So let me catch you up to speed, most of my plants have adjusted well to life in the condo. Spending their days happily lapping up the sunshine from my patio door wall ... the Tomato's need a touch more water than I was providing, come to find out, but now that they are on the daily water plan they seem to have forgiven me just fine. The Lettuce has not been so kind... it's taken the worst of the beatings, and still bears a few yellow leaves as a badge of honor and strangely the Italian Parsley that grew like a bush last year seems a little sluggish this year. Hmmm...
No pictures to documents these injuries; I think the house arrest could be to blame so once they've arrived at their outdoor living arrangements I'll start sharing the carnage (or recovery!) with you.
Anyway, Tuesday morning I get an email from Dianne at the Petting Farm, the plots are ready. Yippee!! No camera that day, but I took a little (much longer than I imagined) stroll at lunch over (yup, in my work clothes and opened toed shoes) to stake my space. Grass felt lovely on the toes. On my mosey over, I run into Oreo, my new garden friend.
As much as I like to share food with my friends, I was afraid Oreo might enjoy my garden a bit too much. And that was before I saw his friends, let's call them Black and Blackie. They look hungry. Ut oh.Hard ground, blunt stakes, no sledgehammer = hard work. I made due and decided I'd go back this weekend to till the soil with some fertilizer and compost.
Only other major notes from Tuesday .... Found a few friends from DPZ participating in the Comm. Garden (Shout out to Tanesha, Angela and Lisa - If you're reading this); we've made a vacation watering pact, which is good for my trip to Orlando in June. Won't have to worry about the untimely death of my garden!
Quick note back to Diane confirms where the hose and compost I didn't see are, that yes, I can keep Oreo and company out by fencing my garden, and that Security can let me in should I want to work on my garden when they are "closed" to the public. Great! I needed to do some shopping for tomato cages, gloves, etc. anyway, I'll just add finding some bunny protection to my list.
Fast Forward to Friday. +$61.10 in supplies. New garden total, $94.10. The price of tomatoes just went up.
Headed over today with intentions of composting my plot. Looking back, a few things occurred to me at this point in the process.
One: I had no idea their compost pile was going to be so little dirt, so much yuck. I thought the whole idea is that it turns into very lovely nice soil ... apparently they are not yet at that stage. Bum deal.Two: Fighting a wild turkey? Come on ... This is a bit to much... I'm more of an urban gardener. Less wildlife, more dirt from a bag I guess.
Three: I need a wheel barrel. This 5 gallon bucket is for the birds... speaking of birds, the chickens are free range?!?!?! I thought the animals would be in pens, barns, something! I hope chickens are vegetarians... I don't know if my fencing will keep large birds out...
So one trip and one bucket was enough to determine that my garden will be a largely compost free endeavor.
I was a little excited to start playing in the dirt and forgot to snap a completely untouched photo. This is almost untouched ... I had shoveled the first 3 feet or so in preparation for the tilling of the compost. That's before I gave up. You can see the darker area is where I had worked slightly. Just squint and imagine it looks like the dull brown further back.
Here is after. After giving up on the compost, but mixing in fertilizer, tossing the soil a few times each direction (ugh, manual labor), several healthy passes with the hose, and laying out by 1 ft by 1 ft squares. Closer to 18" by 18" in all honesty. Seems when I told my Grandpa my garden was 3 ft by 10 ft, I was a little off. Turns out it's much closer to 6 ft by 24 ft. Also ran out of twine, so only half is actually done, but you get the idea. Imagination comes in handy again on Live Brightly!All I have to say in summary is these veggies better be fantastic, because as it stands all I have to show for my efforts to date are two muddy shoes. Two very muddy shoes.
A quick thanks to the backstage crew:"Wheelbarrow" = 5 gallon bucket
"Rake" = Yard Stick
"Shoe Scraper" = Small Shovel
~Shovel
~Gloves
~Miracle Grow
~Hammer
~Twine
Tomorrow is planting day ... Official Week 1 photo's to follow. Stay tuned!
PS Come back for a special non-garden commemorative edition blog.
Kudos to you Steph for all of your hard work!
ReplyDeleteLife expectancy would grow by leaps and bounds if green vegetables smelled as good as bacon.