The Best Day of the Garden's Year

I love, love, love planting day. The divas and their husbands all get together and we plant all the things we've been purchasing over the last few weeks. It really starts the first Saturday of May at the Sheep and Wool Festival. Now I never thought my life would lead me to being a follower and fan of a sheep and wool festival but here I am. I will drop my mother off at the airport to make her own way to the gate, I will shuffle my schedule with previous made plans, I will pass on cookouts and parties, I will drag along every willing body to pull wagons full of tomato plants to make my way to THE Sheep and Wool Festival of Howard County, Maryland. My gardening mentor first turned Barry and me onto the S&W because that is where she bought her awesome tomatoes and I wasn't taking any chances, we were doing everything the same as this gardening guru. We especially loved the "Mr. Stripey" which we now know as the German Stripey. We were so tomato happy that first year we bought 39 tomato plants. So every year we hustle ourselves down there, now with all community members in tow.
This year was a little different. All said community members including ole hubby poo were in Las Vegas. It was like I was the only one in American not in Vegas. So let's add missing out on a trip to Vegas to go to the Sheep and Wool. I suffer for my art. Dragees this year were my father, step-mother, and friends extraordinaire. And I needed every single one of them to stock this better than ever garden.
But I digress, let me go back to the best day of the year. Planting. Planting isn't even the best part (and I do love the feeling of starting new plants especially those I started from seed), the best part is the company. The laughing over our weeks antics, the sharing of important future plans, the bad jokes and boos from the gang, the sense of feeling connected to a group of good-hearted, intelligent people. The best part of this year's planting was that it coincided with our old neighbors/godchildren/vacationing partners/first community garden members/friends/"those who moved away".
Before we start, each of us weeds the garden. This year I used old weeds and plants as compost and put it back into the soil. You just have to be careful not to put in anything that was diseased from last year (Barry and I almost had to have a go round about this very subject, he doesn't always trust my gardening prowess). Then we add our leafgro as we are compost-less right now. We place the plants where we want them and that is that. We aren't overly concerned with spacing although I'm guessing we should be. Last year we put in 8 or 9 tomato plants per raised garden bed 3x10 in size. We fell victim to not being able to thin out our squash and we suspect it had an effect on out yield. So by the end of the day... Mandy has one butternut squash plant, 4 peppers and 4 tomatoes, Suzy is hosting 8 tomatoes, 3 cucumbers, and several bush bean plants and Barry and I have 4 tomato, 3 cucumber, 3 peppers, 2 eggplant, several pea plants, and one butternut squash. Oh! We also mulched the beds this year with straw. So far I have noticed a dramatic difference in retaining water. Savings on my water bill here we come.


Artwork at the top of the page is from the Sheep and Wool site: http://www.sheepandwool.org/index.html

Guilt in the Garden

There is something else I'd like to blog about tonight but am not at liberty to do so at this time. Instead I will tell you I have a guilty conscience. I'm a plant killer. Not a plant killer like some people I know (Fawzi) but a selective plant killer and I always feel guilty about it. All the planting guides tell you to plant several seeds in the ground then "thin them out". Well, that is a plant's death sentence. How can I possibly decide which one should stay and which should go? Which one will be productive and which one will peter out on me? It's like the Sophie's Choice of gardening. Last year I kept every carrot because I couldn't stand to "thin them out". Every carrot deserves a chance, right? Now the blossoming gardener in me knows that thinning them out lets the others grow to their potential instead of having teeny tiny midget carrots. I'm working on it.

