Lessons

Hello everyone...what a great learning day today.  I learned 3 very valuable lessons today:
   1)  My eyes are bigger than my garden space-I have taken up every inch of space available and I did not plant enough garden peas (the kind you have to shell), or potatoes.  I will see what works and make adjustments next year.
   2)  Keep all the seeds together.  I found some garlic seeds and some sunflower seeds hiding under some gardening books and papers that I have neatly scattered around my storage area (the flat counter in the dining room).
   3)  Those wonderful knee high rubber boots that are so good for wet weather and mud gardening are very practical if you are are a workout fanatic and have telephone pole size muscular legs.  I couldn't figure out why I walked out to the greenhouse to get plants, then to the shed to get a hoe, and then back to garden and was huffing and puffing and out of breath.  I was planning my heart transplant and my recovery.  I wore my old comfortable favorite tennies out this morning and holy smokes....I made several trips out to the greenhouse, the shed and back again and didn't even work up a sweat.  I could have recited the Declaration of Independence while I was walking, except I don't remember it all. So...the boots are retired unless I am harvesting veggies this fall in the mud.

I woke up this morning early...about 7:30 because I have the day to sleep in and do nothing.  I only sleep late when I really need to get up and get busy.  So I decided to get the garden work done early.  I planted the popcorn, the garden pea starts, the potatoes, and some yellow onions.

I dug the required 4 short rows for the popcorn.  The books say four short rows side by side so the wind can pollinate the plants.  I am a bit skeptical about that popcorn coming up.  The seeds I ordered looked exactly like the popcorn I get in a jar to dump in the popper.  Suspicious.  I may have been able to get my popcorn seeds out of the pantry.

The books said the garden peas do best when staked.  I have no more space to stake, so I put up tomato fences (those wire, cone shaped doohickeys that you push into the ground), and planted the peas around the bottom of those.  It is going to look decorative anyway, even if the peas don't actually produce.  I also took some bamboo stakes that were sitting around and made a tee pee and planted some peas around the bottom of that.  So we will see how that goes.  Kind of a high rise style of gardening.  I just don't see why I have to spread out.  Maybe I am about to find out.

The potatoes and the onions went in quickly, but there are special things to do to both of them.  I had onion bulbs...don't know if that is what they are called.  But the directions said to peel the top back...the skin stuff I assume, and plant them close to the surface with the top exposed to the light.  These bulbs are small, so I was sitting down, carefully and delicately peeling, and covering them so just a small part of the tip was exposed.  I hope I didn't put them in upside down..I have no idea. 

It is such a good thing that we are isolated because I was wearing my sweats and as I would scoot backwards on my rear end down the row of onions, my sweats would pull down just a bit.  I couldn't really stick my dirty hands in my pants to pull them up or I would get dirt down my underwear.  So my sweats gradually rode down my butt and by the time I got to the end of the row, well...I looked like I could have fixed the plumbing.

The potatoes were easy to plant, but the directions said to fertilize the soil 2 1/2 inches away from the plant.  2 1/2 inches?  Is this precision work that I need a tape measure for?  Couldn't they just say "beside"?  I mean they are totally fine writing "when the soil is warm"  and  "when the last frost is over".  So I hope it doesn't require precision because I just sprinkled fertilizer next to the taters.  Now I guess I am supposed to watch for the plants to start growing and keep piling dirt around them leaving just the tops exposed until the mound of soil is about 4 inches high.  Then I can place straw over them until they are ready to harvest.  I have no idea when that is, because the directions stop there.  Anyone????

So now I am done planting what I am going to grow.  I am beginning my research on composting.  I thought I could just throw my leftovers into the dirt and wait for it to go back into the soil.  Au contraire.  So thank you for reading, and until tomorrow...when we begin a new phase of gardening.

Karen