In Which I Earn a Day of Rest

Small child attempting to defend his lettuce against slugs.

Wow! My five-year-old is excited and so am I - "his" tomato has noticeably grown after only 7 days in the ground. This is what it's all about! Over the weekend I bought my final tomato plants at Westbrae Nursery. I like Westbrae a lot - it is not fancy like my other local nursery, and it has a wide selection. It also has a bathroom - anytime you're out and about with a small child, this is important information to have at your fingertips. It is also soon to have a beer garden so, yay.

Whatever.

Huffing and puffing, I got every last little loose end in the ground, except for green beans due to space considerations. I'm giving my sugar snap peas a week to impress me, then they've got to make room for beans. With one out of the five of my tomatoes, I did the whole black plastic thing - this time around, it was due to time pressure. Last year, I did all my intentional tomatoes with it and my volunteer was the most productive. Ergo, I wasn't too set on it this year.

It's a really pleasant sense of accomplishment to have almost everything in, in a timely manner and with the kids participating in their modest way!

Planting Time, Fun Time

I did nothing productive in the garden all weekend and was feeling uninspired, like it was just another errand, when I pulled up to OSH this morning. Then I caught sight of their garden displays and my blood started pumping. I got my

No wheelbarrow? Just grab one of the many dilapidated big wheels lying around.

baby in the cart and started piling stuff in, remembering about halfway through my un-funded shopping spree that oh yeah, I came with a list. $28  later I had a good start on my garden plan and a full slate for the afternoon.

When the kindergartener came home, I reviewed with him his mini-plan and let him pick out his marigold colors. After last year when not a single marigold seed I planted from an entire pack - and not from the dollar store, thank you very much! - sprouted, I'm taking no chances and bought a multicolor six-pack to guard the tomatoes. I verified at checkout that they still give a lifetime guarantee on plants. You might end up being sorry about that, OSH, by the time my family has a chance to kill all these.

Spring is Put Your Child to Work Season

Onto the hard work. I still have some lettuce, onions, and cilantro in the ground that I didn't feel ready to yank, although I did clear out some miniscule beets (terrible disappointment this past season), satellite cilantro, and radishes. Otherwise, I spread out some of the organic soil enrichment compound I bought today. Last year's manure worked fine except it wasn't organic and it reeked, so I thought I'd try something different. This may also be the sign of the real gardener - fixing what isn't broken in hopes of breaking it in a different way. Anyway... so I have more of a growing patch by patch thing going on since I'm leaving some areas alone that are currently planted. It also breaks up the work, and I'll take any excuse for that.

Then I had my son come and supervise/participate in the digging of holes in his area - as much as he likes digging in dirt, his holes are never deep enough. Plus he's kind of fastidious and doesn't like to get his hands dirty in dirt (boogies, melted crayons, and picking out interesting things from the trash can are no problem though). He got Sungold cherry tomatoes, as close to a sure thing as I could provide him, two marigolds, and Drunken Woman lettuce start. On a whim, we also threw in Cinderella's Coach pumpkin seeds since I had such success with it last year. He got bored and wandered off to decorate some craft sticks with planting labels.

Elsewhere, I planted the purple cherry from Flora Grubb with its guardian marigold, a basic zucchini, and another round of pumpkin seeds in the ground. I bought a Genovese basil at OSH and repotted it. Literally as I was in the middle of that, I noticed that my small pot in which I planted basil seeds months ago has begun sprouting. How about that. Pesto for Everyone!!! Ha, I say that now, as if nothing could ever happen between now and Pesto Time.

This gives a good sense of the scale of the cilantro. As my son said, "IT'S OUT OF CONTROL."

I still have much more to buy on my list, so I'll be hitting up my local independent nurseries by the weekend. I also need to figure out where I'm putting all these seeds, including the flowers (ugh) my daughter made me buy today because they were PINK (double ugh), and I need to consult with Mr. Undergardener about what he's willing to squeeze into his turf, the front yard. Spring planting season is busy but, dare I say, exciting.

Early September in the Garden

Things are looking pretty good. I planted three pumpkin plants and have one pumpkin to show for it - but it's like a magazine-quality pumpkin. A nice high-end magazine, like Martha Stewart Living.

Elsewhere, the prolific mini-Romas are slowing down, but still coming, as are the golden cherry tomatoes (two of those, and that wasn't too many). Since we have a long, strong Indian summer, I should probably be more patient and plant my tomato plants after the traditional Mother's Day date. I bet I'd get more, longer. Hmm. I just can't wait... the sight of all my neat little tomato plants lined up in the ground makes me happy!

A benefit of our generally mild-to-cool climate close to the bay is that lettuce and cilantro are - theoretically - year-round crops. This is the first year I've tried cilantro. The photo shows my 5th sowing ready for picking, and my 6th sowing coming in. I cook with cilantro frequently so I'm motivated to figure out this fussy-ish crop. It didn't like my pot or some other locations in earlier sowings, but so far so good in the lettuce zone. You don't get a ton of seeds in each pack, and my "helpers" always scatter the seeds like crazy, so this is probably my third or fourth pack.

Lettuce is a finicky crop for me. I had wild beginner's luck with it in 2010, our first year in this house. We ate salads straight from the garden for a couple months straight. My husband was in awe. And then... and then... virtually no luck in 2011. 2012 was a rebuilding year. And now in 2013, I've been doing monthly sowing and getting small heads fairly regularly, as you can see in the photo. We like Salad Bowl and butter varieties. I've also done okay with microgreens in a pot. I have a feeling that lettuce might be one of those crops that would prefer being in a planting box instead of directly in the ground. There's also a watering conflict with the tomatoes, in terms of the frequency they want it. I do hand or sprinkler watering instead of drip irrigation - I am interested in drip but haven't gotten around to educating myself enough to implement a system. Maybe I also think it's overkill on my small plot - about 6x15. But clearly over/under-watering is the #2 issue in my vegetable garden.

The #1 issue ... bamboo. Grrr.  Photo shows uninvited guests coming in from neighbor's yard.