AND THEN there is the issue of plants I don't want anymore. Do I chuck them (or compost them) or keep them forever even though they are taking over the entire planet Earth (have I mentioned I'm a drama queen?)? My dilemma right now is that I, as you know, have limited space so anything that is not being used on a regular basis or causing me to fawn over it with delight and wonder has to go. Like... my catnip. Now I love some catnip. You can't kill it and it comes back every year even after you have seemingly eradicated it from its barrel.
I used to dry it out and crumble it up and give it to the cats for the high of their lives. Unfortunately, we are down one cat and our neighbors have enough to keep their furry friends perpetually stoned for the next 3 years. So I don't want it anymore, I want to try some container yellow squash, maybe even some zucchini. Yet those little catnips keep coming back and are surely screaming at me every time I give them the death glance. "Save us! Save us! We know you can't use us for anything else but we are so loyal." I wonder if anyone else has this problem or if I should be seeking therapy for feeling like a death row guard.

Why squash and zucchini? Well, I just had this fantastic salad (see below) at a teacher's appreciation luncheon. Yum-tastic. It has completely converted me and made me consider dismembering the poor catnip.



Zucchini Crudo

Serves 4-6

Ingredients
• 1 zucchini and 1 squash
• 2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• ¼ cups extra virgin olive oil
• 2 tablespoons toasted pine nuts

Directions

1. Trim ends of zucchini and squash. Slice into paper think ribbons using a mandolin or vegetable peeler.
2. Place in serving bowl and toss with salt, lemon juice, olive oil and pine nuts.

Compost Happens

My whole life has been spent waiting for an epiphany, a manifestation of God's presence, the kind of transcendent, magical experience that let's you see your place in the big picture. And that is what I had with my first compost heap.
Bette Midler

I'm not sure I had the same epiphany as the great Bette Midler BUT there was a certain feeling of being a rebel, going against the compost naysayers. But I had to give it a try. Every book and website assures me that if I layer my compost: greens topped with browns then I should be good to go. I mean how can I not try to make the magic elixir every gardener raves about. Maybe this is what is missing, keeping my so-so garden from becoming the field of my dreams (I can't quite get over the vision that Ray Liotta will appear in my garden after whispering sweet promises of "build it and they will come"). So Husband Extraordinaire found a deal on a compost bin for 1/3 of the price of many I had been looking at. It is a basic bin but just what we needed for our small space and our uncertain resolve. This is really an experiment for us, we want to make sure we have the time and that this big pile o' garbage and cuttings won't stink to high heaven.

So we ignored the first instruction about placing the compost close to your kitchen so that during the winter your scraps bucket can still make it to the compost heap. Being in a townhouse didn't allow us this luxury so we put it out in our backyard. The dirt we placed the composter on was so hard that we added some of our good dirt to give us a first good layer.

The bin was easy to place, light weight, and all we had to do was peg it down so that the wind wouldn't sweep away our garbage goldmine.







Some cute kid brought out the compost bucket from the kitchen (now that does get a little rancid in there but so far we don't smell it unless the lid is open: disposal every two/three days is a must).








Here are our nitrogen rich greens. This is what we scrap off our plates. The only thing you need to avoid is putting meats, dairy, or oily foods. Meat and the like take awhile to decay so these are the culprits who attract unwanted visitors. It is ok to have water in this mix since your compost heap needs to be like a sponge; not sopping wet but damp. Since this first dump I have also been lining my kitchen bin with paper towel. This makes it easier to dump and wipe out and the paper towel is an ok compost item.


"That is really gross, Mommy!" Little SP

We then put in old grass clippings and branches that we had cut away from an old dead plant. Old garden material is great for the heap as well, just make sure it doesn't have any disease.

The fantastic Ms. Trail mentions putting in an activator to get the decaying started but I was fresh out of manure, chicken poop or tea made of comfrey, nettles or white valerian. And I'm not sure how Barry feels about peeing in the compost pin, which is also thought to be a great activator. If anyone has any ideas that would save us any public urination we would greatly appreciate it.

This all seems so easy, right? Well, there is a delicate balance you have to maintain. You need to keep your ratio of greens to browns pretty even and you can't let your pile get too wet or too dry. You also need to make sure enough oxygen gets in there. It's like I'm living in a compost version of Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

Wish us luck!