Griff brought this glove home from school - isn't it the most creative seed-starting method you've ever seen? Props to his teacher, who also sent home a lima bean seedling in a styrofoam cup. I've emailed the teacher for confirmation, but I think my ID skills plus Griff's spotty ("oh, yeah, I think one's a pumpkin") recall have determined that these are, from pinkie to thumb: onion, pumpkin or cucumber, watermelon, cucumber or pumpkin, and celery. They were a little hard to get out of the fingers and transplant, so I'm uncertain what our success will be, plus using them required that I rethink my tightly-planned garden layout, but I managed to squeeze them in (ousting zucchini, who needs zucchini?) to our garden plot.
Speaking of which, here's the plot, which, with the addition of the curvy triangular area toward the right, has roughly 50% more plantable square footage than last year. I tore the grass out of that area by hand, which took forever, but I think the new herb garden will be worth it.
We finally put in some small plants and seeds yesterday, and the official attempted garden contains:
brussels sprouts - 2
artichoke - 1
okra - 1 small row
cucumber - 1 hill
pumpkin - 1 hill
sugar snap peas - 2 rows
bush beans - 3 rows
lima beans - 1 seedling
celery - 1 clump of seedlings, will thin
watermelon - 1 hill
tomatoes - 2 heritage yellow pear, 2 sweet 100 cherry
herbs: rosemary, parsley (flat & curly), chives, tarragon, thyme (reg & lemon), fennel, dill, sage, lemon balm, basil (italian & purple)
flowers - sunflowers, mini zinnia, marigold, lavender
I dug out the horseradish while transplanting, intending to harvest part and replant the rest, but forgot it outside overnight and it dried out. :o(
By the way, the brussels sprouts, artichoke, and okra are purely experimental. I simply couldn't resist the seed packets. Gardening is mostly fun for me, with the idea that maybe we'll end up with some food, but that we'll enjoy the process, meet some new bugs, learn something about the plants. We aren't hard-core about doing things "right"...although for that matter, lazy gardening has been pretty successful for us in the past! I'll admit that I did do a little reading on companion planting while planning my layout this year.
Meanwhile, my neighbor on one side is diligently fertilizing her plots with just the right amount of compost and lecturing me on just about everything, and the neighbor on the other side is bewildering me with what can only be described as a bell-ringing ceremony which she enacts multiple times daily. So far I have rejected classical plant conditioning and new-age pest control, and I'm fairly certain that there is a cultural/possibly religious importance to her practice, which is enacted at roughly 8am, 11am, 8pm, and 11pm daily. I couldn't be happier, living between these two interesting women!
