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