More Sowing, Less Reaping

Fall gardening turns out to be heavy on the lettuce sowing, light on the kids helping. They'd rather be making Halloween art than just about anything else. [Sidenote: I cannot believe Halloween is still a week away. I have Spooky Stuff Fatigue!] Today I finally pulled out the Stupid Green Zebra (official new name), and moved my thriving potted mint into its shady spot. The mint has been super-happy ever since I trimmed it back to nubs.

"Can I hold the hose? Can I? Can I? Can I?"

Elsewhere, I squeezed in a new round of seeds between the zucchini and the Sweet 100, both of which I'd intended to remove today but they talked me into a stay of execution for another week. The tomatoes may indeed keep producing; I picked a handful today and there's both orange and green fruit still on the plant. The zucchini has a couple teeny feeble starts, so I caved; I'm a softy.

From bottom: Carrots, cilantro, and assorted seedlings

I planted Salad Bowl lettuce, Detroit Dark Red beets, scallions, and organic cilantro from Burpee. The other recent sowings are coming along nicely, as shown in the photo. We've had a couple mornings of light rain and sunny, warm afternoons; I can only assume they are all loving it. I moved all my other pots into sunnier spots vacated by the green beans. Now that we're getting into what might actually merit the title of a "rainy season", they're going to need all the warmth they can get. My basil in fact still looks great.

Planting in the Moment

Outstanding in her field.

I went outside with my daughter yesterday afternoon on a beautiful sunny day. My intent was to pick a few peas, water, and call it a day, but when we got out there, she looked around and said, "Why don't we do some planting?" Indeed. So we (I) turned over a patch that most recently had done nothing for some allium seeds, and we put in the carrot and beet seeds I got at the dollar store. Fingers crossed. (That basically sums up my whole gardening philosophy.)

Basil (or Lettuce?) from Seed!

So exciting - my basil pot indoors is finally putting up some teeny little shoots! (Or maybe it's lettuce - I had labeling issues. Hmm.) Compared to the cilantro next door, which is practically ready to harvest, it's miniscule, but for a novice like me it's a thrill. Outside, nothing quite so exciting is going on. Something has been nibbling on the beet leaves down to the ground, so I've pretty much lost track of where they are. More cilantro is coming along nicely but the adjacent lettuce is not. So disappointing - I really thought there was a good shot here, in my moderate cool microclimate, of lettuce being a 4 season crop. Not only is it NOT, but I'm not even sure what season it does like!

Unseasonability

I took advantage of both kids being out of the house to dash outside and sow some seeds that might actually have more than a 50% chance of developing without my "assistants". I put in Bibb lettuce, beets, and another round of snow peas. My first set of peas are doing great (by my low standards, that is) - we get a few off it every day and they are crunchy and tasty. At least that's what my kids tell me; I hardly ever get to try one myself. My existing Salad Bowl lettuce and cilantro are doing fine; some beet leaves are peeping up, and I do believe that the radishes are up to something in their container. Otherwise, nothing the kids and I sowed a few weeks ago is visible. That's how it goes in the wide world of potager-ing. The forecast is for 70F today. What the what! I can't blame my seeds for getting confused; I know I am. My toddler wore shorts yesterday and I didn't have a leg to stand on to tell her she shouldn't.

Winter Gardening

Positioning the marker just so in the pot

After my last post, I fully expected to stay indoors for a couple months. Then my gaze fell on my in-box, and on the radish seeds someone gave my daughter for her November birthday. "Come on kids!" I shouted. "Let's go plant these radishes real quick!"

"Okay!" responded my 5 year old son enthusastically. "And carrots too! They're a winter crop!"

Well. Can't argue with his garden savvy or his gusto, so the three of us spent an hour in the vegetable garden this afternoon. It was in the low 60s, I'd say, a welcome respite from the recent "bitter" (by Bay Area standards) cold. We planted radishes in a pot, and in the ground cilantro, mesclun, beets, and carrots, all from seed. I pulled out my sad, sad plants formerly known as tomatoes, clicked my tongue over my peas, and weeded. Grr. Also tried to redirect some sneaky bamboo, grr x 1000.

Any excuse to practice those kindergarten writing skills

The kids spent their time messing around with the seed packets and decorating plant markers (craft sticks). That was actually a good use of their time, as opposed to having them sow the actual seeds with me, which is a great way to have your lettuce row sprout a big ol' cilantro in the middle. It will be handy to have a visual marker of what went where, since my memory is obviously deteriorating rapidly.

I think the Vitamin D did us all good. Whether we'll reap anything more tangible, time will tell.

Of COURSE you need to bring out about 50 craft sticks to choose from. All the markers too. You never know what you'll need.

Our Garden is Beautiful

My 2 y.o. and I spent some time this morning gardening together. No matter how little I feel like gardening, or how little I'm looking forward to the drudgery of winter gardening, just getting out there and doing it with a little helper puttering nearby is sweet. Bonus: It leaves me with an (undoubtedly illusory) feeling of accomplishment. Today, after I turned over a patch about 4'x4', she and I planted cilantro, beets, carrots, and "Salad Bowl" lettuce (the latter in ground as well as in a pot that I had just yanked basil from - call it an experiment). I enhanced the soil with some of my special Recycling Center compost; fingers crossed. I pulled out the basil (sniff; it was so good to me this year) and a Roma tomato. I showed the baby how to break up soil clumps with her little shovel, and she trotted after me when I took things out to the green waste. We picked a few golden cherries and took a break to munch them. And when we were done, she wiped her hands on her jeans and announced, "Our garden is beautiful!"

I had to agree.

Fall Planting: Beets, Peas, Lettuce

Checking out the last of the golden cherries

Planted today - it had been on my to-do list for about two weeks but everything else - such as planning for the world's best Angry Birds birthday party, coming up this weekend - took precedence. On a lovely 70-degree day, took the 2 y.o. out there for some "help" (company) to plant a third sowing (this go-round's count) of salad bowl lettuce and cilantro. Planted two rows of beet seeds, one from this year and one from 2008 that my husband had saved (they WERE yummy golden beets, but my hopes are not high), and - a first for me - snow peas. Mixed advice from Pam Peirce on all the beets and peas but I figured worth a try. Anytime I have the time and ability to plant, I try to, with whatever *could* theoretically work at that time of year, +/- a month (or two).

The contemporary seeds I planted today (2008 beets not shown)

My "helper" hard at work dropping pea seeds all over the place