Getting ready to grow

I’m so excited, I have ordered my first ever seed catalogues!! Last year I put in my first ever real garden. It was a lot of work, but I really enjoyed it. I learned that I really don’t know much about gardening, but I didn’t let that stand in my way. Danna and I went to the garden shops and garden sections of stores and bought starters and seeds. We built some raised beds, and got to work. We planted corn, tomatoes, two kinds of peppers, garlic, two kinds of onions, green beans, peas, cucumbers, radishes, carrots, basil, three kinds of lettuce, broccoli, cabbage, and pumpkin.

We have varying degrees of success. A couple of our seeds turned out to be something other than marked on the packages. For instance our corn did well but it was not sweet corn, and not worth eating. Our red bell peppers were just plain ole green ones, and our spinach was actually basil. Likewise our cucumber starts where not all English Cucumber, but they were all cucumbers. On the plus side, our Giant Pumpkins were massive. I donated the largest to the local elementary school where the kids made guesses on how much it weighed. A neighbor girl won with a guess that was just one pound short to the 97 pound total.

This year I’m hoping to do better with seed choices and starts. I want to find a really good pickling cucumber for this area. I put up about 20 quarts of pickles and that wasn’t near enough. I only put up a couple of quarts of tomatoes which was really pitiful! I learned that peas and beans need more light, and I really want to get the right corn seed this year!!

In an effort to do better I have ordered catalogues from two places within the Willamette Valley hoping to find seeds to meet my needs. I just can’t wait for them to show up in my mailbox. Everyday I check my box hoping to find them, but so far no show. I feel like Ralphy looking for his Little Orphan Annie decoder ring. (Christmas Story reference) I have my graph paper and pencils all lined up and ready to go. I’ve got my plan for expanding the garden another 10 feet by 3 feet. I’ve been exploring new trellis options, and I’ve got my tools primed and ready to go. I’m also going over my Northwest Gardener handbook.

Stay tuned for the growing.

Spinach, basal and basil

The garden is going like gang busters (what the heck does that mean anyway?). The corn has grown well above the 6 foot fence I share with my neighbor, the broccoli has spread out to the point that it is over shadowing the cabbage and the beans. Our cucumbers are producing like a house-a-fire (yet another strange saying). I put up three quarts of pickles this weekend. I haven’t made pickles in 25 years!!! All the tomato plants are covered with fruit; in fact we have already picked a few ripe ones. And the pumpkin plant is huge, massive, gargantuan!!

One of our greatest successes is our spinach. We bought a little six-pack of tiny starters and they have really taken off. The problem is that it turns out that it isn’t really spinach. It took a while to figure out that what we really have is boat load of basil! It reminded me the scene in Secondhand Lions when it dawns on them that their massive garden is actually filled with nothing but corn. Like them, we’ve decided to just go with it. In fact, this morning I brought a bunch of little baggies filled with fresh basil into work, left them in the kitchen and sent out an email to let anyone know it was there for the taking. I went to a meeting and when I came back, it was all gone. Yippee!!

I’ve also collected several good pesto recipes from co-workers. I’m really excited to try them out. I love pesto and had forgotten it was made with basil.

This whole incident has also improved my spelling. When I sent the email out I said “basal” because that is what spell check gave me. It didn’t look right but neither did anything else I could think of. A few people have sent me emails with the correct spelling and at least one person left me a post-it note. Gees, it’s not like they didn’t know what I was talking about! They obviously didn’t think I was hawking poison in a baggie.

The garden, a mullet and balance

This morning I went out the garden to see how it did through the storm, it did just fine. While there I picked our first handful of peas! I also did some weeding pulling. When we built our raised beds we made them 5 ft wide and place them against the concrete base of the fence. This seemed like a very good idea, that is until we discovered that you can’t reach the back half of the garden. We had to put in some stepping stones, this kind of negates the advantages of raised beds, which is that you don’t have to bend over completely to weed and work with the plants. Not being the most nimble person, I keep my weeding and working to the perimeter and my more agile sister works the back portion. Danna has been down in her back this week so I’ve been the one doing all the weeding this week. This has left our garden neat and trimmed in the front and on the side, and bushy and wild in the back. In short, we have a garden with a mullet.

Today Danna and I were out doing some errands, which we finished up around noon. Just in time to grab some lunch. At first we thought about grabbing something a Wendy’s on the way home but them remembered a couple of friends telling us about a great new place called the Pita Pit and decided to stop there. It had been raining and the place was packed with people. We walked in excited about trying a new place. No sooner had we stepped through the door and I went down on the floor, slipping from my wet shoes. That’s me, the personification of grace and dignity in all that I do! I was really embarrassed and it didn’t help that the whole incident was witnessed by about 50 people and that the manager kept asking if I was alright.

I’m happy to report that the food was excellent and that we will be going back again. As we left I mentioned to Danna that it was a good thing I didn’t kill myself before I had a chance to try it out. Danna said, “Yeah, that would have been the pits.” You know how I love a pun!

I dropped Danna off at her house and helped her carry in her grocery and slipped and fell again! I’m too old for this crap! I went home, carried my groceries to the front door, placed them just inside the door, took off my shoes and carried them to the kitchen, put them away, took 3 Advil and took a nap. I’ll be fitted for my tutu and ballet slippers soon.