My dear friend, Tracy (blog restricted to members), asked a while ago for pictures of my garden. Not much to show yet, as many of the plants are still tiny seedlings. What you see on the right of this picture is mostly "volunteer" tomato plants, many transplanted from pots which had been filled with homemade compost, thus the volunteers. Tiny sprouts of peppers, beans, zucchini, eggplant, cantaloupe, carrots, watermelons, cucumbers (I think that's all) dot the remainder of the ground. In the back, you see a screen door which shades the abundant crop of lettuce, arugula, and broccoli. Below, you see a "volunteer" lettuce head, of which I am truly proud. The picture was taken just before harvesting this past week.
4 comments:
Lovely!
I like the idea of the screen door to shade the more delicate vegetables -- genius idea. Be sure to post more pictures when the garden is mature and lush... can't wait to see it!
Oh, I ADORE these! This lettuce looks just so yummy!!
The thing with gardening here is that it's extremely hard to do it organically because of the humidity.
Another thing is that I know next to nothing about gardening... I have an innate green thumb, but I get discouraged by the heat, humidity, caring for the two boys, and the fact that my husband doesn't much care for gardening. My "habit adverseness" also doesn't help much with keeping up with caring for the soil, adding manure, etc.
Do you have any gardening books to recommend?
Do you ever buy seedlings or do you plant your own seeds? Do you do it completely organic? Anything you write about your garden will be devoured by me, that you may be sure (but then again, I do read everything you write regardless! ;) )
I'm jealous, my yard is all shady and overgrown. I could pull out a bunch of stuff, but we don't own this house and might decide to move soon.
Lilian,
Mostly its organic. I do use some Miracle Grow or some such at times, but I try to work the soil, with compost (I love our worm bin, which cuts down the time of composting from about 3 months to about 3 weeks). Initially I'll purchase a good deal of commercial soil, manure, or compost to get a new bed started. I have used peat moss a great deal in the past, but I'm concerned about the environmental impact. So I've tried to avoid it lately.
The soil is perhaps the most important (most neglected) aspect! If the soil is healthy, so will your plants be. I have bought seedlings, but I like to set out my own seeds when I can. Somehow it's more satisfying, though results can be more varied.
I'd recommend "The Garden Primer," by Barbara Damrosch. Also, Horticulture magazine is a wonderful resource, though I haven't subscribed in years (they tend to get redundant every few years).
Hopefully, my friend, we'll have many occasions in the future for trading ideas.
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