illustrating my composting system. For anyone who hasn't been to my house here, we have a very odd shaped property. Our house is on a circular cul-de-sac so our property is shaped almost like a slice of pizza. (Just imagine that someone has bit the tip off.) The short side is our front yard, point in toward the circle. Our house is a perfect 40x40' square that butts up almost to the back of our property. This means we have two side yards and just a walkway between the two from behind. The photo of the green chair and wire cages is in the side yard on the west side of the house. My husband rarely goes over there, he pretty much even stopped mowing over there. So that means, I can do secret experiments out there and he never has to know about them (or smell them, which is what he is trying to avoid). I swear my compost piles really have no odor at all. They are like 90% dried leaves. In fact, the compost I produce is something akin to a fortified leaf mold. So what I did this year was demand double duty of my tomato cages in the off season. I alternate layers of kitchen scraps with dried leaves (we have a virtually unlimited supply of dead leaves thanks to 3 very mature oak trees). The cages to the right house older material, hence you can see that they have compacted a bit and the ones to the left I have just added to in the past week. That's why you can see there is still some green material in them. When I want to turn the compost, fluff it up and what have you, I just pull the cage off from the top, shake out the contents and then use my pitchfork to shovel it all back in again. I water the cages about once a week to ensure they have enough moisture to aid in the decaying process.

Ok, the next photo is in the Eastern side yard, where we have a large sliding glass door and concrete patio. On either side of the patio, I created triangular shaped beds. This bush is the miniature pomegranate my Dad bought for me when we first moved into the house about 7 or 8 years ago. I just pruned it last week and it's started to get its first Spring leaves. In front of it, I planted some Amaryllis bulbs that I got for free from another Curves member last Spring. I hope they bloom this year. They've already started to just poke out of the ground and are a couple inches tall now.


This photo is alongside the fence between our house and the neighbor to the East. I planted these herbs last Fall and they've survived, and indeed thrived, all Winter. From left to right is a huge parsley, then oregano, then a tiny catnip plant (tiny because every cat in the neighborhood rolls around in it usually at 3am as it yowls loudly), and then a cilantro plant. On the backside of those herbs is a honeysuckle bush that used to be just huge. I naively planted it 6 or 7 years ago and let it run
its course. It took over. Last summer, we just cut it down to the ground thinking it would die but it just keeps coming back. So I'm leaving it but will "keep it in check" this time. Along the fence line to the left and right, I planted snow peas. I'm waiting for them to sprout and when they do, I plan to buy some plastic netting to hang on the fence for them to climb up. Then when the peas die, the honeysuckle is welcome to take over the net.


Here is the triangular shaped bed on the other side of our patio. This is a fig tree that has grown a little bit in the past 4 or 5 years but has never produced fruit. We have another one that does produce fruit but this one must be a male. Around the border I planted petunias last week. And then in a row between the petunias and fig tree, I planted baby spinach seeds. They also haven't sprouted yet but there's still time before I give up on them. I used two bins of my homemade compost to improve the soil there last weekend. I used another two bucketfuls as mulch around the plants. That's why the ground looks so... leafy.









And here are my babies. And there aren't just 8 of them. In the white plastic dishes are many tomato seedlings leaning into the sunlight, checking out the view of the backyard where they yearn to run free. In the blue dish are pepper and basil seedlings. The big black container is where they all came from. There are still unsprouted seeds in peat pellets in there so it looks like we are off to a good start!